No Other Gods (part 2)

[0:00] Take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 1. We're going to begin reading at verse 18 and read through verse 32. And wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

[0:35] Since what may be known about God is plain to them. Because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature.

[0:50] Have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made. So that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.

[1:04] But their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God.

[1:17] For images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity.

[1:29] For the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie. And worshipped and served. Created things rather than the creator who is forever praised.

[1:43] Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

[2:01] Men committed indecent acts with other men. And received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done.

[2:20] They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.

[2:31] They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil.

[2:43] They disobey their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but they also approve those who practice them.

[3:08] You shall have no other gods besides me. And with those words, our Lord God spoke from heaven with His own voice, beginning that list of Ten Commandments.

[3:27] And last week, we launched into a one-by-one study of the Ten Commandments. We didn't get finished, so we're back there this week with the first command, you shall have no other gods besides me.

[3:41] And with that, we saw its exclusive demand. It's exclusive, isn't it? You shall have no other gods but me. He won't share His heart.

[3:53] He won't share your heart, I should say, with another. It's not just that you're to keep Him the first among many, but you're to have none besides Him.

[4:04] And that cuts against the grain of the religious inclusivism in which we live that claims that all religions are equally valid and all gods are basically the same or one's not better than the other.

[4:18] No, you shall have none but me. It's not only an exclusive demand. Its great reality that lies behind that is that He is the only God that there is.

[4:32] He's the God who created heaven and earth and everything in them. He's the God of all, all by Himself. Amen. And so He would spare us from trusting in gods that are no gods at all.

[4:47] What a kind command. What a good command this is. And then we saw its positive implication. We are explicitly forbidden to have other gods, but this also implies the positive requirement that we are to have Him as our God.

[5:04] Yes, don't have other gods, but implied is you must have me as your God. It is our duty to own Him as God, to acknowledge Him as God, to confess Him as God, and then to give Him all that God deserves, our worship, our praise, our service, our trust, our obedience.

[5:26] All that is rightly God's is to be given to Him. And that not in name only, but in reality, to treat Him as God.

[5:38] And then we saw its priority position, that this is listed first in the list of ten, and that for good reason, because this is your most fundamental duty in life.

[5:51] It all starts here. Who is your God? You tell me the answer to that question, and I know everything I need to know about you. I know the most important thing about you.

[6:03] Who is your God? That becomes the foundation of the whole of life. Now, God created us for Himself.

[6:13] He created us that we might know Him, that we might have a relationship in which we know and love and trust and serve and obey Him. That's how He made us.

[6:27] We're worshipers by nature. Ted Tripp likes to put it this way. We're hardwired for worship. That's not something that you can take or leave.

[6:39] No, you will worship. And you're supposed to worship the one true God. But it means that if we don't worship the true God, we will find false gods. Something or someone else to worship and serve.

[6:56] Something else will fill the worship void and be given a God-like status in our lives, and we will treat it or him or her as God.

[7:06] Why is that? Because we are worshipers. That's how God made us. And this is the sad history of our human race as we just had read for us in Romans chapter 1.

[7:20] We see it there. We're worshipers. And although they knew about God from nature, for God has made Himself obvious in the creation, they suppressed that truth in wickedness and would not have Him to be their God.

[7:38] They would not acknowledge Him as God. They refused to worship Him. They refused to give thanks to Him, to glorify Him. But that's not just the end.

[7:48] No, they found something else to worship, didn't they? They worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, the living God for an idol, a lie that is no God at all, whatever its followers may claim.

[8:11] Now, a race in rebellion against God had no troubles finding substitute gods to live for. But any time you trade the living God for a false God, you lose.

[8:28] And you lose big. You may think at the time of all your gaining, you may think of what this God is promising you in the way of pleasure and gain.

[8:39] In Psalm 16, verse 4, the Lord says, the sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods. Be sure of it. Your sorrows will increase.

[8:50] What is the kindness of God expressed in the first commandment then that would spare us of such sorrows and eternal loss by saying to us, John, you shall have no other gods but me.

[9:07] That secures my eternal happiness because I come to him through Jesus Christ and he is my God for everlasting years.

[9:19] Well, having other gods is more common than we might at first realize. And I'd like just to tease out and unpack some of the most, the many ways that this first commandment is violated.

[9:32] It's many violations. We begin with the most obvious. We violate the first commandment when worshiping the gods of other religions. When God gave this commandment, there were many other religions with many other gods in the surroundings of Israel.

[9:50] And you know, as you've read your Old Testament, that Israel often left Jehovah, the Lord, their God, and went running after these other gods.

[10:02] That's why their names are in our Bible because they were stumbling stones and they led Israel astray. So for instance, Hosea chapter 2. God was the one who had given them rain in its seasons and made their fields and their vineyards to prosper.

[10:21] God was the one who had multiplied their flocks and their wool and had blessed the work of their hands. But instead of thanking God, which is what all men should do but won't do, Romans 1, instead of thanking God, they brought their offerings and they burned incense to Baal as if he, the fertility god of Canaan, is the one who had heaped such blessings upon them.

[10:50] They not only turned away from the living God, but they turned to a false god and worshipped the gods of the other nations, often brought about by intermarrying with the other nations.

[11:06] But such worship of the gods of other religions violates the first command very obviously, doesn't it? And the same is true today. The first commandment is violated by worshipping the Christless God of Judaism.

[11:20] Now you will understand that there are Jews who have come to faith in Jesus Christ and they're saved as much as you or I are saved. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about worshipping the God, the Christless God of Judaism.

[11:36] That's another God. Even though they would claim the same Old Testament scriptures with us, it is not the living and true God.

[11:46] It's not the one revealed in Scripture, but it's a foreign God because the one true God has revealed himself in the New Testament as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[12:00] 1 Peter chapter 1. Who is the true God? Well, he would be the God and Father of the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Lord and Messiah.

[12:16] Well, the Christless God of Judaism is not the one true God revealed in Scripture then. And it fits the category of another God of the other religions. Allah of Islam is another God than the true God revealed in the Bible as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[12:33] Allah is not the triune God. Islam rejects the one God in three persons. Therefore, to worship Allah is to violate the first commandment. Allah is not the God of the Bible who saves sinners by the death of his Son on the cross, taking the punishment we deserve.

[12:54] Because, according to them, it wasn't Christ who died on the cross. It wasn't Jesus Christ who died on the cross. And we could go right on through the gods of all the world religions.

[13:06] It's a violation of the first commandment to worship any of the hundreds and thousands of deities held by the Hindus. It's a violation to worship the sun, the moon, the stars, Mother Earth, and all that goes into the worship of nature.

[13:27] These are created things instead of the Creator. And no other gods besides me condemns the worship of any of these gods of other religions. But if that's all the commandment forbade, most of us would go away this morning and say, check, we've got that one.

[13:44] I'm guilty of many sins, I will admit it, but I haven't sinned against the first commandment. I don't have a statue to Buddha at home. I don't... But not so fast.

[13:55] There are many other ways to have other gods besides the one true God. We do so, secondly, by having our own concocted version of God.

[14:06] God as I like to think of Him. God as I want Him to be. And instead of worshiping the one true God as He exists in reality and has revealed Himself to us in the Bible, we've got another God.

[14:26] The God of many today is a God who is all love, who accepts everybody and judges nobody, who has no wrath or hatred for anyone, no holiness that demands that we be holy, and no determination to punish sin wherever it's found, rather a God who accepts them just as they are and doesn't poke His nose into their business.

[14:50] Surely a God who doesn't send people to hell forever, especially if they try their best to be good. And that's the God that suits them just fine.

[15:04] The only problem is the Bible knows of no such God anywhere in the universe. This is a self-made God that only exists in men's minds, just like Dagon and Baal and Allah and all the rest that have no existence in reality.

[15:26] But these become gods to us when we imagine God to be other than what He is to such a degree that He's not even recognizable.

[15:36] You see, God's not a blank slate. He's not a blank piece of paper on the wall. And then we fill in. What would we like in the way of His attributes? And we can even come to the Bible to do this.

[15:49] And we can see, God so loved the world. There it is. God is love. And we write that up there. But we just read in Romans 1.18 that the wrath of God is a reality as well as the love of God.

[16:06] Oh, but we don't like that. So we leave that off, okay? We don't like to think of that. And on we go. And we piece together a God. And we've got Bible verses to show for it. But any time you take a truth of God's Word and present it as the truth, the total truth, it becomes an untruth.

[16:30] And it is possible to take some of the attributes of God and present them and say, this is true about God. But if that's all you think about God, that is a false God.

[16:42] And He does not exist. It is not the God of the Bible. And therefore, it comes under the condemnation of the first command, you shall have no other gods than me.

[16:53] Now, who's saying that? Well, the God who has revealed Himself. Yes, in creation. But then, more clearly, in the Scriptures. And most clearly, in His own Son, whom He sent.

[17:06] And who said to us, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. I and the Father are one. And so on. God hasn't left it to us to figure out who God is or what He's like.

[17:21] No. He has told us. He's told us in His Word. There's a book. Did you know that? There's a book He wrote about Himself. And we've got it in our language.

[17:32] And He tells us here who He is, what He's like. And the first commandment is a call to the serious study of God's book about Himself.

[17:44] Lest we find ourselves worshiping a false God that doesn't exist at all rather than the true God who has revealed Himself in Scripture as the God who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them.

[17:58] A God who revealed His mercy and grace and His purposes in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their history. A God who in the fullness of time sent forth His own eternal Son to redeem sinners and lawbreakers.

[18:13] That's the God that really exists. And we must accept Him as He's presented Himself to us or we have another God.

[18:23] And that goes then for all the gods of the cults, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, and also the professing Christians with their own versions of God picking and choosing what they like from the Bible, constructing another God in their minds.

[18:38] Well, if God has made Himself so clear in nature that if we don't worship and serve Him, we're without excuse, what must our guilt be if we have received the brighter and fuller revelation of God in Scripture and in His Son and we still will not bow the knee and serve and worship Him rather than created things?

[19:04] I say it's a violation of the first command. Thirdly, we also violate the first command by treating other things as God, giving them God-like status in our lives.

[19:18] And we see this in Romans 1 that they exchanged the true God for false gods. They made a trade.

[19:28] It wasn't just they quit worshiping the true God. No, they made gods of their own. They didn't worship and serve Him, but they did worship and serve other gods. Well, what are some of these things that we can give God-like status to and make other gods of?

[19:45] Well, the Bible speaks about that sort of thing when we put our trust in money. Trusting in money rather than trusting in God Himself.

[19:58] 1 Timothy 6, 17. Command those who are rich in this present world not to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

[20:13] When we put our hope in money to provide enjoyment and life and retirement and all the blessings, when we make it our security, our safety net, to bail us out of trouble, to protect us, that's to put gold in the place of God.

[20:33] You see, the warning is don't put your hope in money. Why not? Because that's stealing hope in God. Put your hope in God. It's the wicked of whom it's said in Proverbs 10, 15 that the wealth of the rich is their fortified city.

[20:48] That's their security, their wealth. They can buy the best. And Job says, if I have put my trust in gold or have said to pure gold, you are my security, well then it would be a sin to be judged for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.

[21:08] So that's one way we can make a God of money when we trust and hope in it rather than in the Lord God who lives. Trust in God can be redirected to trust in other people, in doctors and politicians and preachers and parents and powerful friends and powerful military.

[21:29] You remember, God often had to judge Israel because they were trusting in other kings and armies and chariots and horses that they would send for when they were in trouble rather than to come to him.

[21:42] So he says in Psalm 146, do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground and on that very day their plans come to nothing.

[21:54] No, trust in me. Well, when we trust in other people instead of him, we break the first commandment. King Asa of Judah did this in his later years.

[22:05] He was threatened by the kingdom to the north and he's nervous and fearful and instead of looking to the Lord, the living God who has ever shown himself strong to save his people, he turns to the king of Aram.

[22:19] I'm in trouble. Come and help me. Make an alliance with me. And God sent his prophet to rebuke the king and to tell him of God's judgment coming upon him and his land.

[22:32] Quote, because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the Lord your God. He put his faith in the king of Aram instead of in the king of kings.

[22:44] That's sin. That's something God takes seriously because he said, don't have any other gods but you are to have me as your God and if gods are anything, they're gods to be trusted in, aren't they, when we're in trouble.

[22:59] They're gods to seek help from when we're fearful and Asa trusted in the king. He made another god out of king of Aram and we read in the 39th year of his reign, Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet and though the disease was severe, even in his illness, he did not seek help from the Lord but only from the physicians.

[23:24] We don't know what his disease was. We're not told because that's not the important part of the story. The important part is where his trust was. You know how you find that out?

[23:35] Where did he seek help from? Oh, he ran to the physicians but he did not run to the Lord. And scriptures have that on record for us to learn not to make another god to give to other men what we owe to the true God himself.

[23:55] Are there any people you are relying on instead of God? Putting in God's place? That's what we're talking about. And it can be anything. Isn't it something that human flesh doesn't, they're very creative in the kinds of things that we will trust in rather than the Lord.

[24:14] How many of you have seen people do this after they've said something bad that they don't want to happen? I saw a lady reach for a wooden desk this week to give a good rap on it.

[24:27] That's the things that she had said. As if that could somehow drive off and ward away the evil. Well, that's putting trust in wood.

[24:38] And it's not even shaped like an idol as they did in the Old Testament shaping the wood into idols and then propping it up and putting chains to keep it from tottering. Just a hunk of wood.

[24:52] That's misplaced trust. taken off of the living God and put into a piece of wood. It's a pagan superstition.

[25:04] Some people trust for protection when driving by putting a statue of St. Christopher on their dashboard. And others, if they want their house to sell quick, well, they'll bury a statue of St. Joseph in the yard.

[25:17] And if they have money problems they want help with, they'll look to St. Nicholas. St. Joseph. And there's almost a different patron saint for whatever different problem you have.

[25:27] And all of it is making another God. It's taking what the real God deserves, our trust, and putting it in someone or something else. And in so doing, we have worshipped and served the created thing rather than the creator.

[25:45] Well, the same is true not only when we trust something other than God, but when we fear man instead of fearing God. When we seek to please people instead of pleasing God. As if people and what they think of us is more important than God and what he thinks of us.

[26:03] That, of course, was Peter's sin, wasn't it, when he denied the Lord three times? And at least for the moment, what weighed in with deity-like weight was, what do these people gathered around here think of me?

[26:16] What will they do to me? Not, what does God deserve from me in this situation? And we can make other gods even for the moment, as Peter did, as he sought the favor and was afraid of men rather than God.

[26:31] We're to love God with what? With all our heart and soul and mind and strength. And when we don't, we break the first commandment. We siphon off some love toward God and we put it where it shouldn't be in someone else.

[26:46] that's giving them the place that God deserves. And so Jesus says, anyone who loves his father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.

[26:57] Anyone who loves his son or daughter, his husband or wife, more than me. Or his own life also is not worthy of me. You see, something else has the jewel of the heart.

[27:12] God must have it. That's what God's deserve, the loving devotion of the full heart. Demas, you remember, forsook the work of God and God of the work because he loved this present world.

[27:29] When men worship Mary and the saints and angels, instead of God alone, it breaks the first commandment. When they pray to them, they give to others what is only to be given to God, our prayers for help.

[27:43] And when men refuse to give God glory and praise him for his work of creation and instead attribute all things to a theory of evolution, they make a God out of natural processes unrelated to the living God, to time and chance.

[27:58] That's giving the glory that God deserves to something else. And it breaks the first commandment. We're right in the smack dab of hurricane season, aren't we?

[28:09] How many times have you heard people refer to Mother Nature on the news? Mother Nature stirring up another storm? No.

[28:20] Our Bibles are very clear that our God is the one to whom the stormy winds answer and whom they obey.

[28:32] Some men thank their lucky stars rather than the Father of lights from whom all good things come. And so on and so forth. So many ways, aren't there, to have other gods besides the one true and living God, to give them God-like status in our life.

[28:50] And we can claim that the Lord is our God all the while we are functionally and practically making something else our God for the moment and really serving it instead of or alongside of the living God.

[29:04] God. But I would hasten to come to the last way that we can break the last that I'm going to draw out. There's many more ways, but perhaps the most common of all violations of the first commandment is putting ourselves in God's place to make another God of ourselves.

[29:25] And wasn't that the original sin of Satan? Not content with the place God had given, but he wanted to be like God. He wanted to be God. Wasn't that the first sin of the human race, of Eve?

[29:41] She wanted to be in the place of God. I want to make up my own mind on things, you see. Isn't that what it means to make a God of oneself? Instead of, God, you're God, so when you say no, I don't.

[29:56] And when you say yes, I do. And now she would like to be the one in the driver's seat determining how and what she does and when she does it, she wants this freedom that belongs to God alone.

[30:09] And by the way, we're all in that camp. Isaiah says we all like sheep have gone astray. So here's God, here's his ways, his laws, and we all have turned away from God and his ways, but it's not a period.

[30:24] What have we turned to? Each one has turned to his own way. God don't want you, God. I want me, God. Don't worship you, Jehovah God, I worship me, God.

[30:38] I do what I want. I give God-like status to myself. And that's the condition of a fallen human race. We did what we wanted, not what God wanted.

[30:52] And when we do what we want rather than what God wants, are we not worshiping and serving ourselves? Setting ourselves up as higher than God, more important that my will be satisfied than that God's will be satisfied.

[31:08] What can break that? The love of Christ compels us to no longer live for ourselves but for him who died and was raised to life.

[31:24] You see, we all live for ourselves. And the love of Christ will compel us to leave worship and serving and living for ourselves and to live for our Savior who is our God and our King.

[31:38] You know, the Bible speaks of men being lovers of themselves, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God instead of lovers of God. Don't love God, but they sure love themselves. What is this?

[31:51] This is a trade. It's an God alone deserves. We read in Philippians 3.19 of men whose God is their belly.

[32:06] They've made their own physical appetites a God. That's the language that God uses of it in the scripture. You've made a God out of your own physical appetites and whenever they want something you give it to them.

[32:21] No, that's the way you're supposed to treat me. But you've made a God out of your appetites and whatever you want to do and feel like doing. Well, when men refuse to obey God, they do what they please instead.

[32:37] They make a God of themselves. Remember Pharaoh? The word from heaven came to him as Moses and Aaron brought it to Pharaoh Exodus chapter 5.

[32:52] This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, let my people go so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert. Pharaoh's fatal words were, who is the Lord that I should obey him?

[33:15] Pharaoh knows that gods are gods to be obeyed, but who is this Yahweh that I should obey him and let Israel go.

[33:26] I don't know Yahweh and I will not let Israel go. I'll do as I please instead of what this God of Israel says.

[33:38] And through ten plagues that devastated his country, Pharaoh learned who the Lord is and why he should obey him. Because he alone is God enacting judgment on all the gods of Egypt.

[33:50] That's the first command. Have him as your God and treat him as God alone. Obey him. And then we can make ourselves a God when we trust in ourselves.

[34:03] We talked about trusting in wood and in other people and trusting in money. But we make a God of ourselves when we trust in ourselves too, don't we? Instead of the one true God.

[34:14] Habakkuk 1.11 speaks of men whose own strength is their God. Again, it's God's language. How does God view this when people lean on their own understanding and their own abilities to get themselves out of trouble who think I don't need the living God.

[34:34] I'm strong enough for this. How does God view that? He views it as another God. Their own strength is their God, is his commentary on it.

[34:46] They rely on themselves rather than me. It's how he sees it. They're not looking heavenward. They're looking inward to themselves. And prayerlessness and tasks shows where their true dependence lies.

[35:00] They don't come to me and say, Lord, help me today. They don't stop in the midst of their day when something comes up and say, Lord, strengthen!

[35:13] God is under control. We can handle this, me, myself, and I.

[35:24] That's to make a God of your own strength, a God of yourself. And then that withering word in Romans 1, neither do they give thanks to God and glorify him.

[35:38] Gods are to be thanked, aren't they? I mean, that's shot right through all religions. You have thank offerings and all the rest, and so much of it is to give thanks to the God who's provided whatever it is.

[35:48] Well, that's true of the living God too, isn't it? We owe him thanks. It's one of the reasons we gather and come into his courts with thanksgiving because he deserves our thanks for every good thing we have.

[36:05] ! We can make a God of ourselves when we don't thank God but we thank ourselves. I worked hard for this and we tried to pat ourselves on the back.

[36:22] We don't thank God what are we doing? We're thinking yes I deserve this I worked for this I achieved this the success that comes they take the glory and praise to themselves and thereby give to themselves what is to be King Herod did that when one day he gave a speech from his throne had his royal robes on and he gave this pompous speech and the people because they received their food from his land oh they applauded it's the voice of a God and not of a man they said immediately immediately because Herod did not give praise to God an angel of the Lord struck him down and he was eaten of worms and died why because he didn't give thanks and praise to the one to whom it's due he made a God of himself and that God could not keep himself alive when the real God strikes him with worms those who will not give glory and thanks to

[37:26] God end up glorifying themselves dear brother Lou center had a wonderful way of putting it if we're not singing how great thou art we'll be singing how great I art isn't that true glory we don't give to God it ends up coming back to us what's a way to break the first commandment to make yourself a God rather than the real God we also put ourselves in God's place when we get even with others you know God says the real God says that's his business vengeance it's mine I will take care of it I will repay says the Lord so if we're treating the real God as God that means when someone does us it even in any way what are we doing we're putting ourselves in God's place scoot over

[38:26] God you're not doing a good job of judging the world let me mete out some judgment for a while that's making ourselves a God instead of giving him what he deserves we put ourselves in God's place when we wrongfully take the life of another or take our own life that's the prerogative of God alone that's something he claims for himself and we would take it and say no I will be God and I will decide who lives and who dies or when we complain of events that God brings into our lives we act as if we're wiser than God as if we know what should happen in this world and what shouldn't dear ones I trust that what you're seeing is that in so many ways we can treat ourselves as God and in the eyes of God he says well you're making a God of yourself your strength your appetite your mind your desires your will it's making another God and you shall have no other gods but me when

[39:30] Jesus confronted the rich young ruler with the commandments to show him his sins and his need for Christ Jesus quoted commandments number five through nine you remember the young man's answer all these I have kept since I was a boy Jesus could have taken to task on any one of those commands he doesn't and I'm sure if Jesus had added the first command this man would have claimed to have kept that too other gods no sir no siree I worship Yahweh the God of Israel I don't worship any of these Greek and Roman gods but Jesus knew his God and he put his finger on it when he said okay then go sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then come follow me and the man and the man went away sad he wanted eternal life and his wealth he went away sad because he had great riches lots of money and

[40:31] Jesus put his finger on his God he thought it was Jehovah God of Israel wrong you haven't got to first base young man you haven't kept the first commandment you love your money more than God who is standing who was standing before him and I think that if we're honest and just think for a few moments we would have to admit that any time we sin we break the first commandment because that's not the way you treat God isn't that right I don't know just take any sin vanilla sin of this week the biggest sin that you've ever put it to that test any time we sin we break the first one

[41:33] James says whoever breaks one is guilty of breaking them all these are interwoven and if we have no other gods but him then we will not misuse his name his day his worship the authority structures in the world claim to life to faithfulness and marriage to property to telling the truth to not coveting all of it you see spins off of having him as our God so what do we do with our many violations let your violations of the first commandment bring you to Jesus Christ do you know that a study of the life of Jesus Christ is a study of the obedience to the ten commandments and we'll try to bring this out each time that we come upon a commandment the duration of his 33 years he was obeying the ten commandments among other things he never had any other gods besides the real living

[42:44] God of the Bible he never gave to another what he owed to God alone now he was tempted like we were to have other gods but he never sinned and so we meet him there in Matthew 4 and the devil takes him to a very high mountain shows him all the kingdoms!

[43:00] of the earth and their splendor and says to Jesus all this I will give you if you bow down and worship me and Jesus said to him away from me Satan for it is written worship the Lord your God and serve him only only no other gods he would not hear of it and since he is the only God Jesus never worshipped and served any other gods he never served two masters he knew you can't you'll either love the one and hate the other you'll hate the one and love the other he never gave to others what belonged to God alone every tempting pleasure dangled before him could not get him to break his exclusive worship of God God alone was God in Jesus life on how many occasions in the gospel and indeed in the Psalms which as Pastor Jason reminded us is Jesus song book and the way he gave that how many times in the gospels do we hear him thanking

[44:04] God his father and that's not all the times he did it he got up early in the morning went out and talked to his father much of that was thanksgiving we know from the other times when we see him thanking God how he praised his heavenly father how he spoke well of him to the disciples to his larger group of disciples to the masses how he praised the living God what words of honor he had for his he gave him glory and what about his trust oh his trust in God was never fixed on other people or things even his own strength what do we find him doing when he hasn't eaten for 40 days and 40 nights and he's hungry and Satan sees it and says this is the time to pounce Jesus if you are the son of God change these stones into bread you can't trust your father to care for you better take matters into your own hands and

[45:09] Jesus as the perfect man does not reach back into his deity for he is God as well as man he does not say well watch this and turn the stones into bread and eat and satisfy no he will show as the perfect man that he will trust his father to provide because all my father has to do is speak a word and I will eat man doesn't live on bread alone put on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God he trusted his Lord he trusted him all through his life you have been my hope oh sovereign Lord all my confidence since I was young Psalm 22 trusting in his heavenly father and what was the greatest trust was it not Calvary isn't that where Hebrews goes after showing us the heroes of faith in chapter 11 he said now look at this here's the man of faith par excellence who is the author and finisher of your faith and who for the joy set before him endured the cross scorning its shame and is now sat down at!

[46:20] the right hand of hear it don't we even in that cry of abandonment when Jesus feels the forsakenness of his father which is what we should have felt for all eternity to be forsaken by God and that sin of ours was put on Jesus and God forsook him for our sake he cries not why have you abandoned!

[46:50] me but my God my God why have you abandoned me do you hear the faith in that you are still my God in the dark you are still my God in this feeling of abandonment my God my God he cries from the cross what faith what faith Psalm 16 tells us further what was his faith because you will not suffer your you will not abandon me to the grave or allow your holy one to see corruption for you have made known to me the path of life you will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand as he hangs there dying he knows the grave is not the end he's trusting in his father's promises to him what faith in our savior in the right place in his God and his love for God was never siphoned off to other objects of this world how he loved the father it was seen in his costly obedience to him

[47:56] Satan would come and tempt him to avoid the cross but he could get no grip on Jesus could he in the upper room on the night of his betrayal Jesus said to his disciples come on now let's leave where's he going he's going to get somebody where he will be betrayed and then arrested and then tried and beaten and spit upon and his beard pulled out and whipped and nailed to a cross and he says come on let's go the world must learn that I love my father and that I do everything that he commands me to do that's the way you treat God isn't it you love him and you love him so much that you do whatever he says and that's what Jesus did he trusted God as God he loved God as God you know isn't it we love to sing that song 418 because it puts so well our repentance of sin but you know

[48:57] Jesus never had to sing as we do we have not love thee as we ought never had to sing that we have not feared thee as we ought we have not served thee as we ought because he always served his father he always treated him as God loving fearing obeying him as God alone his ultimate loyalty was God and that was never suspended for a moment even when he would say my God take this cup from me if it's possible it was only with the surrender that not my will but yours be done I'm not here to serve my purposes I'm not here to decide how my life is to go it's not my will it's not about that it's about your will being done so at one point when Calvary was weighing heavily!

[49:53] upon him he says what shall I say father take this cup from me but no for this reason I've come to this hour glorify yourself and he took the cup and he drank it down there was wrath in that cup that there might not be any wrath in our cup that we might know the forgiveness of sins that everlasting joy in God's presence eternal pleasures at his right hand I say here is a perfect righteousness in Jesus Christ for all of us law breakers here's one person who kept the first commandment perfectly for all of our breaches of it so what do we do here's a savior with a perfect record to give to us with failing records here's one whose blood will atone and cover all our violations a savior who receives sinners who come to him and he's got a righteousness to cover you with and to make you perfect in

[50:59] God's sight and then who gives us his Holy Spirit to enable us to more and more keep the first commandment and to weed out these other things that have grown to God like status in our lives and to bring our trust our fear our obedience back to the one who alone deserves it believer I'm asking you to honor the real God this morning by treating him as he deserves to be treated so bring to him whatever your problem bring to him whatever your sins treat him as the God that he claims to be if you need cleansing and pardon or power he's there for that he's God for that you see so treat him as God and if you're a lost person today treat him as the

[52:01] God who really is you know his word to you look to me and be saved all you ends of the earth for I am God and there is to me trust in me treat me as God I'm a savior so come to me come to me with your sins and I'll save you he's just that kind of God he delights to save he's willing to save he'll save you today if you come to him let's pray oh God the living and the true God this first commandment to have you alone as our God is at the same time our greatest duty and our highest privilege what could we ever want in a God that we do not find in you our heavenly father who gave up your son for us our precious

[53:02] Jesus who laid down your life for us our comforting Holy Spirit who dwells within us we confess it is our sinful insanity to ever want to be our own gods instead of you even if for a moment or that we would rather make gods out of other things and give to them what we owe to you so forgive us our sins wash and cleanse us in that blood that makes us whiter than snow you said the blood of your son the Lord Jesus cleanses from every sin and we confess our sins of having other gods forgive us of not having and treating you alone as God forgive us and cleanse us and purify us and then help us that we would give to you alone all that you deserve as our

[54:07] God send us on our way forgiven rejoicing delighting that we have you as our God we pray in Jesus saving name amen amen amen