“The 1st Commandment - Part 2”
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 7 viewsNotes
Transcript
In an article for the Gospel Coalition, pastor and author Tim Keller offers this potent definition of sin: "Sin isn't only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry."
In his bestseller The Reason for God, Keller further develops this line of thought, showing the reader examples of the "particular kinds of brokenness and damage" caused by idolatry:
If you center your life and identity on your spouse or partner, you will be emotionally dependent, jealous, and controlling. The other person's problems will be overwhelming to you.
If you center your life and identity on your family and children, you will try to live your life through your children until they resent you or have no self of their own. At worst, you may abuse them when they displease you.
If you center your life and identity on your work and career, you will be a driven workaholic and a boring, shallow person. At worst you will lose family and friends and, if your career goes poorly, develop deep depression.
If you center your life and identity on money and possessions, you'll be eaten up by worry or jealousy about money. You'll be willing to do unethical things to maintain your lifestyle, which will eventually blow up your life.
If you center your life and identity on pleasure, gratification, and comfort, you will find yourself getting addicted to something. You will become chained to the "escape strategies" by which you avoid the hardness of life.
If you center your life and identity on relationships and approval, you will be constantly overly hurt by criticism and thus always losing friends. You will fear confronting others and therefore will be a useless friend.
If you center your life and identity on a "noble cause," you will divide the world into "good" and "bad" and demonize your opponents. Ironically, you will be controlled by your enemies. Without them, you have no purpose.
If you center your life and identity on religion and morality, you will, if you are living up to your moral standards, be proud, self-righteous, and cruel. If you don't live up to your moral standards, your guilt will be utterly devastating.
Idolatry is a reality. Idolatry is something we face consistently whether we know it or not. I love what Martin Luther once wrote, “the fundamental problem in law-breaking is always idolatry. In other words, we never break the other commandments without first breaking the commandment against idolatry.” For example, when a person steals and breaks the seventh commandment, they have already broken the first. Their desire to have what they stole grew out of a violation of the first commandment. They did not fear, love or trust in God above all else. And so to fill their desire they took what was not theirs.
Idols aren’t only or necessarily little statues made out of wood or metal that the people of the past prayed to. An idol can be anything. Anything you fear above all else. Anything you love above all else. Anything you trust above all else. The gods of today that substitute for God in your life are so ordinary and commonplace that many of us don’t even give them a second thought.
Understand today family, the false gods of today don’t go by the name of Baal, or Molech, or Ashtoreth. They are our bank accounts, they are our homes and our families, or relationships, and they are careers, our countries, our tv and our smartphones. And we do our bowing and kneeling to them with our schedules, our credit cards, our imaginations, and our work.
This can be a bit disheartening… but there is hope. Once Jesus was asked by a young man seeking to justify himself, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus expertly opened the young man’s eyes to the idol that was standing between him and God. The thing he feared, loved and trusted above all else was his wealth. He walked away sad, unable and unwilling to give it up. The disciples, watching from the sidelines, and realizing their own failings, said, “Who then can be saved?” Lets find out how.
“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.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.
Out of Egypt
What is Idolatry
Monotheism
Christ Alone
The first thing we will look at today is a quick summary of the Israelites coming out of Egypt and the polytheistic culture they were delivered from. Second, we will come to a proper and biblical understanding of Idolatry. Third, we will uncover how a biblical understanding of monotheism asserts allegiance and exclusivity. Finally, we will see how Jesus is not a savior, but the Savior who alone is the way the truth and the life.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to trust in many things instead of or alongside the living God, it is the power of the Holy Spirit who will illuminate our hearts and minds to know that Christ is the one true God who can save and who is worthy to be worshipped because there is no other who is the way, the truth, and the life.
I. Out of Egypt
- A culture of polytheism.
A. The Israelites just came out of one of the most polytheistic cultures in history. We understand polytheism as the worship of many gods. And Egypt was good at it. They worshipped the gods of the fields, rivers, sun, storms, light and darkness. They bowed down to the images of men and beasts.
B. Believe it or not… the Israelites did this too. Over their time in captivity they would give into the temptation to worship these strange gods. The Lord told them...
I took a solemn oath that day that I would bring them out of Egypt to a land I had discovered and explored for them—a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the best of all lands anywhere. Then I said to them, ‘Each of you, get rid of the vile images you are so obsessed with. Do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt, for I am the Lord your God.’
“But they rebelled against me and would not listen. They did not get rid of the vile images they were obsessed with, or forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I threatened to pour out my fury on them to satisfy my anger while they were still in Egypt.
C. The Lord has made it clear, here in the first commandment, that He is the only God and is to be treated as the only God. He is the one and only God. Clearly the Lord our God refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of any other god.
D. He is the sovereign Lord of Heaven and has the right to rule over us. And specifically to the Israelites, He says that He is their God and bound together with a promise when he released them from bondage to Pharoah. With 10 mighty works of power He destroyed the deities of Egypt, showing all that He is the one true God.
E. He has the right and the worth to demand all praise and worship. He will not share His glory with anything or anyone else. He is the one and only God. Anything else would be idolatry.
II. What is Idolatry?
- Any other object in which men place their trust.
A. Eidolon and Latria… For a definition we turn to the great Heidelberg Catechism. Question 95 What is Idolatry? Idolatry is having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed himself in the Word.
For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.
B. But, wait, wait Shane. How can there be Idolatry if there are no other gods.
Consult together, argue your case.
Get together and decide what to say.
Who made these things known so long ago?
What idol ever told you they would happen?
Was it not I, the Lord?
For there is no other God but me,
a righteous God and Savior.
There is none but me.
So, what about eating meat that has been offered to idols? Well, we all know that an idol is not really a god and that there is only one God.
C. If there is no other god to begin with how could there be Idolatry? The answer to this, clearly illustrates the real Idolatry of our day and age. We must see that these frauds, what the Heidelberg calls “something” really do have a kind of spiritual power over those who trust in them.
Jochem Douma writes, “People worship powerful forces within creation as if these were deities. They are not gods, but only so-called gods; still, they are very real powers, able to enslave a person totally.”
Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist.
D. The reason that these frauds or false gods have the ability to master people is because of evil demonic forces, the effects of sin in the world, and the power of sin in an individual. And we see here that the idolatry in Egypt had an affect on people that they would disobey god because they were obsessed with them.
E. This is why the Heidelberg says “something.” The false god, the fraud, does not have to be a wooden pole, bronze statue, or some image, but our spouse or friend, family and children, work, career, money, possessions, pleasure, gratification, comfort, approval, relationships, government, moral cause, morality and even religion. The something that we put our trust and hope in.
E. So what the 1 commandment is asserting is monotheism and all that comes with it. There can be only one and sometimes, something gets in the way.
III. Monotheism
- There is one God and only one God.
A. Dr. Al Molher writes, “This command begins with the assertion of theism, and not just theism-monotheism. God automatically and necessarily reveals Himself over against the false gods of that day and age, and any other.”
B. And because there is one God and only one God, the 1st commandment demands and ultimate allegiance to Him and nothing else will do. If the One and Only God does exist, then He and He alone defines all reality. He is everything. He is to have our allegiance. But if He does not, we must understand that our allegiance is somewhere.
C. Reformer John Calvin wrote it well when he said that there is a semenas divinitas, a seed of divinity, within the human being. This interior knowledge forms part of our conscience and our constitution, being ourselves made in the image of God. It cries out for some object of worship, for we will worship some deity. The only question is-what or whom will we worship?
D. Herbert Schlossberg says this: "Western society in turning away from the Christian faith has turned to other things." He points out this fact that is often missed-this is not a turning from, it is a turning to! This process is commonly called secularization. Not just turning from but turning to.
E. Commonly in our culture today, we have turned from God to ourselves. The idols of self abound; as Oscar Wilde said, "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." Ultimately, those who don’t worship the one God and the only God, eventually worship themselves.
F. It is the self that demands power, profit, pleasure, and popularity. CS Lewis’ widow Joy called it sex, state, science, and society. It is the problem today with individualism and rejection of authority. The motivation to do what we want, when we want, how we want all is well, until we can’t then we go to God to get us out of the mess we are in or get us something we cannot get for ourselves.
G. Our trust is in me myself and I and someone who has more than we do, but if that fails then we go to God to get it for us. “I have no problems worshipping God as long as I am still in control of my life.” And we continue, “I have no problems with Christ being on the throne in heaven as long as I am on the throne of my life here on earth.
H. Well Shane I dunno about the Idolatry stuff. How do we know? Is it possible to know our own private Idols. Can we know what gods we are tempted into worshipping. Let’s take the Idolatry test.
I. The love test. Who do we love? Or another way of saying it. What do we desire? When our minds wander what is it that we are thinking about? What do we spend our money on? What do we spend our free time on? What do we actually get excited about? What are the things in life that we desire more than God or equal to Christ? Sure we can enjoy the good and finer things in life but never ever before our affections for Christ Jesus.
J. Number 2 … the trust test. Who do you trust? Where do you turn in times of trouble. Martin Luther the reformer wrote, “Whatever thy heart clings to and relies upon, that is properly thy god.” Thomas Watson wrote, “To trust in anything more that God, is to make it a god.” We are called to trust in God alone. Do we trust our addictions in times of trouble? Other people or our careers, the government or those in control of our economy. Some of us trust science and medicine more than Christ.
K. The reality is that we trust in many things other than God. Matthew Henry writes, “Pride make a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money, sensuality makes a god of the belly, what ever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended on, more than God, that, whatever it is, we do in effect make a god of.”
“If I have made gold my trust
or called fine gold my confidence,
if I have rejoiced because my wealth was abundant
or because my hand had found much,
if I have looked at the sun when it shone,
or the moon moving in splendor,
and my heart has been secretly enticed,
and my mouth has kissed my hand,
this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges,
for I would have been false to God above.
They sweep past like the wind
and are gone.
But they are deeply guilty,
for their own strength is their god.”
They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.
L. The world is full of God substitutes or even God additives. There are so many things in this world that try to take the place of God in our daily life. And for many of us, the real reason why we have so much trouble recognizing our own private idolatries is not because we don’t have false gods anymore, but because we have so many.
IV. Christ Alone
- The way, the truth, and the life.
A. Idolatry is real. As real for the Christian today as well for the non-Christian. When we sin, we have to break this commandment, to break the others. Where is our love? Where is our desire? Where is our trust?
B.