“No running. And no diving into the shallow end.” These are a couple rules you might find at the local swimming pool. Aren’t they annoying? That’s what I used to think until I realized that these rules keep me safe. If I run on a wet surface, for example, I may slip and bang my head. That would really hurt.
Today we start a sermon series on the Ten Commandments. Are you pumped? No? I have to admit I wasn’t as excited about writing this series as I was when I preached on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The Ten Commandments are so demanding and therefore so…wearisome, or so our sinful nature thinks. But God gave us these commands because he loves us. As we take a look at the commandments one by one we’ll see that they each protect a different aspect of our lives. Today we look at the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods.” With this command God is protecting his crown – not just his crown of glory but the crown of his creation: us. Listen to the words of our text from Exodus 20:1-6.
Let’s go back 3,500 years ago to the time when the Israelites camped at the foot of a mountain called Sinai. It was here that God gave the Ten Commandments. Do you remember how that happened exactly? Moses trotted up the mountain and brought back two stone tablets on which God himself had written the commands, right? That might be the storyline you get when reading a children’s Bible but that’s not exactly how it happened. Instead God told Moses that he himself was going to speak the Ten Commandments to the people and so they were to spend two days getting ready for the event (Exodus 19:10, 11). Next Sunday I’ll be preaching in Red Deer and Wetaskiwin but I don’t suppose the pastors there have told their members to take Friday off of school and work, and cancel all hockey games and trips to the mall on Saturday to get ready for my sermon. That sounds laughable until you consider what I will be sharing: God’s Word. That’s a big deal. Listen to how God himself drove that point home with the Israelites at Sinai. “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled... 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, 19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him” (Exodus 19:16, 18, 19).
Fire. Smoke. Thunder. Earthquake. Trumpet blasts. What was God up to there on Mt. Sinai? God was simply being his holy self and expressing that the Ten Commandments he was about to speak were not the Ten Suggestions. The experience was so overwhelmingly terrifying that the Israelites begged Moses, “…we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. 26 For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says. Then tell us whatever the LORD our God tells you. We will listen and obey” (Deuteronomy 5:25b-27).
When Martin Luther set out to explain the First Commandment, he said that God was telling us to fear him above all things. On that day at the foot of Mt. Sinai the Israelites did fear God above everything else. How could they not considering all that they had seen, heard, felt, and smelled of God’s raging glory?
Do you fear God above all things? That may be hard to do considering you have not come to Mt. Sinai but find yourself before a puny pulpit and an imperfect preacher. And so you may walk away from here unimpressed and more afraid of rejection by your friends than rejection by a holy God. My voice may be unimpressive but it is still an echo of that thundering voice the Israelites heard at Sinai. The fact that you can still hear an echo 3,500 years later should affect you as it would cross-country skiers who hear the echo of an avalanche a valley away. The rumbling sound may be faint but the skiers know it’s evidence that a great power has been unleashed, a power more potent than they may have imagined and it will make them uneasy as they look up at the snow-filled slopes that tower above them. No, we did not witness the avalanche of God’s glory at Sinai but we do hear its faint rumblings making us uneasy as we look up to this holy God.
But does God really want us to be afraid of him? That seems so “Old Testament” but it’s not. The New Testament book of Hebrews says, “Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:28, 29)
You may have come here this morning with many fears. The fear of getting sick. The fear of not being able to take care of yourself anymore. The fear of not having enough money to make the car payments. But there’s only one fear that’s God-pleasing: the fear of failing to put God first in everything you do. No, the First Commandment is not urging us acknowledge that there is a god. Everyone in this world believes that. Everyone thinks that there is a god…and that he or she is it! That’s the problem and the reason God thundered from Sinai: “You shall have no other gods!” Sure that means we shouldn’t bow down to an idol but it also means that God wants our unfeigned attention right now and whenever his Word is spoken, for he himself is speaking to us, not with fire, smoke, and thunder but that is what awaits if we keep ignoring his Word or treating it as cheap, as if it’s no more interesting than the junk mail we casually toss in the recycling bin.
Have I given you the impression that the God who speaks to you this morning and the God who spoke to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai is some kind of cosmic two-year old who threatens to throw a tantrum if we don’t pay attention to him? He isn’t. That truth is clear from the very first words God spoke at Sinai. Even before he proclaimed: “You shall have no other gods,” the Almighty said by way of introduction: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). This God who was about to give the Israelites his commands was their Savior. The Israelites knew from experience that this God cared about them and had already worked great miracles, including the parting of the Red Sea, to rescue them from slavery in Egypt. Why wouldn’t they gladly obey this God’s commands? Certainly he wouldn’t tell them to do anything that wasn’t good for them?
The same God who rescued the Israelites from Egypt is the God who saved you from hell. While Moses climbed Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God’s own hand, Jesus ascended Mt. Calvary to stop God’s hand from crashing down on us for our sins of acting as if we were god. It’s no wonder Luther taught that the Frist Commandment means that we should not only fear God above all things but that we should also love and trust in him above all.
It’s easy to say that we love and trust in God above all things but we often don’t. For example our neighbors to the south have even stamped this confession on their coins: “In God We Trust,” but I wonder if what they really mean is “In This God We Trust.” Oh, it’s not just the Americans that struggle with their love for money. We all do. We all think that if only we made a bit more, life wouldn’t be so difficult. We dream of hitting the jackpot by becoming a famous artist or musician so that we can live in a mansion by the sea and be served meals by a butler and never have to do dishes or laundry again. That would be sweet but no amount of money can pay for breaking even one of God’s commands. God doesn’t accept dollars, yen, or euros for your lack of love for him. Only blood free of the taint of sin will do. This is the blood that Jesus shed for you. In that God we must trust or all is lost.
What’s more, this God has promised to care for your daily needs even when there isn’t any money in your bank account. The experience of the Israelites bears out the truthfulness of this promise. Those Israelites who camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai had everything they needed for this life: food, clothes, shelter. No. Compared to our standards they didn’t have much but what more do you need when God himself is leading you to a better land? And God is leading us to a better land – a land without sin or sorrow. Why would I want to put my trust in any other god like money or in myself?
Sure, the rules at your local pool may seem to make things less fun but it’s just the opposite. Those rules are designed so that we can continue to enjoy ourselves at the pool and not end up hurt. God’s commands are no different. They are designed to protect us, the crown of his creation. May God fill us with an appreciation for these commandments as we study them closely over the coming weeks so that we do treasure them just as God treasures us. Amen.
