Good morning.  Today we will continue in our series that takes a look at the 10 Commandments.  Last week we took a brief look at the Commandments and the background of them.  Today, we move on to take a look at a couple of the Command themselves.  I think that as we look at the 10 Commandments, the first 2 are very similar.  So today, I want to take a look at the first 2 Commandments that Moses received.  Before we do though, let’s open with a word of prayer.

Exodus 20:1-17 says, “1”

Several college professors put together a survey to see how people viewed the 10 Commandments.  Each professor gave his students a list of the 10 Commandments and instructed them to reorganize the commands based on importance.

80% of the students proceeded to place the commands that dealt with others above the commands that gave instruction about our relationship with God.  To them, the commands about others were more important to them than the commands about God.  But with God, that is not the case, He starts off with the most important relationship, ours with Him.

In Exodus 20 we start with the absolute truth “I am the Lord your God.”

Why did Israel need such an obvious and elementary introduction to God?  It’s like a football coach saying to his players, “Men, this is a football.”  What we have to remember is that Israel had been in Egyptian captivity for 400 years.  For 400 years Israel had been subjected to Egyptian culture, religion, economy, and oppression.

And the most important thing to remember is that Israel had no religion to sustain its identity.  They came to Egypt a handful of people running from a famine.  All the rituals, all the stories that we know of Israel didn’t exist until after their enslavement.  At that time, the only thing they knew about God was His name.

No stories.  No songs.  No scriptures.  Nothing to shape and mold their faith.  So God began with the basics.  “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt.”

Then God issued the first command.  “You shall have no other gods before me.”  Now I believe that the idea of having only one God was a completely new thought to those people.  You see, the Egyptians served many God’s and each plague of Egypt was a direct assault to one of those gods.  The Nile was worshipped as a god, so God turned it to blood.  The sun was worshipped, so God darkened it.  The first born was worshipped, so God killed it.

The Israelites had been completely surrounded by a polytheistic culture for as long as any of them could remember.  So when God demanded exclusive loyalty, it was a revolutionary idea.

It’s just like one of the problems that divorced parents encounter, sooner or later, is that the children will try to play one parent against the other.  If mom won’t let me have what I want, then maybe dad will.  And because the parents feel guilty about the breakup of their home they are vulnerable.

This first command is so foundational to the rest.  God could have begun simply by saying, “Take a day off.  Be nice to your parents.  Don’t kill each other, and so on.”  But then the obvious question would be, “Why?”  Why should we do certain things and avoid others?  If there was no ultimate standard of authority outside our own feelings there would be no reason to recognize the laws as anything but a list of things that we could do if we want to, but if not, oh well.

Today there are those who want to keep the 10 Commandments out of courtrooms and other government funded facilities.  It may surprise you, but I understand why they oppose the posting of the 10 Commandments.  Maybe they understand something about the Commandments that we don’t.  They don’t mind the parts about stealing and killing and lying.  Everybody pretty much agrees with those.  They don’t really mind the part about being kind to your parents.  Most everybody finds those comfortable.  The part the opponents of the 10 Commandments can’t live with is the first command; “you shall have no other gods before me.”

They understand how powerful that command is.  They understand that if you recognize the sovereign, exclusive authority of God then you can’t merely dismiss a commandment just because you don’t feel like obeying it.  If there really is only one God, if He really is the only savior of the oppressed and enslaved, then He must be obeyed.

So what does that say about us if we casually tell a lie or tolerate one?  If we loosely hold our marriage vows?  Or if we indulge thoughts of covetousness?  Does it not say that we need to go back to the first commandment and ask ourselves, “Have I allowed another god to take the throne?  Is something else ruling in a place that God should be?”

If we will honor God as the only God in our lives, it won’t matter whether the 10 Commandments are posted in courtrooms and school hallways or not.  They will be posted everywhere that a Christian goes.  And the testimony of our lives will be impossible to silence.

There are several areas in life where God needs to be first, and I am going to use the word first real fast as a way to show you how God needs to be first.

F stands for Focus
A lady and her friend were having a conversation after church services.  The lady asked her friend, “Did you notice that hat Myrtle was wearing?”  The friend responded, “No.”  The lady then asked, “Well, what about the coat that Hazel had on?”  Again, her friend said, “No.”  “Well what about that suit that the minister was wearing?”  Again her friend responded “NO.”  The lady then said, “Well, a lot of good it does you to go to church.”

Who or what is it that occupies your free time?  Who or what is it that keeps your thoughts?  The only place your focus needs to be is on God alone.  When you are here at church, when you are at home, when you are at work or school, your focus needs to be on God, and not the other things that surround you.
I stands for Income
Deuteronomy 14:23 says, “The purpose of tithing is to teach you always to put God first in your lives.”
When it comes to your money, what takes first place?  Take a look at you credit card bill, or your check book, what is your money going to besides the essentials.  Is it the new car, the new TV, the movie theater, the newest video games?  Or does God occupy the first place in your life when it comes to you money.  God needs to be first when it comes to you income.

Now this is not a plea for you to start upping your offering, because to be honest with you, I think that this church does a great job with offering considering how many people are of offering age.  What I ask is that you consider what you have been given by God in the form of you income, and then do what you know is right and make God the first priority when it comes to your income.  For some this may mean keep doing what you are, but for others it means making some changes in where your money goes.  I am not the one that is going to know or be upset with what you do with you money, that is God, and He wants to be first.

R stands for Relationships
Proverbs 12:26 says, “The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.”
So, what about your friendships with others?  Do they lift you up, or drag you down?  Are you influencing them in the right direction, or are they changing you for the bad?  What about your wife or your husband or your girlfriend boyfriend relationship?  Are you following God’s plan in that relationship, or are you valuing the relationship above obedience to God?

God has said that He must be first, and that He is a jealous God.  Make God first in your relationships, and all the other relationships that are worth having will fall into place as well.

S stands for Security
A man in a hospital bed was told by his doctor that all that could be done now was to pray.  The man responded by saying, “Oh no! Has it come to that?”  Now that is a reality that many people face, they may not say it, but they definitely think that to themselves.
Psalm 71:3 says, “Be my strong refuge, To which I may run continually... For You are my rock and my fortress.”  God has to be our security in life.  When things go wrong, or we need help, He should be our first source that we go to.  When we need security in our lives, whatever the case is, we need to run to God, He will be there for us.

T stands for Time
Take a look at your appointment book.  What takes up the most time in your life?  Is it your career, is it a sport or a hobby, or is it God.  Ephesians 5:16 tells us to, “Make the most of every opportunity, because the days we live in are evil.”  What if a husband were to tell his wife that he would be totally committed to her 1 day a week.  Would she be happy?  Of course not!  Well in the same way, God has to be first and He has to occupy all of our time in some way.

Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Christian organization “Navigators”, used to go to bed at 10:00.  He did that because he got up early each morning to pray.  When he was with someone, and 10:00 rolled around, he’d pass out magazines, and say,

“Folks, I’m going to bed.  You can stay here as long as you want.  I’ve got an appointment with God tomorrow morning and, frankly, my appointment with God is the most important thing in my life.”  You see, he noticed the importance of putting God first when it comes to our time here on earth.

So, could you be that bold in your life?  Would you be able to put God first in those 5 areas?  I will promise you this, if you can things in your life will be much happier.  So can we do it?  Let’s hope so.

Then we have commandment # 2, “You shall not create any false idols.”

Did you see the comedy film, Cool Runnings?  It’s about the first Jamaican bobsled team to go to the Olympics.  John Candy played a former American gold medallist who becomes coach to the Jamaican team.  He wins the team’s loyalty and they affectionately dub him, “Sled-god.”  Later in the movie, his dark history is revealed.  After his gold medal performance in a subsequent Olympics, he broke the rules by weighting the U.S. sled, bringing disgrace on himself and his team.

One Jamaican bobsledder couldn’t understand why anyone who had already won a gold medal would cheat.  He nervously asks Candy to explain.  “I had to win,” says the coach.  You see, there are many different gods out there that we worship, there are many things that we have made into an idol that we show our allegiance to.

In fact, my guess is that you cannot walk 25 feet in any direction from your front door without stumbling over some kind of idol.  We substitute many things for the worship of the one true God.  Idols never satisfy for long, but we continue to craft with our hands, things that we hope will satisfy the longing of our hearts.

Ok so you are saying well we don’t worship Greek, Roman or Egyptian false gods anymore!  But idol making is more than making shapes of wood and stone before which we bow down to.  We may not worship ancient Gods by name, but we do give priority to the things they represent.

Mercury was the god of commerce.  He ruled in the market places and the business centers of the ancient world.  Today Wall Street is a citadel and brokerage houses are their chapels.  Yes sir everyday worshippers go and sit in those chapels and watch an electronic ticker tape.  The brokers take their offerings like priests and promise to turn them into profits.

Do you remember Black Monday, now this was before my memory developed, but on October 19 1987 the Dow sank 508 points.  In Miami that week a person who had lost large sums of money took out a hand gun and shot his broker and the office manager, before he killed himself.  This was said by the murderer’s friends, “His entire life was devoted to the stock market, and it all collapsed around him.”  His god let him down, but the one true God will never let us down.

Don’t make money into an idol that becomes the center of your focus.  When we put too much priority on our income, we loose sight of the one true God.  We cannot serve both God and money, so we need to make sure that our focus in not on the money, but on the God of the universe, a much greater treasure than money.

Or how about Hercules?  The god of strength, the ruler of the Olympic games.  His followers are as numerous as ever.  He has his 3 festivals that go year round.  Basketball in the spring, baseball in the summer, and of course football in the fall, culminating with his greatest day of worship and devotion-Super Bowl Sunday!

Oh maybe we don’t carve an image from wood, but we certainly carve one in our minds and when we do we can become stuck with it.  It may not be a visible idol, but there are many idols that we worship.

Remember this; the Devil is deceptive and He seeks to devour us, he will gladly take something good that God has given us and shape it to become our god.  Idols are built on falsehood, deception, and untruthfulness; they will fail you and let you down.

But God is present among us, He is our friend, our advocate, Christ is our savior and our Master, a real God who corrects us, disciplines us, comforts us, loves us, and forgives us all the time healing us from the lies of this world!  So get rid of the other idols, and begin to worship God in the way that we are suppose to.

As we close this morning, we need to ask ourselves who is our God?  And I believe that if we are honest with ourselves not all of us will be able to say Jesus.  There are many of us in the Lords family who want to keep God happy so we do the bear minimum, but also struggle to keep the god of self happy.  And the struggle between the 2 keeps no one happy.  For some of us, our jobs are our gods, for others, maybe it is a child that we are so proud of, or a talent that we possess and therefore we have made our selves into our own gods.  Whatever it is, we need to remove it from first place in our lives and place God there in His rightful spot.

Today, God still says Have no other God’s before me.  What god’s do you need to lay at the feet of Jesus today.

In Cool Runnings John Candy tells his team why he cheated to win a gold medal.  Then he says, “I learned something.  If you are not happy without a gold medal, you won’t be happy with it.”  These false idols that we live with, will never fill us up and make us happy, only God can do that.

So, our commands for this morning are “No other Gods before Me, and Create no false idols.”  As we go through the weeks to come, may we begin to get rid of any other gods in our lives, and may we remove the false idols and the fake worship that we have, and may we focus on the one true God and make sure that He is first in every aspect of our lives.

Let’s Pray