Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
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sermon. God Bless. Oh Lord, would we find that
the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the
soul. The statutes of the Lord are pure, reviving
the simple. Lord, would we find that in this
season it is a joy to look at your commandments,
to hear that you shall have no other gods before
me, before you. and that we would eagerly cast
aside all the other things that call for our
love and our service and our devotion and put
you first. God, would you move in us in this
time? Would our devotion and our love for you
increase? Would our approach to your word and
your commandments be one of delight and joy?
God, teach us now. We say with Samuel long ago,
your people are listening. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, everybody worships. And what I want
to suggest to you is that what you worship gives
you your laws for living. What you worship directs
your paths, directs your life. So last week we
began this series, this Eastertide on the Ten
Commandments. And I said, and I know that as
soon as I say that we're going to be looking
at the Ten Commandments, there's sort of a reticence
when we say let's look at law together. There's
going to be this sort of visceral reaction that
is generally opposed to that idea against it.
Part of this is simply because we don't like
being told what to do. Some of this is is because
of rebellious hearts I suggested to you some
of it is because churches often lead With law
and what you can and cannot do and do and don't
and all that Instead of love and grace. That
is true. And some of this is because of the ubiquitous
widespread Hypocrisy that was not just true of
the religious folk of Jesus day, right? That's
not wasn't just true of the hypocrites that Jesus
called out, but it's still true. It has been
true of so many Christians throughout time, which
is to say there are understandable reasons for
the reaction that we have. Another reason that
I want to suggest to you is because we often
pit law and love against one another. Kind of
think of them as like this polar opposites. We
might prefer to hear Jesus call Or summary of
the law as loving the Lord your God with all
your heart and mind soul and strength and loving
your neighbor as yourself And this also is understandable
But while it may be understandable Jesus is always
upholding the law This is not one jot until not
the small little marks are gonna be taken away
from it And he's always setting the law before
us is something that is good and right and actually
one of the one of the fundamental truths of Christian
faith is that Jesus lives it perfectly on our
behalf. He is the great law abider. So last week,
I suggest to you that the only answer to this
sort of conundrum that we find within ourselves,
right? This call, well, this reticence to sort
of say, ah, law, yuck. And at the same time,
the call to love it, to find it sweet and more
desirable than gold and tastier than honey, so
we're told, is is to look upon the one who has
done the law keeping on our behalf. Who has finished
the work of salvation for us. And so that's why
the whole beginning of the Ten Commandments says,
I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of
the land of slavery. Look at what I have done
for you. It is my action first and foremost.
The Ten Commandments themselves were given in
this context of being brought out from slavery.
and into this new life, not a life of slavery.
So the Ten Commandments aren't given to enslave,
but to instruct in right living, reflecting the
God who has done our salvation. So our meditation
on the law now happens in the context of Good
Friday having happened, of Christ's finished
work on the cross being complete, of the empty
tomb being empty, of God saying new life. the
perfect law -keeping Lord conquering the effects
of rebellion against God, Satan's sin and death
for us. The resurrection, what I also suggested
to you, the resurrection changes us. The resurrection
changes us. God's salvific work in the Old Testament
changed the people of God. That was what the
law was to say. Here is how you now live. How
do we live in light of God's salvation for us?
Who God is and what God has done determines Who
we are and what we are to do what we're to be
about and So it makes sense that the very first
commandment Has to do with who's your God? Who's
your God? Shall have no other gods before me
What do you look to love and serve If the answer
to our conundrum with the law is what God has
done, the answer to sort of our question of worship
has to do with relationship. Okay. And I want
to suggest to you, I want to consider this first
commandment, which is you shall have no other
gods before me by suggesting that there's actually
two relationships that are on offer here. Okay.
There's the relationship of other gods and then
there's the you and me. Other gods knew me. So
the first thing I want to consider is just the
idea of other gods and I think as I as I say
that and as maybe as you hear this first commandment,
you shall have no other gods before me you think
of other gods my Well, I think it's important
that I acknowledge that Probably very few of
you. My guess is none of you Have shrines in
your basement to Baal, to, I don't know, Allah,
to Vishnu or Shiva. No, okay. I didn't think
so. When you think of other gods, it wouldn't
surprise me at all if what first comes to your
mind are some of the ancient gods. Zeus, Aphrodite,
Apollo, Juno, Mars. Think that's such an antiquated
way of engaging with the world Maybe what comes
to your mind is other religions and so other
gods Brings to your mind. Yes Allah maybe or
the Shinto kami something that's so far off from
your experience Of course when you think of it
like this This commitment in some ways becomes
a non -commit, non -issue, right? So no other
gods before me. You're like, well, I mean, what?
Okay. All right. You're rarely thinking of those
other gods that I mentioned. Don't give them
the time of day. You aren't going to the temples
of Aphrodite or Juno or Mars and offering sacrifices,
are you? No, you're not. You aren't probably
lighting incense to Brahma, not likely. Probably,
my guess is none of you in this room frequent
the Buddhist center up on Wiccanisco in Uptown.
How many of you knew it was there? Yeah, okay,
a couple of you. It's not likely that these things
cross your mind. And yet I began this sermon
with this idea that everybody worships, each
one of you. But think of this, okay? Aphrodite
was the god of love and lust and beauty and pleasure
and procreation. Juno was the god of marriage,
of childbirth, of women and statecraft. Juno
is the god, I'm sorry, Mars is the guardian god
over fields, livestock, crops, that which sustains
you. He's also the god of war. It's not too hard
to make the connection, is it? It's not too hard
to make the connection. It's not just that the
ancient world had many gods and that is so silly
in our minds, but that the ancient gods that
they had are the very gods that we still have.
The very things that we still hold up is that
which gives us purpose and orients our time and
our lives. What is a God after all? What is a
God? Other than that, which we love, which we
serve, which we devote our energy and attention
to, which we listen to, to direct us, which we
allow to control us. I mean, yes, the God is
what we worship. There's certain acts of worship
for different kinds of gods. But what you worship
is what you love is what controls us. It dictates
our lives, our time, and our energy. Again, one
of the things I want to try to stress this morning
is that a god is that which we allow to give
us the laws by which we live by. Who gives you
your law? How do you orient your life? Of course,
today in our world, the lawgiver is most often
ourselves, right? We're our own gods. Self -actualization
is our goal. Self -determination is our goal.
It is the age -old sin. ever since the garden
of placing ourselves in the role of God. We determine
how we spend our time, our money, how we engage
with our bodies, how we engage with others. Don't
tell us what to do, we think. And of course,
today in our world, of course, another one that
dictates our lives, that gives us our law is
others, just the others about us. We are in a
world that is so fraught with anxiety and there's
all kinds of reasons for this and that many of
them are very very understandable But you probably
have heard hopefully you've heard by now the
anxiety went crazy high after what was introduced
in 2009 the like button Facebook's like button
you can chart anxiety goes right up Which is
to say that we are so desirous of the approval
others. We're paralyzed with worry, which is
what anxiety often is, a paralyzing worry over
the approval of our friends, maybe of our family,
our perfectionistic father, our hypercritical
mother. These things dictate how we live. Often
they dictate the clothes we wear. The shows we
attend, the food that we eat, all of it. They
give us our law for living. So it's not hard
to make a connection between the ancient gods
and the gods of our own day. What I'm suggesting
to you is in fact, most time they're the same.
It's the same thing. For us, they're still the
great gods of sex and shekels, money, stomach.
They're still the great gods of pleasure and
of possessions and position and power. They're
still the same gods of football, sports. Y 'all
didn't hear that. Of the firm, right, our work.
And of course, the great god of family. They're
not far. These still dictate how we spend our
time. What we look at. who we honor, what we
do with our bodies and others' bodies, how we
spend our money, how we use our words, and what
we desire. If you're wondering, all I did just
then was translate the Ten Commandments into
different words. They still give us the Ten Commandments.
Because what you worship invites you into a way
of living. What you worship orients your life,
gives you a law for what you do. There are all
kinds of other gods. Let's not look down our
noses at the ancient world thinking how passe,
how immature, when we follow in their footsteps.
Everybody worships. And of course this is why
David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, which
I have quoted over the last 11 years, probably
three or four times, I'm going to quote again.
Gave this at Kenyon College back in 2005. Here's
what he says. Here's something else that is true.
In the day -to -day trenches of adult life, there's
actually no such thing as atheism. There's no
such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships.
The only choice we get is what to worship. And
an outstanding reason for choosing some sort
of God or spiritual type thing to worship, be
it JC, by which he means Jesus Christ, be it
JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother
goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infangible
set of ethical principles, is that pretty much
anything else you worship will eat you alive.
If you worship money or things, if they are where
you tap real meaning in life, then you will never
have enough. never feel you have enough, it's
the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and
sexual allure and you will always feel ugly and
when time and age start showing you will die
a million deaths before they finally plant you.
On one level we know all this. stuff already.
It's been codified as myths, proverbs, cliches,
brahmids, epigrams, parables, the skeleton of
every great story. The trick is keeping the truth
up front in daily consciousness. He says, worship
power, you will feel weak and afraid and you
will need ever more power over others to keep
the fear at bay. Worship intellect being seen
as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud,
always on the verge of being found out and so
on. Everybody worships. It's true. Everybody
worships. So his suggestion, it seems, is probably
to lean into worshiping some of the big gods,
the personal ones, he says, that which is outside
of you. And so he suggests, you know, JC or Allah
or Yahweh or the wicked mother goddess. Of course,
this brings me to sort of the second point, the
second relationships that is in this commandment.
shall have no other gods, other gods, you shall
have no other gods before me." Which is to say
that the commandment is inviting us into a personal
relationship with the Creator, the you and me.
Again, I suggested last week that there's a widespread
idea that Christians should be led not by law,
but by love. What I'm suggesting in a way to
you today is that what you love ultimately dictates
how you live, the laws that you follow in your
life. I'm suggesting to you that what or who
you worship always dictates your life. It always
orients your life. And so you shall have no other
gods before me is the foundation commandment
from which the others kind of. flow out of, which
is also to say law and love are not so antithetical
to one another. What we're called to in the first
commandment is a call to a personal relationship
with the one true God. It's the you and the me.
That is the foundation for all other living.
So remember how the commandments began We heard
these again this morning. They began this way
by saying, I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord
your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery. Which is to say,
I have a personal relationship with you. The
Lord there is actually the covenant name for
God at Yahweh. The way he reveals himself to
his people. He says, I am in committed relationship.
with you. I'm in a covenant with you. He binds
himself to his people. There is love in this
relationship. There is honor. There's service.
There's caring for each other. He's saying, you
and me, we're in this together. You can't have
other gods. We are in this mutual relationship.
The relationships that make up our lives can
Think about this thing. We can break them in
a cup We can we can kind of categorize relationships,
right? We can categorize them into the personal
relationships and the impersonal relationships
It's kind of simple, you know, your personal
relationships are your friends and your family
and you know the I am use and the impersonal
relationships are the it's right so You can think
of these kinds of relationships like the relationship
you have with your car or your microwave or your
shoes or your clothes, or all this kind of impersonal
stuff, which is what we use for our convenience.
We primarily use these things. They help us express
ourselves creatively sometimes, wonderfully sometimes.
They help us get from point A to point B. They
help us execute our plans in life, right? But
they are fundamentally things that we use. And
I'm suggesting to you this morning that that
is how gods work. The other gods that we place
before the one true God. You offer sacrifices
to Aphrodite so that your sex life can be good.
It's a using relationship. She takes from you.
Just as David Foster Wallace said she takes from
you You worship Mars so that you can win the
war With your wife or whatever And he takes Uses
you you use him he uses you You pray to Juno
so you can be married and have children. It's
an instrumental thing It's for a certain end.
It's a using it's impersonal dynamic. These gods
are used and they use you. This is of course
what he was saying with regards to beauty and
sexual allure and money and power and all the
rest. You use them and they take from you. Which
is to say that false gods always dehumanize.
They always do. We know what this is like to
handle other people for our convenience and we
know that it is wrong To do so with another person
is to treat them as a thing as an it and Yet
the other gods all other gods call you into this
way of being in the world They do it is intrinsic
to who they are and what they are about And you
know how wrong it is You've probably been treated
this way by other people, used for certain ends,
used by your boss, used in a relationship, used
by your parents for their own sense of self -worth.
You know how wrong this is. And yet this is the
call of any other God before the one true God
who says, you and me. I am the Lord, your God.
This you and me relationship with God this I
and you relationship with God this Yahweh covenant
-making relational building God This reality
is what commends the first commandment and commends
Christianity As opposed to any other way of living
any other God to orient how you live into the
world What you worship gives you your laws for
living And any other God will invite you into
a depersonalized, impersonal way of engaging
in the world. Every other God, other than the
one true God, will invite you to live in a way
that takes and takes and uses and uses. But the
truth about Christianity is that the God of the
Bible is the personal God. The you and me. The
I. and your God, the Lord, your God, who brought
you out from slavery. And what does he do there
at Sinai? He doesn't just give the Ten Commandments,
but he says, we're going to build a house here.
I'm going to move into the neighborhood, you
and me together. It's a relationship. There's
no other God who claims both to be the creator
of all things and to become part of his creation.
There's no other God who creates all things and
then says I'm gonna take on flesh and move into
the neighborhood There is no other God There's
no other God that sees the brokenness of the
world and says I'm going to be broken for it
because I desire Not to use you but you Life
with you There's no other God who creates all
things and becomes one of us. There's no other
God who loves the world so much that He gives
His Son that whoever believes in Him shall have
everlasting life with Him. You see, the whole
thing is God saying, I want to be with you. I'm
the Lord, the covenant -making God. It's not
an impersonal, but a personal relationship and
a God that is committed to being with us. There's
no other God Who is not just using us and we
are not just using Now there is no other God
who invites us into this kind of relationship
Not so we can use them but so that we can know
them and love them and live with them Easter
the cross and the resurrection This is part of
what I'm suggesting in this series that the salvation
story behind the ten commandments is I'm Lord
your God who brought you out of land of slavery.
Right? There's this salvation and there's this
relationship that is established and therefore
there's this way of being in the world. That
is what Easter is also doing. The cross and the
resurrection are the backstory of life with God
and therefore of how we live if we've been raised
with Christ, if we have been. Seek the things
that are above, where Christ is. Put on this
relationship. And the relationship, the you and
me between us and God, the love that God has
for us perfectly in Christ is what invites us
into this life with this God and therefore means
putting away all other gods which orient our
time and our energy and our money and our emotions
and all the rest. It's true that we have a reticence
to the commandments. And I think it's true that
this reticence is answered by not seeing that
we have to do or don't do or do or don't do,
but we look upon the work of Christ and say it
is done. It is finished. I think it's also true
though that the answer to who or what we should
worship can only be answered by saying, who actually
wants relationship with us? Who doesn't just
want to take from us? And who do we not just
want to take from? And the only answer I know
of is this God, the one true God, the creator,
the covenant maker, the covenant keeper who takes
on flesh. for us, who becomes one of us, walks
among us, invites us to call upon the Father
as our Father. Greater love has no one than this,
that He lay down His life for His friends. And
this is the way that God interacts with you.
Not demanding you sacrifice all to Him, but Him
hanging upon the cross, being sacrificed For
you, greater love has no one than that. He laid
down his life for us and therefore, brothers
and sisters, let's have no other gods before
him. Amen. Lord. When we are honest with ourselves,
we can think of how. Much of our time and our
energy and our honoring of some and not of others
and the ways that we use others and covet from
others and spend and all the rest Is a reflection
that we are that our hearts are idle factories
And we need this commandment To not have any
other gods before you because we are so often
placing other gods before you. Other gods that
give us our laws for living, our ways of being
in the world, our calls to action. God, would
we in this series, would we today see the beauty
in these relational words, you and me? I am you.
I'm the Lord. Yahweh, your God. Jesus took on
flesh and moved into the neighborhood, gives
my life willingly for my friends. God, I pray
that we would see the beauty of a God who is
relational. who dignifies persons doesn't treat
us as the it's and we don't treat as the it.
We have a life together. God, I pray that this
communion, this fellowship that we have with
you would enliven our hearts and change our lives
and therefore brighten the world. God, I pray
that we'd be a people that are putting other
gods to death. Find it our joy to live into this
commandment. You shall have no other gods before
me. And do all that we can to live into that
reality. This commandment, this law that can
produce great love. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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