1st Who do you love?

Exodus 20:3

The supreme god in Greek mythology was Zeus. Being the supreme god meant he had easy access to the women of the world and made him difficult to resist. He married four times. His final marriage was to Hera but she was followed by many lovers.

One of these was Io with whom Zeus fell in love and seduced. To try to keep Hera from noticing he covered the world with a thick blanket of clouds. This backfired, arousing Hera’s suspicions. She came down from Mount Olympus and began dispersing the clouds. Zeus did some quick thinking and changed Io’s form so as the clouds dispersed, Hera found Zeus standing next to a white heifer. He then swore that he had never seen the cow before, it had just sprung right out of the earth.

This reminds me of a country-western song in the US that has the chorus: That’s my line and I’m sticking to it.

Reading the stories of Greek mythology makes me think of modern day soap operas. Love, lust, jealousy, revenge, treachery, betrayal, all these are represented in these stories of the gods.

When Annie and I walked through Ephesus in Turkey and Pompeii in Italy, both ruins of ancient Roman cities, we were impressed with how many gods there were. You couldn’t turn without seeing a god. Every household had altars to gods. Every business had altars to gods. As you walked down the streets of these Roman cities, there was temple after temple to the various gods.

The Romans had thirty original gods and then over time added more as special needs arose. As Rome spread its empire through the world, it brought in the gods of the lands they conquered, adding to the gods to be worshiped. And then the Roman emperors declared themselves to be gods as well.

Israel was familiar with the Egyptian pantheon of gods of which there were over 2,000. There was the creator god, god of the dead, cat goddess, moon god, protector of the stomach of people who died god (this is probably my favorite), cow goddess, fertility god, goddess of truth and justice, goddess of the sky and heavens, goddess of love and beauty, sun god, god of chaos, crocodile god, harvest god, and on and on.

When you read the ten commandments, you need to know the context in which they were presented. Israel had lived in Egypt for four hundred years which is a long time. 1606 to 2006, that’s four hundred years. And in those years they had taken the Egyptian customs and gods as their own. The Israelites who left Egypt with Moses followed the practices of their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and on back. When they planted crops, they prayed to Osiris. When they wanted children, they prayed to Min. When they were worried about evil spirits, they prayed to Bes. Yes, they also prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Undoubtedly, these stories were passed down, but he was one of many gods in their lives.

These are the people God told Moses to rescue and lead out of Egypt. When we read the account and see that while God was giving the law to Moses, they created a golden calf to worship, we are amazed at their stupidity. Who rescued them from Egypt? Who sent the plagues to Egypt? Who parted the sea so they could cross over? It was God who was now meeting with Moses on Mt. Sinai who had done all these things. The god of Moses had demonstrated far more power than any of the Egyptian gods they had known. Shouldn’t it have been obvious that they should show loyalty to this god?

But they were used to having many gods. They saw nothing wrong in thanking one god for something and another god for something else. They did not see that it was so wrong to make a golden calf and dance around it and thank it for rescuing them. They did not see this as an affront to the god of Moses that they also thanked the Canaanite god of fertility and strength to whose land they were now heading.

And in fact, Moses had been on the mountain for such a long time that they were not even sure he was still alive. The god who led them out of Egypt had been Moses’ god. If Moses had been destroyed by the fire and smoke on the mountain, it was time they chose another god to lead them.

It was into this culture of worshiping many gods that God spoke the first commandment.
You shall have no other gods before me.

Before any of the other commandments make sense to us, we need to know who God is and who we are in relationship to him. In this commandment God is saying, “Now get this straight. I am the one and only God. And since I am the only God, I refuse to share my worship with anyone or anything else.”

When God said, “no other gods before me,” what did he mean? Were there other gods who could potentially be lined up, among whom Israel could choose? Did he mean that of all the available gods, he must be chosen first? “Let’s see. I choose the big guy with a gray beard who seems a bit irritated at how long it’s taking me to decide.”

The Egyptians, as did most of the rest of the world, had a stage full of gods and God said in this first commandment, “I will not share the stage with anyone else. I will not have any co-stars. I will not even acknowledge that any other actors exist.”

In Paul’s discussion of food sacrificed to idols in I Corinthians 8, he wrote:
So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one.

This is the message of the Bible right from the beginning in Genesis:
In the beginning God created
And when John began his gospel, he elaborated on this truth
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Before creation there were not a bunch of gods running around and then one day, one of them got bored and decided to create a world. It was not that one of the gods decided to create a bit of mischief and create a world that would keep the other gods occupied.

Before creation, the triune God thought and then created. Angels were created. Lucifer and Michael and Gabriel were created. The universe was created. Before creation there was God. After creation there was God and his created world.

It is because only God preexisted creation that he has the right to say, “You shall have no other gods before me.”

Amon, Jupiter, Zeus and Odin, the chief god of the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks and Scandinavians, do not and never have existed. All the lesser gods in their mythology never existed. The gods of Hinduism do not exist. There is only God who created and all the rest is his creation.

The devil, however, can infuse false gods with his limited power. Paul wrote to the Galatians in 4:8
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

We will deal more with idols next week when we get to the second commandment, but those who worship idols open themselves to the controlling power of the devil and his demons and can become enslaved to them. These false gods have power over us only because we open ourselves to the devil through worship of these false gods. It is not that these gods exist, just that the devil can use our devotion to them to have power over us.

But although these false gods have power, they are unable to stand against the power of the one true God.

When the ark of the covenant that contained the stone tablets of the ten commandments and was the dwelling place of God on earth, was captured by the Philistines, it was placed in a temple to the god Dagon (I Samuel 5)
After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.  2 Then they carried the ark into Dagon’s temple and set it beside Dagon.  3 When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the LORD! They took Dagon and put him back in his place.  4 But the following morning when they rose, there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the LORD! His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold; only his body remained.

The message was clear. No false god can stand up to the glory, might and power of the one true God.

When Jesus came he taught with authority and along with healing and raising from the dead, he cast out demons who were unable to stand up to his authority over them. A demon that could cause a man to break chains and beat anyone who came to him was cast out at just a word of Jesus. Someone possessed by many demons, almost too many to count, could all be cast out at just a word from Jesus.

There is no other god. Only God.

When it comes to worshiping God, it is all or nothing. This is the first commandment God gave to Moses.

When Joshua renewed the covenant with God he said, (Joshua 24:14-15)
“Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.  15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

This is the choice Elijah offered those on Mt. Carmel when he defeated the prophets of Baal. (I Kings 18:21)
Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

And this was the teaching of Jesus (Matthew 6:24)
No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

We may not be in a culture with lots of wood and stone gods to worship, but we still have to make choices to worship the one true God and only the one true God.

How do you know if you are obeying this commandment? How do you know if you are worshiping the one true God?

If you go to church almost every Sunday, are you being obedient to this commandment?

There are a couple questions you can ask yourself that will help you measure your obedience to this first commandment.

The first is this: What do you love?

Origen was a North African Christian who wrote in the third century:
What each one honors above all else, what before all things he admires and loves, this for him is God.

In the Sound of Music, Julie Andrews sang about her favorite things
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens;
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens;
Brown paper packages tied up with strings;
These are a few of my favorite things.

Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels;
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles;
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings;
These are a few of my favorite things.

We all have things we like but this is not what I am talking about. What is it you love? What is it you honor?

You may love raindrops on roses but when you have to make a choice between raindrops on roses or a friend, what do you choose?

We can tell what we most honor and love by what we choose. Some people make choices based on money. Every transaction is decided by what makes the most money. If someone needs to borrow some money I base my decision on how much interest they will pay and whether or not I can get a better return on my money in some other investment. Every time they buy or sell something, the decision is based on how much money will be earned because money is what they most love.

Some people will respond to the call of God to go somewhere in the world by deciding how comfortable their life will be in that land. Will there be good restaurants? Warm showers? Comfort is what they most love.

Some people focus all the attention of their life in an attempt to defy the aging process. They spend a lot of time, energy and money on fitness clubs and medical operations. It is themselves they most love.

And some people will even choose success in ministry as the most important thing in their life because it is what people think of them that they most love.

There is only one rational and wise object of our love and honor and that is the one true God.

How do you know if you are being obedient to this first commandment? How do you choose when you have to make a decision? Who or what comes first in your life?

You can say that God is most important in your life, but when you are married and are having a difficult time and you desperately want a divorce and so go to a lawyer to start divorce proceedings, it is clear that God is not most important in your life. When you are offered an illegal way to make some money and you desperately need the money and so take the offer, it is clear that God is not most important in your life. When you choose the delight of passing on gossip or refuse to forgive someone who has wronged you or cheat on an exam, it is clear that God is not most important in your life.

What or whom do you love? The answer to this question tells you if you have put other gods before God.

A second question to ask to assess your obedience to this first commandment is: What do you trust?
Martin Luther wrote:
Whatever your heart clings to and relies upon, that is properly your God.

What do you do when you are depressed, worried, frightened, uncertain?

Some people go shopping and buy something to make themselves feel better. Some people get drunk to ease the tension they feel. Some people escape into the euphoria of drugs. Some people use a sexual conquest to pick themselves up.

Not all the things we trust are bad for us. Some of us put our confidence in the money we have in investments, insurance policies and pension plans. Some may come from influential families and are able to trust the family’s ability to help in a difficult situation. Some trust their own strength and wits that enable them to get out of trouble.

In one of David’s better moments, he wrote (Psalm 20:7)
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Although there were clearly times in David’s life when he trusted God, there were also times when he placed his confidence in his own power and abilities.

I am convicted by these two questions and especially by the second. I can make a case for my obedience on the first question, Who do you love? and get past a first examination of the truthfulness of my reply. The truth is that on closer examination, it is clear that my love for God is not pure and I choose wrongly.

But on the second question, it is clear that I instinctively put my trust on so many things other than God. I see this most clearly in comparison to the faith of a friend.

This friend lives apart from his wife and child because his work takes him to another country. He is able to go home only once a year and so when his wife was having problems and he needed to go home to help her, he was unable to do so. He took the pain of being unable to help her and prayed to God for help.

Whereas I would have immediately hopped on a plane and gone back home to deal with the problem, this friend had to remain in Morocco and pray, trusting God to take care of his family. And this is just what happened.

I have seen in this friend a strength in his faith that I do not have and it comes from his having to trust God to work while I am in the position of being able to trust my own resources.

When you get in a jam, a difficult situation, who or what do you trust? When you think about a problem in your life, where do your thoughts take you? Where do you look for help?

Who or what do you love? Who or what do you trust?

When we answer these questions truthfully, it is clear that we fall flat on our faces in an attempt to obey this first of the ten commandments.
You shall have no other gods before me.

Forgive us father for our unfaithfulness.

The problem we have can be illustrated by a man who talked with a farmer bringing back to his meadow a sheep that had been lost. He asked the farmer how the sheep became lost and the farmer replied, “He nibbled himself lost.”

A sheep nibbles on a tuft of grass and then moves to another and keeps on going from tuft to tuft until finally when it looks up, it is lost.

This is our pattern as well. We get caught up in making our way in this life. We have so many concerns, so many demands on our attention. We find ourselves getting up early in the morning and rather than taking time to sit with God and read and meditate and pray, we are distracted by email and unfinished tasks. We may have early morning appointments that cause us to leave the house early to drive somewhere for a meeting. We have so many things that distract us that we move from tuft to tuft until at the end of the day, we are tired and can barely keep our eyes open as we hit the pillow. Day after day we follow our responsibilities, worries and concerns and one day look up and discover we are lost.

Being a Christian means that we have to lift our heads throughout the day and see where it is that God is. Where is our shepherd? We need to remind ourselves throughout the day where we are and who is our God.

We sang this morning:
Lord, I give you my heart,
I give you my soul;
I live for you alone.
Every breath that I take,
Every moment I’m awake,
Lord, have your way in me.
This is our prayer, our desire.

It would be so wonderful if we could at one point in our life make a commitment to God, receive the free gift of salvation and then just coast through life to our final destination of heaven. But that is not the way it works. To be a Christian, to grow as a Christian means you have to continually expend energy and effort. Rather than coast downhill, being a Christian means you have to pedal uphill. Work at being a Christian or you will drift from tuft to tuft until you are lost and Christianity seems less and less meaningful to you.

All the commandments hang on this first one, You shall have no other gods before me. Focus on any of the others without first focusing on this first commandment and you will lead a legalistic, empty life. Keep your focus on this first commandment and you will be led to life that is abundantly lived and to a life lived in eternity with the one and only God.