Have no gods but God (Exodus 20:2-3; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Luke 22:19-23)
Billy Milton - February 19, 2006
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Well, today we reach the end of our look at the 10 Commandments. I hope you’ve found this series helpful and I also hope that you’ve found it to be relevant to your everyday life? I have been quite surprised at how bang up to date the issues have turned out to be each week. The newspapers and television have provided us with a feast of examples of the 10 C’s being broken each week!
And so today we find ourselves looking at the 1st commandment. “You shall have no other gods before me.” Before we look at this in detail, I want to point out something to you. Here’s the order of the 10 Commandments as given to Moses.
So, what does this commandment mean? Why will God settle for nothing less than an exclusive relationship with his people? Well, to understand this we need to understand the concept of covenant in the Bible.
God didn’t suddenly drop these commandments out of heaven from nowhere. They weren’t just a series of arbitrary demands designed to make life difficult for people. It was not at all like that. These commands were given in the context of a long term relationship going all the way back to Abraham, through Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and all the way down to Moses 400 years after Joseph. (See v2) These commandments are part of God’s long term covenant with his people.
Covenant is the key to making sense of these commands.
Now I don’t have time to cover covenant in great detail here this morning but as a general definition we could say that a covenant is,
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“a solemn and binding agreement between two parties that imposed duties and conditions on each side”
. Those conditions normally involved loyalty or obedience. A record of a covenant agreement would always be kept and there was also generally a symbol of some sort that was a visible reminder to both parties of their treaty to each other. The making of a covenant was also marked by a sacrificial ritual or a special meal. After the covenant was made, regular ceremonies were often enacted where the agreement was renewed or remembered.
I guess the most well known covenant in our society is marriage. Do you see how what I’ve just said could be seen in the marriage covenant?
All covenants have two parties to them. In the case of the 10 commandments the two parties are God and us. As in a marriage, say, both parties have obligations and responsibilities.
GOD’S SIDE: GOD REVEALS HIMSELF
I don’t know about you but I receive quite a lot of junk mail almost every day. Some of them have very tempting offers but I don’t automatically sign up to every one. Why not? Because I need to check out the person’s credentials first before I will part with my hard earned cash. They could be trying to harm me in some way so until I am completely satisfied that I can trust them I won’t enter into an agreement with them. For most of us, it’s the same when we enter into a covenant with God. Who is he? Can we trust him? What’s in it for me? What does he require from me? The very first thing God does in Exodus 20 is tell us who he is and what he’s done. He establishes his credentials. He tells us why we can trust him.
He says, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt.” He is the awesome mighty God who created the universe and upholds it every second of every day. He is amazingly powerful and mighty. It was a covenant offer that came with a 100% money-back guarantee. They were never going to get a better offer than this.
And he’s not just God, he is the Lord, YHWH. We saw in an earlier session as we looked at the name of God that, whilst his name is holy and the average Israelite would not let it cross his lips, God was at the same time inviting them to use his own personal name – YHWH. God was reminding them that he was an awesome God who they could also relate to as a covenant friend. The idea that God is knowable lies firmly behind this first commandment.
What God has done.
However, God goes beyond simply saying, “I am YHWH and you can trust me.” He also points out what he has done for the people of Israel – “I rescued you from Egypt” These events would be fresh in their minds and would firmly establish his credentials. His love for them is very real and very sure. The dramatic events of their exodus from Egypt were all the proof they needed of his power and concern for his people. Even the mightiest Egyptian god was no match for YHWH! So when God comes to establish his covenant with his people he just, almost casually, in a few well-chosen words, tosses in the greatest CV ever written. He can be trusted.
The human side of the covenant: God expects a response
A covenant always had two sides to it. Divine covenants are no exception. God has given proof of his credentials and what he can do so he now demands an appropriate response. The response that God seeks is simple. It is for his people to agree that they will worship him and him alone. It is for them to enter into a relationship with him where there are no third parties. He has revealed himself very explicitly to his people and the condition for him to stay with his people is for them to be totally loyal to him.
Now, and this is very important, what God was not saying is that they had to obey these commandments for him to love them. They couldn’t earn his love – he had shown over and over again that he loved them even when they were living in complete rebellion or apathy. So often we make the same mistake of believing we need to somehow earn God’s love. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more and nothing you can do to make God love you less. His love is not in question here. His love for you is never in doubt either. Never! These commandments were given so that the people could actually live within this love he had already shed on them. And, again like a marriage, it would be ruined if they introduced a third party to the relationship. And by third party I don’t necessarily mean another person – it can be a thing, a job, or an addiction of some sort which becomes more important than the husband or wife.
In Exodus 24 we read how the people responded, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” And yet, by chapter 32, as Moses is up the mountain meeting with God, the people get impatient and build an idol out of gold and worship it. Listen to the words of Aaron as he finishes fashioning this golden calf for the people, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” 32:4 How do you feel when I read these words? I feel grubby. I feel ashamed. I feel angry. I feel guilty!! Many of you have been praying to God for Jane over the past week or so. Can you imagine how you’d feel if I set up this statue (a model of a Jack Russell Terrier) and told you today that this god was really what saved Jane? Dog, calf, horoscope, lottery ticket, you add your own god and then reflect on how pathetic it really sounds in the light of what we know of God.
Sadly, this sets the pattern for most of Israel’s walk with God. Even in times of relative purity they still hankered after other gods almost all the time. It was like God wanted 100% fidelity and Israel wanted an open marriage. It was only by God’s grace that this covenant lasted 4 minutes never mind 40 years and more.
But then Jeremiah the prophet brought fresh hope to the people when he prophesied a new covenant. With Jesus this new covenant became a reality. It was spelt out to his followers, not on a fearful mountain, but in an upper room the night before he died. Here God announced that his dealings with his people were now changing. There was to be a new covenant sealed in his own blood. Here around the table some of the great covenant themes return: there is a ritual meal, there are instructions to remember, there are symbols and there are blessings and curses. But, although the covenant has changed, many of the conditions stay the same. We are still to love God exclusively. We are to put him before not just idols, but our ambitions, our hobbies and even our family. In some ways the new covenant is harder to keep than the old because not only is an external obedience required but also an internal obedience – now even how we think matters. But in another way it’s easier because as we heard last week, God gives us his Holy Spirit to give us the power to keep them.
In a few minutes we are going to once again take bread and wine together and as we do we are in effect saying, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” We are once again ratifying our covenant with God. We don’t do it to make him love us or even to increase our standing in his eyes.
We come like the people of Israel often had to, as failed covenant keepers, but as his people nonetheless who want to reaffirm our allegiance to him and to ask for his strength to keep his commandments.
We come to say, thank you Lord for persevering with us and for not wiping us from the face of the earth when we turn our backs on you.
We come to say that you are our God and we love you, even if we struggle to show it at times. Thank you Father – there is no other god but you. Amen