Note: This sermon was introduced with a drama called "Idle Idols").
Can you feel the barbs of truth as we laugh? Funny, but painfully true of life in the end of the 20th century. Our culture is littered with false gods, whether they be entertainment idols or motor homes, sports memorabilia or Pokemon cards, stock portfolios or even our own families.
Last week we started a new series through the 10 Commandments called LANDMARKS FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM. As we looked at the prologue to the 10 commandments last Sunday, we looked at the circumstances surrounding God giving Moses the 10 commandments. We saw that Moses didn’t just invent them and they didn’t just evolve over centuries of reflection, but God revealed these 10 commandments to Israel after he brought them out of their slavery in Egypt.
Today we’re going to look at the first commandment—God’s commandment against other gods—as we define "The Most Important Priority." Seven years ago the Barna organization polled Americans about the 10 commandments. In that poll, Barna found that three out of four claim that they are "completely true to the first commandment" (cited in Hughes 29). For 3 out of 4 people, this commandment is no big deal, at least it’s not if we’re to believe this poll.Today as we look at the first commandment we’re going to find a fact to know, a question to answer, and a commitment to keep.
1. A Fact To Know
Let’s begin by actually reading the first commanment together: "You shall have no other gods before me" (Deuteronomy 5:7 NIV).
To "have" a god, isn’t just acknowledging a god’s existence. According to Jewish scholar Jeffrey Tigay, the word here implies a personal relationship, like a man who "has" a wife, or a couple who "have" a child (64). To "have" is to be in a personal relationship with.The phrase "other gods" occurs 65 times in the Bible, and it always refers to the various gods and goddesses outside of Israel that were worshiped in the ancient world. The history of the human race is a history of worship, whether it’s the various gods of Egypt and Canaan, or the mythological gods of the Greeks and Romans. In the ancient world, everything in life that was considered important had a god or goddess attached to it whether it was the weather, sex, the family, or whatever. Every other nation in the ancient world except Israel worshipped a whole host of different deities. But the first commandment makes Israel unique.
Now does this mean that God’s nervous that another god might come along who’s better and more powerful than he is? Is this commandment assuming that we live in a universe where many different gods and goddesses actually exist and it’s up to us to choose which one like in a cafeteria?
This is where 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 clarifies this issue for us.
"We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live" (NIV).
Now idols were physical representations of gods. Paul’s not denying that idols exist. What Paul’s saying is that the god or goddess to which the idol points to isn’t real, that "in the world"—Paul’s way of saying in objective reality—the god represented by the idol is an illusion, a nothing, a non-entity. In objective reality there’s only one God, says Paul. The various gods and goddesses worshipped by idolaters only exist in the imaginations of the people who worship them (Fee 373). That’s why Paul calls them "so called gods."
Now the "many gods and many lords" here encompasses the two kinds of idol worship that was prominent in the ancient world (Fee 373). The "gods" here, in the context of 1 Corinthians, represent the traditional Greek and Roman gods. The Greek gods were the various gods of Greek mythology, the gods of Aesop’s fables, like Zeus and Hermes, Apollo and so forth. The Roman gods were the various national gods of Rome, like Jupiter and Mars, Cupid and Venus. These were the traditional gods of Greco-Roman society.The "lords" here represent the various new "mystery" religions that were just starting to take root in Paul’s day. The mystery religions were very secretive and mystical, and they worshipped what were considered foreign, non-traditional gods like Isis from Egypt and Mithra from Persia (Jeffers 97). Many people in the Roman empire were drawn to these mystery religions and their lords because they were new and unconventional.
Paul admits that there are lots of gods worshipped in the Greek and Roman pantheon of gods, and lots of lords worshipped in the various mystery religions. But in objective reality there’s only one God, the creator of the universe, and only one Lord, Jesus Christ.
So from the first commandment and this section out of 1 Corinthians we find the fact to know. That fact is, EVERYONE HAS A GOD.
In our post-modern culture we don’t call our gods by name anymore, but we venerate many of the same gods just without names. The French mathematician Pascal was right: there’s a god shaped vacuum in the heart of every person. Americans worship their gods with the same zealous devotion as the Babylonian, Greeks and Romans did theirs. Only the names have disappeared.Now how can a person know what god they have? Whenever we ascribe to something attributes that only belong to God, we’ve erected a false god. (McQuilkin 155). Whatever is the central reference point of our life, that’s our god. Martin Luther said that your god is whatever you run to for refuge in your time of need (cited in Hughes 35). Names or no names, everyone has a god.
At the risk of making everyone here today mad, let me name four of the more prominent gods in our culture. One of the more popular gods is the god of success. I think the Greek god Zeus is probably the closest ancient equivalent to our post-modern obsession with success. Zeus was the head of the Greek gods; his statue in Olympia was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and he was the supreme Greek deity, the god of thunder. Zealous Zeus worshipers can be found all around us today, in professional sports, major corporations and universities, even on the staff of some churches. The status symbols of success may change from generation to generation, but our obsession with success is no less religious than Zeus worshippers in the ancient world. Women and men who pursue this god often sacrifice their integrity and abandon their own families to claw their way to the top. The ladder of success is riddled with broken lives that have served the false god of success.
Another popular god has been the god of society. In the ancient world this god of society was epitomized every time a king or ruler claimed to be a god. The Roman general Julius Caesar was such a ruler, as well as the Egyptian Pharaoh who refused to release Israel from their slavery. In more recent times Karl Marx reintroduced the god of society in new clothing when he claimed that every other interest has to take back seat to the interests of society. This is why Marx hated religion so much, calling it the drug of the masses, because he knew that so long as people held to a higher authority than society Marxism would never work. Causalities of Marx’s version of the god of society can be found throughout China, Cuba, Korea, and the former Soviet Union. Then of course there was Adolf Hitler’s version of the god of society. Hitler put his ideology of nazism at the top of Germany’s priorities, and he demanded that every German social institution do the same. Virtually every social institution did—the press, the schools, the labor unions, the military, the universities. But many Christians in the church resisted, resisted even to the point of imprisonment and death. In 1934 Christians gathered together and wrote the Barman Declaration, where they made their opposition to Hitler’s nazism public. Followers of Jesus Christ like Martin Niemoller and Detrich Bonhoeffer were imprisoned because of this opposition. In 1946, immediately after World War II, a Christian named Elton Trueblood wrote a book called Foundations For Reconstruction. While the fires in Europe were still burning and the ash from Auschwitz was still settling, Trueblood wrote his book to give European Christians an agenda to rebuild. Listen to Trueblood’s words: "The brave opposition to Hitler which was provided by Christian groups…has amazed the world…Many have been curious to know what the secret of this courageous opposition was. What did the church have that the labor unions and the newspapers and the universities did not have? We now know the answer: They had the first commandment" (14).
Trueblood reminds us that while it’s important to not murder and not steal, but it’s far more important that we have some central conviction that gives us the courage to refuse to murder and steal, even when a dictator commands us to (16). That’s what the confessing Christians in Germany had, the first commandment. Whenever any political ideology—whether it’s fascism, socialism, capitalism, communism or whatever takes the central place in a person’s life, that person is bowing to the god of society. Whenever any government demands exclusive loyalty, that government has become the god of society.There’s also the god of pleasure. The Greek sex goddess Aphrodite and the Greek partying god Dionysus are ancient examples of the god of pleasure. Perhaps more smoke has gone up to the god of pleasure in the 20th century than any other false god. The annals of Rock and Roll history are littered with the broken lives of men and women who pursued this god until it destroyed them. Names like Janis Joplan, Jimmy Hendrix, Kirt Cobain and Queen’s Freddy Mercury are just a few. Idols of drug abuse, alcohol addiction, and sexual promiscuity have left countless lives ruined. Even though I was an atheist for many years, this was the god I worshipped the most before I came to know Jesus Christ. Whenever I’m on a ride-along as a police chaplain with our local police department and I go into our city’s dance clubs, I immediately realize that the worship of Aphrodite and Dionysus is alive and well.Finally, there’s the god of self. The origin of this kind of worship goes all the way back to the third chapter of Genesis, when the serpent whispered, "You shall be as gods yourselves." Perhaps the Greek god Narcissus is an example of the god of self. Narcissus the god who fell in love with his own image, and sat starting at his own reflection. It’s no accident that sociologist Christopher Lasch has dubbed American culture a culture of narcissism. We see this in many people’s obsession to have a perfect body, to make their bodies somehow immortal by working out and—if that doesn’t work—by cosmetic surgery. We see this god worshipped whenever someone picks up a gun and takes someone else’s life, because by doing that they declare themselves to have the power of life and death, a power reserved for the true God. We see it when people consult psychic friends and crystal balls to know the future. We see it when New Age proponents like Shirley MacLaine say that the most tragic event of our generation is the fact that we’ve forgotten that we are all gods.
Suddenly the claim that 3 out of 4 Americans are "completely true to the first commandment" sounds ridiculously hollow and drips with self-deception. We’re not true to the one God, but we’ve simply lost the ability to identify the false gods in our lives. Friends everyone has a god, whether it goes by old traditional names like Zeus and Dionysus, or more modern names like climbing the corporate ladder and "finding myself," everyone has a god.
2. A Question to Answer
That leads us to our next observation, which is going to be a question to answer. Look at 1 Thessalonians 1:9 with me.
For they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.
The Thessalonian Christians had been worshipping the gods of success and society, the gods of pleasure and self. But when they heard the good news about Jesus, they turned their back on these gods and embraced the living and true God. The living God is the God who’s able to impart life, because the living God is the author of life. The true God is the god who exists in objective reality, not merely in the imagination of the worshipper.
That leads us to our question to answer. If everyone has a god, DO I HAVE THE RIGHT GOD?
In our post-modern culture we often hear that it doesn’t matter what we believe so long as we’re sincere. Whether we call God Zeus or Jesus, Allah or Buddha, Krishna or Dionysus, aren’t these just different ways of talking about the same thing? Yet all 66 books of the Bible claim that there is a true and living God who stands in opposition to the false gods of our world.This true and living God isn’t known by guessing or by tasting each god cafeteria style. As Martin Luther said so many years ago, we can’t know the true God by climbing the ladder of reason or the ladder of self-effort or the ladder of experience. There’s too much at stake in how we answer to this question to trust the sufficiency of our own thoughts or our own merits or our own experiences. So God comes down the ladder through his Son Jesus, as a work of grace, to make himself known in a definitive way. This is the God revealed to us in the Bible as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the triune God, the creator of the universe, the source of all life and breath.
Do you have the true and living God, or have you be substituting false and dead gods? Bowing down to a false god is like hugging a mannequin (Hybels 13). But the knowing the true God is life itself.
3. A Commitment to Keep
Now the way this first commandment is phrased it sounds awfully negative to us. After all, it is prohibition, a "Thou shalt not." But there’s a positive side to this prohibition: God doesn’t want us to have any other gods because God wants us to have him. Not only does Deuteronomy provide us with the first commandment in its negative form, but it also provides us with the positive side of the first commandment as well: Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
This passage is known to modern Jews as the Shema, and the orthodox Jewish people recite this passage in Hebrew every day. The word "LORD" here is that Hebrew word Yahweh, that occurs over 6,000 times in the Old Testament. To the nation of Israel this was God’s personal name, and it comes from the Hebrew verb that means "I am." It points to Israel’s God as the true God, the living God, the God who has self-existence.Israel’s confession is that Yahweh is one.
This is the true God, the unique God, the incomparable, matchless, unequaled and unrivaled God. This is the same one God revealed in the New Testament as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God eternally existent in three persons. Since God is one, our love for Him is to be one. Since God is unique, incomparable, matchless, unequaled and unrivaled, our love for him is to be unique, incomparable, matchless, unequaled and unrivaled. The oneness of God demands singleness of heart, wholehearted love. More than success, more than society, more than pleasure, more than our own selves, this God is to be loved.
Now just in case there’s any doubt that this is just an Old Testament phenomenon, look how Jesus responded in the New Testament when asked about the greatest commandment. One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: ’Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:28-30).
Jesus himself believed that this positive restatement of the first commandment is the most commandment, followed only by love for our neighbor as ourselves. So here we find a commitment to keep. GOD DESERVES FIRST PLACE IN MY LIFE.
The first commandment calls for an entire lifestyle dominated by a living relationship with God (Craigie 153). Because of who God is—the living God, the true God—because God is unique, unequaled, incomparable, unrivaled, he deserves the very first place in our lives. Before our career, before our government, before our family, before our church, before even life itself. And only as we place God in that first place will our career be meaningful, will we be the kind of citizens that make a nation prosperous, will we be the spouse and parent our family needs us to be, will we be able to serve our church in love, and will we be able to live life as it was meant to be lived. Our number one task as followers of Jesus Christ in the world today is to make sure that nothing comes between us and our single hearted love for God (Mehl 41). This is the greatest challenge in all of life, the most difficult priority to keep first.
Even this week as I’ve been studying and reflecting on the first commandment, God has opened my eyes to false gods that I didn’t even know existed, that constantly try to choke out God’s first place in my heart.
Conclusion
The first commandment is the most important of the ten. The bottom line is that there’s nothing more important in life than having the right God in the right place.
Some of you are here today as seekers, and you’ve been chasing after the gods of success, society, pleasure, self or a host of other false gods. Today God is lovingly inviting you into a relationship with himself, to let him become your God because he’s the true God, the living God. Through Jesus Christ, God has come down the ladder and revealed himself. He wants to be your God, and he wants you to love him with all your heart because that’s what you were created to do.
Others of us have come to know the true God, but we’ve placed him in the wrong place in our lives. We’ve tried to add God into an already full life of competing priorities, and somehow God always ends up on the back burner. We’ve drifted away from our most important priority of keeping God first and foremost, we’ve tried to serve more than one master. We’ve allowed our families, our hobbies, our money, our career, even our church to occupy that place in our hearts reserved for God alone. Today God is calling us to give Him our exclusive devotion.
Two weeks ago the Billy Crystal movie "City Slickers" was on TV. That’s a classic movie about midlife crisis and misplaced priorities, and Billy Crystal plays a 37 year old advertising executive named Mitch Robbins who’s lost his zest for life. So Billy Crystal and his two best friends join a dude ranch that’s driving a herd of cattle, and they’re led by a crusty old cowboy named Curly played by Jack Pallance. In one scene Mitch asks Curly what the meaning of life is, and Curly holds up his finger, and says, "One thing, just one thing. Find that one thing." The movie ends by telling us that one thing is different for everybody, but here in the first commandment the one thing is universal for all people: To come to know the true and living God and to find the right place in our life for Him. One thing, just one thing.
Sources
Craigie, Peter. 1976. The Book of Deuteronomy. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Fee, Gordon. 1987. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Jeffers, James. 1999. The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press
Hughes, R. Kent. 1993. Disciples of Grace: God’s Ten Words for a Vital Spiritual Life. Wheaton: Crossway Books.
Hybels, Bill. 1985. Laws that Liberate. Wheaton: Victor Books.
Louw, J. P. and E. Nida (editors). 1989. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. New York: United Bible Societies. CD-Rom edition.
McQuilkin, Robertson. 1995. Biblical Ethics: An Introduction. Wheaton: Tyndale House
Mehl, Ron. 1998. The Ten(der) Commandments. Portland: Multnomah.
NIDOTTE = VanGemeren, Willem A. (editor). 1997. The New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
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Tigay, Jeffrey. 1996. Deuteronomy, The JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.
Trueblood, Elton. 1946. Foundations For Reconstruction. New York: Harper & Brothers.
