The First Commandment (Q50-53)

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Introduction

Connection: What is the chief end of mankind? What is the chief delight of mankind? What is the chief privilege of mankind? To worship and glorify God alone—this is why we exist—everything else is subordinate to this great goal.
Theme: The First Commandment (50-53)
Need: What is so often not our chief end? What is so often not our chief delight? What is so often not our chief privilege? To worship and glorify God alone—this is why we need Christ and his Spirit—to Redeem and Restore us into new-creations, to empower us to be what we were made to be, and to glorify who we were made to glorify.
Purpose: To teach us worship and glorify God alone; to rebuke us in our failure to love God alone; to comfort us in Christ’s perfect obedience for our salvation; and to exhort us to worship and glorify God out of gratitude for the Gospel.
PRAY - PRAY - PRAY - PRAY

Q50. Which is the first commandment? A50. The first commandment is, Thou shalt have no other gods before me (Ex. 20:3).

As we come to unpack the Decalogue (which is short for the Ten Commandments, or the Ten Words), we must remember that shining forth in the moral law of God is the righteous image of Jesus Christ our Lord. As God’s holy character is revealed in God’s holy law—we see the beauty of Jesus in his Person, and the beauty of Jesus in obeying these laws perfectly as our substitute so that He would credit or impute his obedience to our accounts for our salvation—for our legal justification before the sight of God. One author says:
“Once again, we see how the Decalogue reveals Jesus, who alone lives as Yahweh’s Son, keeping the whole law. He is the Word, Light, and Bread of the Father, whose Spirit flows from the temple of his body to bring life to the world”.
It will be easy for us to lose sight of this in our study of the 10 Commandments, but we must never forget that these are first and foremost crushing us in our sin; but then pointing us to Christ Jesus and his Gospel-work on our behalf; which then fuels our hearts and enflames them with love to obey God without fear of punishment—to obey Him because of who He is, and because of what He has done.
As we saw last Lord’s Day Evening, the preface to the Decalogue teaches us that we are to obey God because He has Redeemed us from Bondage to Sin, Satan, and Hell; and has Freed us in order to follow Him in newness of life. Thus, the same pastor adds:
Israel has been freed, so they are to live as a free people. They have undergone an exodus, and so are to live as an exodus people … [Thus]…The First Word is a summons to walk in resurrection life … The promise of the new covenant is not that we’re liberated from God’s word, but that we’re liberated to keep it.
Because Jesus has set us free, therefore, we walk in freedom. We are free from sin; and now we are free to obey with true love and affection.
Understanding this, let’s look at the first commandment now:

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

Here Yahweh proclaims his absolute, and exclusive claim to worship, glory, and divinity. As we read in our Scripture reading, Yahweh the Trinity is the only God. He alone is the Eternal God, the Creator God, the Sustainer God, the Redeemer God, and the Judging God. Every other so called god is ultimately a false-god, either a piece of wood or metal, or a demonic-being that is deluding the people, or both! The Lord says this in Isa. 46:
Isaiah 46:5–7 ESV
“To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike? Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship! They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble.
There are stark differences between the true God and these false gods. The living God is incomparable; false gods are comparable. The living God is worthy of worship; false gods are not. The living God is mighty to save; false gods are not.
Why would we ever bow the knee to a false-god and idol? It is pointless; it is gross; it is wicked—when we do such a thing we are, like Adam and Eve of old, trying to be the gods of our own lives rather than give all the glory to the living and true God. But if we know anything of the true God, we know how infinitely glorious and beautiful and almighty and worthy He is of our adoration and praise. Hear this statement of God’s glory from the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith:
The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) (Chapter 2: Of God and of the Holy Trinity)
The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose [existence] is in and of Himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but Himself; a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, and withal most just and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and will by no means clear the guilty.
Wow. And here is the crazy thing. God is infinite—yet God has revealed himself through finite human letters on paper. He has graciously condescended to us, and spoken to us in baby-talk that we might understand something true about him, and worship him and fellowship with him—but in reality; we know nothing about God. We know a drop in the bucket of a drop in the bucket about God. If we think we understand the divine essence, if we think we have exhausted the glory of the true God, if we think we have comprehended his majesty—we have fashioned a false god in our own minds. For the true God is unlike any other false god. False gods are weak and finite and easy to understand. The true God is absolute glory and infinity and majesty Himself; to the point where when we gaze upon him we stand in absolute awe with our mouths shut because we don’t know what to say; we don’t know what to do; we don’t know how to respond to the presence of such an Almighty King. All we can do is fall to our knees and cry out:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

34  “For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counselor?”

35  “Or who has given a gift to him

that he might be repaid?”

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Yes we know God personally; he has revealed Himself to us truly in Jesus Christ our Mediator, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. But what we know about God compared to God’s actual full-essence is like a grain of sand in comparison to the entire created cosmos.
Have you ever seen a video on Youtube where our planet is compared to other planets and suns in the universe; then the Milky Way? Then the entire known universe—step by step? It makes you feel to small. It makes you stand in awe. It makes you recognize how little you know about this world.
This is similar to our knowledge of God. We know God in His Word, and his Word is sufficient for our redemptive needs in this life—but if we know anything about God it is this: that we know nothing.
*I was listening to a Podcast … *
When we are giving our supreme love, service, time, affection, devotion, and purpose to any other Being or entity other than this living and true God, then we are robbing God of his due worship and glory.
This is why eternity will be infinite in duration—because every moment of our lives, we will learn more about the infinite beauty of our God. Every single day we behold our King—we will see more of his perfections. Every single day that we will gaze upon the Lamb of God, in the Spirit, who reveals to us the Father—we will be gazing into the never-ending-depths of God Himself, world-without-end, Amen.
Glory will not be boring if we have been redeemed to love our God, Yahweh—he deserves all of our worship, because there is no one else like Him. This is why Theology is the chief goal of mankind. this is why Theology is the Queen of the Sceinces. Because theology means: to know God, to glorify Him, and to enjoy Him forever. Because Theology is the science of living-blessedly unto God.
This is why we were made—and this is what we shall do for all eternity. If you belong to Jesus, and love the living God, our greatest delight and privilege is for a foretaste of heaven to begin in our hearts each and every day as we behold our God, who is worthy, who is holy, who is amazing. Yahweh deserves our Supreme Love and Worship; and all other idols steal a bit of our humanity away from us—because true humanity is bound up with true worship of God.
This leads us to our second Question, which get’s into what this commandment requires of us:

Q51. What is required in the first commandment? A51. The first commandment requireth us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God and our God (1 Chron. 28:9; Deut. 26:17), and to worship and glorify him accordingly (Mt. 4:10; Ps. 29:2).

1 Chronicles 28:9 says this:

9 “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever

We are called to know God as God. Here David writes and says that Solomon is required to know the living God. Solomon is called to acknowledge God to be the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. To know Yahweh the Lord as the God of Israel. To know God as the true God over and against all other false-gods and idols. Why?
Because Yahweh searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. This God is not able to be avoided. You cannot run from this God. You cannot find refuge anywhere else—for he sees and searches all hearts. He knows that Solomon, and all of us are called to know Him—and he knows when we do.
Thus David gives Solomon a wonderful promise from the Lord, that, if you seek Yahweh, he will be found by you! This is incredible in light of our previous question. Though God is so far beyond us and we know nothing about him—He is also near to us and calls us into fellowship with him, into the fear of the Lord, and into relationship with him through Jesus Christ the only Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5). If you seek Him, you will find Him—if you call upon His name, He will hear you and save you and hold you fast.
But if you forsake Yahweh, he will forsake you and come upon you with wrath and justice and punishment—because you have forsaken the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God who is the great “I AM” (Ex. 3:14). This God is not a God who fluctuates and changes his requirements. He means what He says and He always will. If you forsake Him, you can now for certain, that you will be cast away from his gracious presence and will be in his wrathful presence for all eternity. Thus, the book of Hebrews says: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31).
This is the bad news according to the Apostle Paul:

“None is righteous, no, not one;

11  no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.”

13  “Their throat is an open grave;

they use their tongues to deceive.”

“The venom of asps is under their lips.”

14  “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

15  “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16  in their paths are ruin and misery,

17  and the way of peace they have not known.”

18  “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Though God will save us if we seek him—Paul says that no one seeks for God in their natural condition. We have all rejected him. We might seek for the benefits of God, we might be searching for something for our own souls—but this is ultimately a self-serving service of seeking the benefits of God, not for the sake of God, but for our sake. In our natural state, in ‘seeking’, we are ‘sinning’.
We have all despised him. We have all spat in his face. We all hate God and justly sit under his righteous anger for such sinful rebellion. So how can this be? How can it be that anyone seeks God? How can it be that anyone knows God as their Redeemer?
The only way that we can seek God, is if God seeks us. The only way that we can know God, is if God knows us with his electing love. The only way that we can know God as our Redeemer, is if the Holy Spirit causes us to be born again, to give us a new heart and a new spirit, that we might beat with new life, with a heart that seeks God, repents, believes, and brings glory to his holy name. Hear from Ezek. 36:

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

We are called to know God as our God, as our covenant God who has bound us to himself with the cords of his everlasting love in Christ our Lord—who has poured out his Holy Spirit upon us to give us new life—who has caused us to be born again that we might, as Paul says: “come to know God, or rather to be known by God” (Gal. 4:9).
In Christ, we come to a saving knowledge of the Trinity—in Christ, we know God, and God knows us—in Christ, we are redeemed and safe in the everlasting arms of our covenant God. Thus, we are called to worship Him and serve Him all of our days. Jesus tells us this, quoting from Deuteronomy, as he is tempted by the Devil to worship the Devil:

10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

“ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God

and him only shall you serve.’ ”

We are called to worship God alone as the living God, and as our covenant God. He alone is worthy. He alone is thrice Holy. He alone can satisfy. But not only are we to worship the living God as our God—we are called to glorify Him and magnify Him alone! Hear from the Psalmist:

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;

worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.

We are called to glorify God alone in the splendour of holiness. We cannot increase God’s glory, for God’s glory is infinite and sufficient and perfect—but we can ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name! We can worship him in the splendour of holiness.
Note this: We cannot worship God aright if we do not reflect God aright. If we are to glorify the Holy God, we must be fitted with holiness to do so! If we are to worship God, we must fear Him with a childlike fear and reverence.
The first commandments calls us to the duties of worshipping him supremely, glorifying him supremely, trusting him supremely, hoping in him supremely, loving him supremely, fearing him supremely, serving him supremely, and finding our treasure him supremely.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, and through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we begin to be and do what we were made to be and do—we begin to fulfill the first commandment, not perfectly, but truly—as we are saturated in the means of grace, which produces the response of praise to our great King. The First Commandment requires a life of total surrender and obedience and love to our great God and heavenly Father. According to Martin Luther:
“The First Word calls us to faith, and ‘everything proceeds from the power of the First Commandment’”
This leads us to our third question which shows us what is forbidden in this commandment:

Q52. What is forbidden in the first commandment? A52. The first commandment forbiddeth the denying (Ps. 14: 1), or not worshipping and glorifying the true God (Rom. 1:21), as God and our God (Ps. 81:10, 11), and the giving of that worship and glory to any other, which is due unto him alone (Rom. 1:25, 26).

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God

Here is the great thing that is forbidden in the First Commandment: idolatry—which is essentially atheism, either in the mind, or in the heart, or in practice. Whenever we are not loving God, we are living as if there is no God—and whenever we are not worshipping God, we are giving that worship to other idols in our lives.
Oh what a pain it is in the heart of the true saint when he is tempted to doubt and unbelief. How it throws us into a whirlpool? How could we deny such an incredible God and all that he has done. When the devil comes trying to get us to question our faith—our hearts feel a burden like never before. We toss and turn and find no comfort until we settle ourselves upon the everlasting promises of God in the everlasting arms of God. The devil fights night and day, personally and powerfully, to get the saint to deny his God—but “he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). The Spirit of God has caused us to be born-again, and there is a sense in which we cannot-not-believe. We cannot deny our Master. We cannot deny our Lord. And if we do, like Peter, we come repenting in dust and ashes and running back to our Father like the prodigal son.
The Holy Spirit is guarding us “through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed on the last time” (1 Peter 1:5). But our flesh is fighting nonstop to get us to deny the faith and submit to the passions of our flesh.
As someone who has, and occasionally does struggle with intrusive thoughts and doubts and questions—I can testify to the absolute agony it produces in the soul. What a pain it brings when the soul questions Reality itself; when the soul doubts the great “I AM”.; when the soul doubts the Person who is Truth. To do so is to act in harmony with the unbelieving world. Paul says:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened

The flesh knows what is true, but does not give honour to God who his true, or give thanks to God who is true, rather, the flesh is futile and darkens the heart and mind. It is an ironic thing for the sinful heart, and the sinful battle in the heart of the Christian, to seek to deny the very Being who is Truth Himself.
Like Israel of Old who was so clearly Redeemed by the God who revealed Himself to them, we do not submit to God at all times:

10  I am the LORD your God,

who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

11  “But my people did not listen to my voice;

Israel would not submit to me.

12  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,

to follow their own counsels.

At times we are given over to our stubborn hearts to follow our own counsels, and God hides his face from us to show us the vanity of life without our God—to show us to sinfulness and crushing weight of failing to live by the First Commandment.
As the Christians fights against his sinful flesh which seeks to deny God, he or she echoes the voice of the Psalmist:

But I, O LORD, cry to you;

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

14  O LORD, why do you cast my soul away?

Why do you hide your face from me?

15  Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,

I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.

16  Your wrath has swept over me;

your dreadful assaults destroy me.

17  They surround me like a flood all day long;

they close in on me together.

18  You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;

my companions have become darkness.

As they Christian is struggling to obey the First Commandment he cries out in apparent darkness. But alas, the voice of his Shepherd overcomes, and we listen and submit in faith, hope, and love.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The Spirit of God illumines and reassures our weary soul. He perseveres, and coming through Christ, finds his heart fulfilling the First Commandment once against—for the Spirit of God brings the Light of God, by the Word of God, which shines so bright that the soul submits and says: the darkness cannot overcome it—so I praise you my God and my King once again, through Jesus Christ my Lord. Though my faith is weak, it is still faith—and faith alone in any size brings me near to God.
But we still must be grieved by our lack of faith—though we take comfort in the fact that Jesus “will not break the bruised reed, and will not quench the faintly burning wick” (Isa 42:1-3). Yet we still must be heart-broken over our failure to trust, fear, and love God as we ought to. Because the reality is, that when we fail to do it, we are reversing the order of reality itself. Here is what Paul says about failing to worship God:
“they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Rom. 1:25-26).
When we toil against the devil, we are tempted to exchange reality itself with fantasy—God himself with a lie—which leads us to worship and serve idols, creatures, false-gods, rather than the Creator who is forever blessed.
Oh we must strive to put to death the idols in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit—bathing in the Word and in Prayer and in Meditation we must find divine-strength to kill and crush and tear down the idols in our hearts, physical and spiritual, so that like Israel of old we might worship God aright and not give in the the ways of the world. We must not give the worship due to the Lord to anyone one, or anything else. For He alone is worthy!
Think about the pattern in the OT: Israel worships God, then falls into idolatry. Then a good Judge or King rises up and tears down the idols and restores purity to the worship of Yahweh—rinse, recycle, repeat. This is reminiscent of our own sinful experiences. One writer says:
Do you fear the opinions of others? Are you paralyzed by worry about how your father or mother will evaluate you? You’ve set up an idol, a substitute judge—public opinion, a perfectionist father, a hypercritical mother. Have you ever thought: ‘If only we had a bit more money, our lives would be happy. If only I could get a better job or enjoy a flawlessly decorated home, life would be good’. You’re looking to a counterfeit saviour—money, success, velvety comforts. Idols like company. Idolatry is inherently polytheistic. Idols feed off one another, cluster together, transmogrify to keep hold of your heart. Your idols feed off the idols of others.
Whatever it is that we love and serve supremely becomes our god and idol—wether that’s TV, our phones, our jobs, our spouses, our children, our society, our recreations, our house, our friends—whatever it is, it must be subjected underneath the Supreme Love that we ought to have for God our King.
Oh may we be a generation who does not bend the knee to idols—but we serves God with fervency and adoration. As we walk by the First Commandment—we walk in step with the grain of Reality. God help us to be true to the glory of His name. The same author then adds:
But for us, there is one God and one Lord, Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 8:6). When we worship the one God, our hearts can be single, our desires focused, our lived whole. Idols tear us apart, with their contradictory, shape-shifting demands. We find coherence and integrity only in keeping the First Word.
May the Holy Spirit fill us so that might have wholeness, humanity, and spiritual maturity—to live to the glory of God alone—and it is here that we find the heart at rest, “leaning upon our beloved” (Song. 8:5).
This leads us to our final question, which shows us why God’s presence is so crucial in obeying this commandment:

Q53. What are we especially taught by these words before me, in the first commandment A53. These words before me, in the first commandment teach us, that God, who seeth all things, taketh notice of and is much displeased with the sin of having any other god (Ex. 8:5, to the end).

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Let my people go, that they may serve me

The rest of Exodus chapter 8 is God sending plagues upon Egypt because of idolatry and Pharaoh not letting God’s people go to worship Him.
God redeems us so that we will delight in Him. Because worship is the chief goal of our salvation—God is displeased when we fail to worship Him alone.
Idolatry seeks to steal worship from God Almighty. We are not to have any other gods before the Lord—because God sees all things and is all-present in all-of life. What we do behind closed doors is on a movie-theatre-display to God. Our thoughts in our minds are proclaimed in a megaphone before the ear of God. We cannot fool this Lord.
One of the saying of the Reformation is that as Christians we are called to live Coram Deo: Before the Face of God. We are called to live before the face of God in Christ and by the Spirit—without fear of condemnation, but with love and desire to live soli deo gloria: for the glory of God alone.
God is severely displeased by idolatry—but He is perfectly pleased with Jesus Christ and all those who are united to Him. Jesus perfectly loved God, perfectly delighted in God, perfectly submitted to God, perfectly trusted in God, perfectly hoped in God, perfectly glorified God, perfectly served God, perfectly adored God, perfectly feared God, and perfectly devoted himself to God. And He did all of this so that poor and wretched idolatrous sinners could be made right with God, so that God would be pleased with us, not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done. Because of his life, death, and resurrection we are “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). God sees the obedience of Jesus when he legally looks at us—and He is well-pleased. But He also pours out his Spirit upon us so that we can actually love and live and worship Him alone—and as our Father he delights in our childlike love and adoration.
Christ frees us from sin by his Gospel—which is received by faith alone—and then Christ empowers us by his Holy Spirit—which produces a live that seeks to live in obedience to the First Commandment: giving glory to the only God: Father, Son, and Spirit—before the face of God, in the delight of God.
Praise the Lord for Jesus Christ. Amen. Let’s go and love Him with all our heart this week.

Conclusion + Big Idea

Q50. Which is the first commandment? A50. The first commandment is, Thou shalt have no other gods before me (Ex. 20:3).
Q51. What is required in the first commandment? A51. The first commandment requireth us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God and our God (1 Chron. 28:9; Deut. 26:17), and to worship and glorify him accordingly (Mt. 4:10; Ps. 29:2).
Q52. What is forbidden in the first commandment? A52. The first commandment forbiddeth the denying (Ps. 14: 1), or not worshipping and glorifying the true God (Rom. 1:21), as God and our God (Ps. 81:10, 11), and the giving of that worship and glory to any other, which is due unto him alone (Rom. 1:25, 26).
Q53. What are we especially taught by these words before me, in the first commandment? A53. These words before me, in the first commandment teach us, that God, who seeth all things, taketh notice of and is much displeased with the sin of having any other god (Ex. 8:5, to the end).
Amen, let’s pray.
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