Only One God

Intro

“There has been a recent downfall of people willing to preach through the 10 commandments. yet I heard of a pastor recently who decided to preach through them. If you can believe it the big 10 are hardly a source of comfort, yet after teaching on them for the last few weeks we have had a number of people respond to the Lord.”

Yet why is this surprising, that is what the law of the Lord was meant to do to begin with. Imagine someone says to you that they have good news for you, they have paid off a $25000 fine for you. But you think, what good news? have not done anything wrong to deserve a fine. It would be a mystery to you, offensive to you because you think you have done nothing wrong.

But what if I approached it a different way. Instead I told you that on the way here a police officer clocked you doing 140 down the highway to get here to church on time through the construction zone. There where 10 clear warning signs but you went through all of them breaking the law. The law was about to take it’s course but someone stepped in and took the fine for you so you didn't have to be punished.

You have explained what went wrong, which of the laws where broken which makes the stranger paying the fine for you make sense. Now in the same way, approaching a penitent sinner preaching the cross to them will be foolishness to them and calling them sinners wont make sense, it will anger them because they don't think they are wrong.

Think of it this way: 2 men are seated on a plain, the first is given a parachute because it will improve his flight. He is not told why though. He decides to test it out. He notices that it is uncomfortable to sit down and it is heavy to carry. He wonders how on earth wearing a parachute on a plan will improve his flight anyways. He consoles himself with the fact that he was told that it will improve His flight. But then people start to laugh at him for wearing a parachute on a flight and he decided to take it off as he was told a lie. The second man was told to wear the parachute because at any moment he will have to jump out of the plan and fall 25K feet. He doesn't notice the weight or the uncomfort just what would happen if he jumped without it.

The first man put it on because of comfort but after being mocked and the difficulty he went through decided that no one will ever make him wear one of those again. The second man put it on solely to escape the jump to come. He has peace knowing He is going to escape the jump to come. He can endure the mocking of the other passengers knowing what is coming and He will escape it. He has gratitude towards the giver of the Parachute.

To tell people they are sinners, and show them where they have transgressed the law and that there is a savior who paid the price for their transgressions then it starts to all make sense.

D.L. moody said that “the law of God chases us to the cross”

We are going to go through the 10 commandments and hopefully learn a few things. Number one, why do we need forgiveness.

Revelation - Insight into God’s Character

Confrontation - Insight Into Our Character

Instruction - Charts a New Path to Walk

Promise - What does this say about the new Covenant.

HBI - in the first commandment we learn that we are to worship God alone, there is none but Him. With everything that we are, we are to Love and worship God.

The First Commandment - Love God Love Each other.

we start out with the first commandment.

Exodus 20:1–2 CSB

1 Then God spoke all these words: 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

Exodus 20:3 CSB

3 Do not have other gods besides me.

So we start out with:

Revelation - Insight into God’s Character

What this should do is put us in the right frame of mind to understand who God is and our relationship to Him. All of Israel’s existence and our existence as well should be viewed from this frame of mind.

What this tells us about the Lord God is that He is a jealous God. Exodus 20 goes on to say this. We struggle with this though. There is only one God, the creator of Heaven and earth, Of course we take this for granted as followers of Jesus. but there are many people that do not agree with this. This is part of a type of teaching called moral relativism. It goes by many names but there are people out their that teach stuff like just be good.

Is it possible to just be a good person and by that alone call yourself a child of God? This is not truth. Being a good person will not lead you to eternity with God. God tells us that He alone is God an there are none beside Him.

This insight into the character of God shows us that He is the only God and He will not share His glory with another. It is vital that we come to the understanding that there is only one way to a relationship with God and that is through God alone.

Confrontation - Insight Into Our Character

the next thing we get into is what does this tell us about ourselves. I will be jumping around a little through his series just for the point of diving more into what these commandments mean for us.

the thing about us is that we are prone to wander. We do not like being told that we are wrong, our pride gets in the way. Our hackles go up and we get into defensive mode. Isaiah 53 tells us about this.

Isaiah 53:6 CSB

6 We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.

You see what we learn about ourselves from this first commandment is that we are prone to wander. We all like sheep have gone astray.

Sheep are social animals that live in flocks, and they have a strong instinct to follow their leaders. This can sometimes lead to situations where they may appear to be mindless followers, but in reality, they are simply responding to their natural instincts.

mindless followers is a good way of putting it. i guess. we are told that there is one God and one way to God. But then we have leaders telling us that we can be God as well.

Take teachings from guys like Steven Furtick for example. Steven Furtick, the pastor of Elevation Church, has been criticized for his teachings on the concept of “little gods.” In this context, Furtick suggests that people are not just mere mortals, but rather, they are “little gods” who have the power to shape their own destinies and create their own realities. This idea is rooted in his book “Sun Stand Still,”

This little god theology is no new thing. Teachers like that try to tickle our ears because it is something that we like to hear, we like to hear that we are all in charge of our own destinies, we can bring to fruition whatever is in us.

Instruction - Charts a New Path to Walk

But God warns us that we are to easily lead astray by these false teachings. We can not have the power of God, for there is only one God. We do not have the power to shape our our own destinies, only God can do that.

be warned, we must not be so easily led astray by pleasant sounding theologies that make more of us and less of God. There is only one God, the creator of heaven and earth.

The amazing thing is the creator of heaven and earth wants to have a relationship with us. But it first involves giving up ourselves and turning to Him.

The new path we are to chart is the fact that we are not little god’s we are not meant have that authority. the new path we are to walk is that we are to worship God alone, we are to humble ourselves under God almighty.

What this tells us about the gospel is that we are to easily led astray. We have all at one point probably been led astray by false teaching somewhere. We have all thought that we could do it on our own. But the gospel tells us to turn to Jesus, for even by this one first commandment we are lost. But we learn what a redeemed life should look like. We learn a redeemed life will mean that we are humbling ourselves and trusting God to be ruler of all.

Promise - What does this say about the new Covenant.

We now receive rules for holy living, so they can become more and more God’s holy people. This is what God wants for them.

But the thing about it is that we can not hope to be holy on our own. this is where the new covenant comes in. When it comes to the law of God, we need to see how it was fulfilled in Jesus.

This is one command that we see echoed in the NT as well.

Matthew 22:36–37 CSB

36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

Matthew 22:38–39 CSB

38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

This si the first commandment that we have just gone through. But Jesus said there is much more to it then that. Not only is there one God, who is a jealous God.

But that we are to love the Lord God with all of our selves. we need to give all that we are to Jesus without reservation. It is not enough just to give part of ourselves to God, not just some areas of our lives. If God is God, then we need to give all of ourselves to Him.

We are to worship One God only for He is a jealous God worthy of our worship.

1 john and what it mean to love God and love others the way that God has loved us. If we truly do love God with all of our heart and soul and mind, our entire person is focused on giving ourselves to him. We will not want to do anything contrary to his will for us. which will eman that we are going to love others like God would have us do.

Remember the next part of Loving God with everything that we are the next step is that we are going to love others.

But if we follow what God wants us to do to love others means that we will be sacrificial n our love. It will not be for what we can get out of it.

It means that we will share toe gospel with them, for they might be lost in sin. It is not enough to just be kind, nut rather we need to let them know that they need a saviour and what they need a saviour for. What kind of friends would we be if we leave them lost in sin.

So What?

we start out with understanding that the law of God leads us to the cross. Yes the law was fulfilled in Jesus, but we can look to Jesus to see how He talked about it. The 10 commandments is something Jesus taught, as we will learn. But he did so much more. He made it a matter of the heart, not just of action. It requires a heart change, a life change.

Like the man with the parachute on the plane, He was mocked because people thought He was foolish but he knew the end and what he needed it so he didnt mind.

The law teaches us our need for a savior, that we need a messiah to save us, that we can not do it on our own. that we have sin in the way keeping us from God. But it also teaches us that there is a messiah that promises to forgive our transgressions if we give our lives to Him.

the first point we need to remember is that we are to:

Love God with everything you are.

We must commit ourselves to knowing the full teaching of Scripture, not just those selections or books that we find comfortable or compatible with our own worldview. The Bible will make us uncomfortable with our sin. It will also point out that it is incompatible with our secularist cultural baggage and philosophies

we must give all we have to Jesus. we can not go through life giving just part of what us to God. It is also not enough to be good and do good things. We need to bow down before God and accept that He is Lord of all. It is all of us that need to go to God. He is the only way to eternity with Him.

Love your Neighbor.

1 john tells us what love is. Love is not just being nice. It is not just handing out food but it starts by loving God and following His will.

We learn that love is this, that Jesus gave up His life to die for our sins. Our version of what love is, is sometimes skewed by our sinful hearts. Maybe sometimes it is skewed by our fear of what people will think of us. But if we truly love God, and really love our neighbors then we will want to share the gospel with them for fear that they might die without Jesus.

The whole point that we are going to go through is that the law tells us that we are in need of the cross. The cross tells us that Jesus died so that we don't have to die in sin. We are going to learn that we can not hope to get to God through good works and good deeds. That the only way to get to heaven is through Jesus.

We are in need, we are in need of a savior. We are also in need of changing our lives to line up with the word of God. we are on a sinking ship, with the way to live. so why don't we spend the limited time on the sinking ship letting others know of the way as well? Why aren't we letting them know as well why the ship is sinking and why they need Jesus.