MAKE GOD FIRST IN YOUR LIFE! EXODUS 20:3 SERMON

Transcription

1 1 MAKE GOD FIRST IN YOUR LIFE! EXODUS 20:3 SERMON Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful time with family or friends over the holidays. We spent Christmas at my son and daughter-in-law s home in northern Virginia. We loved visiting them, our three grandsons, as well as our two daughters and their husbands. We were all together for the first Christmas in many years! Today I m preaching on the theme verse for 2017 in Exodus 20:3 You shall have no other gods before me. Let s say it together, You shall have no other gods before me. This verse teaches us: The Lord God should be first in our lives! Please look in the middle section of your bulletin and you will see the point at the top of the page. I ve constructed it with the personal pronoun The Lord God should be first in my life! Is the Lord God first in your life or does someone else occupy that premier position? Perhaps your spouse, a child, a parent occupies top place in your life? It could be you! Or, it could be your work, your favorite hobby, or a special dream you have. God wants us to put Him first in our lives, even above ourselves! I believe many today place themselves first in their own lives because they reason, hey, it s my life! I should be able to do what I want with it as long as I don t hurt anyone. But the Bible teaches that the Lord God should be first in our lives! This means He should occupy this exalted position even above our selves!! This verse is the first commandment given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Let s put a map on the screen to show you the location of Mt. Sinai. The Jews had fled from hundreds of years of captivity and slavery in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea in an incredible miracle. Moses led the children of Israel from the Red Sea into the Wilderness of Shur. Then, they headed south into the Wilderness of Sin and eventually to the foot of Mt. Sinai. At Sinai, God commanded Moses to climb the mountain where God gave him the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments on them. The Ten Commandments were given to the Jews and us to help us remember the unique qualities which should characterize the people of God. The Ten Commandments define a lifestyle that s to be special, unique and distinct among the human race. The Ten Commandments also serve as a kind of spiritual mirror for us. They show us God s high expectations for us and that we cannot possibly keep them perfectly. Thus, we need God s grace, forgiveness and mercy! Prior to receiving the Ten Commandments, the Jews had witnessed quite a few incredible miracles: the plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, bitter water being transformed into drinkable water, manna and quail being provided by God to eat and they had fought and defeated the Amalekites. In the previous chapter, in Exodus 19: 4-8 God summoned his people to share a new covenant with them. Let s look at this passage: you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle s wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. So Moses came

2 2 and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. The Lord sought to establish a new covenant with the Israelites. A covenant is a binding oath or agreement between two parties with mutual obligations. God promised to make the Israelites His people, his treasured possession but the people needed to obey God. So, the Jews were to keep the Ten Commandments as their end of the deal, of establishing the covenantal relationship between God and themselves. Let s look at something interesting in the text. Look in Exodus 20:1 And God spoke these words saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The Ten Commandments begin with grace! God identified himself as their personal Redeemer in vs.1, the One who rescued them from hundreds of years of hardship and slavery in Egypt. The people hadn t earned their deliverance from captivity! God gave them freedom and deliverance from bondage and captivity as a grace gift! Isn t this also our story? Like the Jews bound in slavery in Egypt, we ve been enslaved by our sin and old nature. Through the loving, sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross, God purchased our deliverance from sin. Jesus set us free! Our spiritual journey, like the ancient Jews begins with grace! We read in Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In Ephesians 2:8-9 we read, For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. Since God rescued us from the tyranny and bondage to sin, He wants us to obey His Ten Commandments. Those of you who have children in your home: I imagine you have some house rules the children are expected to follow. You established these rules for the benefit of your children, your home and your own sanity. When our children were young we had certain house rules that had to be obeyed. We had rules against fighting, interrupting at the dinner table, doing chores and so forth. When our children obeyed these rules, our household functioned smoothly. But when they didn t follow the rules, it resulted in disruption, chaos, loud noise, injured children and hurtful feelings. God designed the Ten Commandments to operate in much the same way. Let s turn our attention to the very first commandment, our theme verse, Exodus 20:3 you shall have no other gods before me. The Jews were surrounded by tribal groups who were polytheistic. This meant that they worshipped many gods, not just one God. The word, poly means many and theistic means gods ; thus many gods. Often, these particular gods were carved images that could be seen, handled and felt by people. God knew that His people would be tempted to worship and follow these material gods. So, God told them clearly, you shall have no other gods before me.

3 3 The Bible teaches this message consistently. We see it in the Old Testament and New Testament. Jesus spoke of seeking first the kingdom of God in Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. In Luke 14:26 Jesus said, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Martin Luther, the great church reformer wrote, whatever thy heart clings to and relies upon is properly thy God. What does your heart cling to this morning? Yourself, your spouse, your kids, your parents, your work? Here s another way to determine what you worship? Ask yourself, why do I get out bed in the morning? What s my purpose? Who do I serve? Many gods compete for our attention! So what can we do to keep God first in our lives? 1. Worship the Lord regularly! Note the clarity, the conciseness of the first commandment: You shall have no other gods before me. The Lord God wants to be first in our hearts and lives!! Worshipping the Lord regularly helps us keep the Lord first in our lives by reminding us of God s supreme worth. As human beings we need regular reminders because we have a tendency to forget. We forget many things! We forget where we put the car keys, a friend s birthday, an important doctor appointment, etc. So, we need constant reminders to help us navigate through life. A few months ago I challenged you to write down how many Sundays you anticipate being in worship in Do you remember that Sunday? Some of you do! Well, 2017 has arrived and we need to start working on our goal of worship attendance. I want this to be a positive experience for you. Consistent, regular worship functions as a positive reminder of God s power, sovereignty and supreme worth. So, be committed to attending worship services regularly! Imagine telling a girlfriend that she s the most important person in your life but you only want to see her every six weeks or so! Then, you tell her that if you have nothing better to do, you ll give her a call. It doesn t make any sense! I have a cartoon. The pastor s secretary has taken a phone message and she holds her hand over the receiver as she speaks to the Pastor in the adjoining room. She says to the Pastor, it s Monty Williams. He wants to know if he can audit your adult class on Total Commitment and attend every third week. Worshipping the Lord regularly will help you keep God first in your life so I highly recommend it!! 2. Put your Christian faith into practice! This first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me should dictate the way we live our Christian lives! Ruth Blosser of Santa Barbara grew up in a pagan home. She wrote this story for Guideposts magazine some years ago: Daniel Bhatti was the servant who came with the house we were assigned in Lahore Pakistan when my husband was sent there by the

4 4 United States Information Agency back in the 1960 s. At first I didn t realize how fortunate we were to have him or why other Americans in residence were always trying to woo him away from us. Little by little his worth became evident. For one thing, there was his honesty. Then, there was the way he watched over us. Finally, my curiosity about Daniel got the better of me. I can t understand it! I said to him. You are always neat and clean in your spotless white clothes. You live in one room with a dirt floor and eight children. I won t let your children even walk into my garden; I won t allow you the customary freedom to help yourself to tea and sugar; I have ten times more things and rooms than I need, but you are never resentful, you never steal, you never get jealous. You are quiet and gentle. You never stop smiling and you take charge of the whole household efficiently, without quarreling with anyone. I want to know how you do it! Daniel looked straight at me with is somber dark eyes and said, I m a Christian and my father was a Christian before me. I was stunned. My parents had been of different religions and neither attended services. I grew up an agnostic and had steered my own family clear of religion. I thought Daniel was a fool, deceived. But I was thankful that he was in my household. Sometime later, Ruth and her family were transferred to Korea and after her daughter became involved with drugs, they all became Christians. Ruth wrote Daniel Bhatti, the Pakistani Christian who truly lived his faith and he wrote back informing her that he and his wife had been praying for her every day. He was glad they had become Christians! When we intentionally practice our faith, it will make a difference! We can also keep God first in our lives when we: 3.Develop a vital and active prayer life. Two weeks ago I spoke on the subject of prayer from Luke 1, the birth narrative of John the Baptist. Zechariah and Elizabeth had prayed for years that God would give them a son and God did, eventually. God answered their prayer for a son in His own perfect time. A vital, active prayer life provides a means for growing in our relationship with God. A vital and active prayer life helps us keep God first in our lives! Through prayer we draw close to God. Remember, Jesus prayed often! Look how close He was to God the Father! If you want to truly keep God first in your life, develop a vital and active prayer life! Finally, to keep God first in our lives, we should: 4.Invite a trusted Christian friend to hold you accountable. Many of us have close Christian friends we love and with whom we share life. If you have a good Christian friend, you can ask your friend to hold you accountable with your priorities and your life. Make it a shared experience in which both of you hold each other accountable! Or, some of you have a mentor. Ask your mentor to hold you accountable. Of course, you have to be willing to be honest, open and vulnerable with your Christian friend for this to work. Talk over your struggle to keep God first in your life with your friend. Incorporate prayer into the shared experience! You might try establishing goals such as 1) for the next month we will pray every day for our priorities to change from thinking about building a dream home to putting God first. Or, in this next month I will find and get involved in a ministry for God in His church that will help me put Him first. Or, I will take the money I was planning to use to buy myself an Amazon Echo and give it to the church instead.

5 5 God wants us, He wants you to put him first in your life! Make God first in your life! We do this by worshipping the Lord regularly, putting your Christian faith into practice, by developing a vital and active prayer life and by inviting a trusted Christian friend to hold you accountable for your choices and lifestyle. May God help each of us in this New Year to truly put Him first in our lives! Let us pray.