Who is your God?

Sermon

Our scripture reading came from Exodus 20:1-6 , which is a common Bible text as it comes from the 10 commandements which I believe most Christian know.

When we read the above text or think about the tend commandments what comes into our minds? What do we think about? Do we think about the ‘Thou shall nots ‘which are kind of restrictive

or we see more deeply what God was trying to communicate with the children of Israel?

Exodus 20:1-2 “And God spake all these words, saying, 2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

Digging deeper into the meaning of these words shows that these “Thou shall not’s” that come after are not words that coming from a God who does not want good for us but who has care and love for us and wants us to feel free.

As we have been learning during the past two quarters in our Sabbath School lessons, the freeing of the children of Israel from bondage illustrates how God frees us from the bondage of sin and makes us free.

Just as a reminder, in order for us to appropriately apply the principles of the Bible to our lives today we need to understand that ‘whilst it’s true that the Bible was writted for us, it was not written to us.”

So this means that for us to understand what message God is communicating to us through the Bible today we need to appropriately apply what is in Scripture, to the context in which we live today.

Applying this principle, if Exodus 20:1-2 had been written to us, it would probably read like “And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have saved thee from a life of bondage to sin.”

And why would God do this, why would he save us from sin, it was because He loved us as we are told in John 3:16.

God communicates to the Children of Israel i.e. saying :

- I brought you out of the land of Egypt, in other words I love you,

- I saved you from sin by sending Jesus to die for you and bear the suffering you where meant to suffer because I love you.

-And Jesus explains the love He has shown to us by saying in John 15:13 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Jesus here basically tells His disciples that, he loves them so much that he decided to pay the ultimate price just for their good.

One song writer says he left the splendor of heaven, knowing His destiny, he suffered on the hill of Golgotha and ultimately laid down His life.. Even as he was dying, he remembered, the thief hanging by His side and prayed to those who killed Him “Father, forgive themfor they do not know what they are doing”. And then He paid the ultimate price that could be paid to save them because he loved them.

Another song writer mentions that He could have called…

He didn’t have to die’

Philipians 2:5-8 Though he was God, he did not consider it something to hold on to.

Paul then beutifully illustrates it in his letter to the Romans and says Romans 5:8 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

It’s clear that by dying for us on the cross God showed us his love.

And going back to Exodus 20:1-2

After God mentions that he saved Israel and has shown them His love, He then gives and outline of His commandments.

What does the Bible tell us about the commandments that God gives after mentioning what He has done for Israel because of His love for them:

1 John 5:3 “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.”

The love of God here clearly refers to our love for God not His love for us as shown in verse 2.

1 John 5:2 “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.”

There is a relationship between loving God and keeping His commandments

When God gives us commandments that he expects to obey, He is basically asking us to love Him back as he first loved us.

So Exodus 20:1-3 “And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

Big question is: I love you, will you love me too?

Let’s dig deeper into the nature of this relationship God wants to establish with us humans. I believe wherever there is love, it is always ideal that if anyone loves someone, then they expect those whom they love to love them back.

The beautiful and most interesting thing is that because of the gift of free will that God has given to us as humans, those we love can choose not to love us back.

In other words, as one preacher says, we are making ourselves vulnerable. By loving someone, we expose ourselves to vulnerability because that person can choose not to love us back and the obvious result of that will be pain. We feel hurt when we love someone and that person doesn’t love you back.

Talk about attention, when we love someone we expect them to give us their attention because them giving us attention is a way of expressing that they love us?

But things don’t always go that way, those we love may not love us as we expect them to.

The principle that we make ourselves vulnerable by loving is not just valid on our planet but it is a unversally principle and yes, it applies even to God.

For lack of a better word, God made himself vulnerable by loving us.

And just to make this clearer, when God created us he gave us the gift of freewill and thereby making us capable of rebelling against Him

and you ask why, because we had to choose to love him back and show this by obeying His commandments.

God’s love did not just start on Mount Sinai and with the Children of Israel.

God’s love is clear in Genesis 1 because he creates all the good things and ends by creating human beings to evidence that he basically made all the good things for them to enjoy.

Delicious fruits, beautiful scenery, the joy of companionship between Adam and Ece. All that was Good.

Now God then says in Genesis 2:16-17 “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Do you see the theme in that we saw in Exodus 20 again here? God is saying I have given you all the delicious fruits and all good things (evidence that he loves them) he doesn’t end there:

He then says: Do not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

He shows them he loves them then asks them to love him back.

At this point we will go back to Exodus 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

This is where our focus today is because all other commandment are hinged on our love for God which make us give Him His rightful place as God in our lives.

The commandment makes sense considering the context. I love you so, please give yourself unreserverdly to me. Commit yourself fully to me and do not let anyone or anything take my place in your life!!!!

By obeying this commandment, we show our love to God.

It is easy to think that having other gods means having physical idols that we bow down too and not make this practical to our lives.

An idol is basically anything that takes God’s place in your life.

Anything that strives to get the attention and resources due to God alone.

Anything we love or like more than God, is our god and has taken the place of God.

Before we come to the end of the sermorn I want us to look into our hearts individually and ask ourselves a few questions that can help us try to judge/ determine whether:

-I know God loves me but do I love him back

He has done marvellous things for me and lended to me all the good things I enjoy.

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

-Am I not abusing the things that he has given me and letting these things take his place?

-Am I giving God His rightful place as God or some other people or things have taken his place in our lives.

-Do I love Him, I mean we mentioned the has shown His love to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Here are some questions I would like us to think about that touch various areas of our life:

Time with God

Do we spend time praying and studying God’s word as individuals, as families?

What is taking this time? Is it our phones, friends, tv’s, jobs?

Are these things not taking the time that belongs to God?

Are we not getting commited to these things more than we are commited to God and our relationship with Him?

Our energy and abilities

God has given us these to serve him but do we use them to serve him at all?

We obviously can’t see God physically, but we can use our talents, energy and abilities to serve him:

-Here at church

-Out were there are needy people

God has given us the task to warn the world about His coming, it is a command that he has given us which we should also obey to show our love for God and for the souls He has died for.?

Do we at all care about God’s children who are perishing in sin? If not, are do we genuinely love Him?

Sabbath

God set aside the Sabbath as His special day, Exodus 20:8 makes it clear that we are to disengage from all secular activities during God’s special time i.e. the Sabbath hours.

Do we keep the Sabbath in honor of the the God who has commanded us to show our love to Him by keeping it Holy?

Do we prepare for the Sabbath based on God’s word?

Do we keep its limits, right thoughts and activities?

Bodies

Do we follow healthy habits to better serve the Lord with our minds?

Are we faithfully doing our best to keep our bodies in which the Holy Sprit lives Healthy?

Without good health we cannot to serve God right and we cannot love Him. In fact there are some unhealthy habits that make us less capable of yilding to the leading of the Holy Spirit?

Our wealth

God has given us money and says will you rob me?

He mentions that all tithes are His?

Do we have regard the poor?

God has placed property in the hands of men in order that they may learn to be merciful, to be his almoners to relieve the suffering of his fallen creatures. Further than this, they are to consider the wants of the cause of God, and keep his treasury supplied according to the gifts bestowed upon them. Satan has had power to make men haughty and like himself in character, so that the money given them of God has been used for the gratification of self, and the cry of the poor has reached unto God against them; for they have been unmerciful in their conduct toward the needy. Whatever we spend for that which is not necessary for health and godliness will be charged as robbery against God; because all that was spent for the gratification of self someone needed to obtain necessary food and clothing. ST 20 June 1892.

The point is just that Is God my God, He has sacrificed all for me, loves me asks me to love him back but I decide to put other things before Him?

Some of us may feel that yes, we haven’g been giving God His place in our lives.

We have looked at Exodus 20:1-3. It has become clear that some areas of our lives show that we may be serving other gods before the God of Heaven.

Thank God for His Law which reminds us that how sinful we are.

Pall says in Romans 7:9 “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.”

Now just a very important reminder, It is God who gives us repentance Acts 5:31 “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”

Jeremiah 13:23 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.”

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

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