
Connect: All These Questions…
- Why am I looking forward to the game today and not so much to this sermon?
- Tomorrow is Valentines day, but why am I so hurt by my spouse or my boyfriend?
- Why is it so easy to talk about my bathroom remodel?
- Why does parenting and grandparenting feel so hard?
- Why does my job stress me out?
- Why do people so often disappoint me?
- Where does all this depression and anxiety come from?
- These are good questions!
- And these questions literally have everything to do with our relationship with God.
Series: God Has Not Been Silent
- Every relationship, experience, and response to trouble, everything that matters is tied to our relationship with God.
- 3500 years ago on a mountain in the middle of Egypt, God spoke to Moses
- God gave him the most well-known blueprint that explains our relationship with God and how to love others. How to do life.
- The blueprint is timeless and relevant today.
- And when we know God’s true heart for the commandments and the enabling help and power that comes from the gospel, we have a framework for understanding and experiencing God that directly influences the things that matter to us!
- The hope of our 10 weeks inside the 10 Commandments together is that our hearts will calibrate to the heart of God so that we can pivot to everything else that matters and affirm God’s leadership as good and perfect, live lives that align to His leadership, and… to be satisfied. This is human flourishing.
Scripture: What is the second Commandment?
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. —Exodus 20:4-6
In the second commandment…
- We get a command: When it comes to God, don’t start creating or elevating anything or anyone or any way of life that removes God from the picture.
- We get the why: God is lovingly jealous for you. God has such a great plan for relationship with him that truly works. Any other way is seriously wrong.
- We get the consequences of obedience and disobedience. Getting relationship with God wrong will affect every relationship you have… both now and for generations.
- It’s as if God is saying. You are a participant in this relationship. Follow my design and it will go so well with you. Follow your own plan, and the consequences are devastating.
And for thousands of years God’s people have been challenged by this.
- Throughout the Old Testament the people of God vacillated back and forth between God’s way and their way.
- Turning from controlling and manipulating their experience of God, suffering the consequences, and then returning to God’s design and affirming His perfect method and goodness.
- And it’s the same for us, today. We have choices to make in our relationship with God and we are active participants.
- And the second commandment helps us with all of it.
What is the 2nd Commandment all about?
It’s about Lordship
- To understand the second commandment, we have to go back to the first commandment.
- And the first commandment is all about Lordship
- Scott taught this last week
- In fact, Hebrew scholars often thought about and taught about the first and second commandment together.
- Scott taught us, Lordship is the exclusivity and priority that God deserves because of his undeniable proven love for us through the ancients and through Jesus.
- To understand Lordship today, as we learn about the second commandment, I want to introduce another way to define and understand Lordship.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. —Colossians 1:15-20
- God has shown his Lordship to us through who he is, what he has done, and his love for us so that he might be “preeminent”.
- Preeminent = is a fancy word for FIRST PLACE
- Lordship, quite simply is, First Placeness
- Knowing, following, and understanding the second commandment is all about what’s taken first place in our lives. It’s all about Lordship.
- Whatever is in first-place in your heart… that’s Lordship.
- Lordship is the declaration. This is my God. This is what I pledge my spiritual loyalty to.
It’s about Worship
- The second commandment is all about Worship
- Worship is our adoring, love filled, sacrificing, and lived out response to Lordship.
Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules —that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. —Deuteronomy 6:1-5
- I think this timeless passage gives us a clear definition of Worship.
- Worship is our heart, our soul, our mind, and strength response to the Lordship, the first placeness of God
- It’s about our hearts. Where I am enthralled in my emotions and my adoration
- It’s about our souls. Where the deepest part of me is truly engaged. Where I connect.
- It’s about our minds. Where I study, and research, where I daydream and plan, and give my best thinking.
- It’s about our strength. Where my time, energy, and money are leveraged. Where the limited resources I have are leveraged every day.
- Worship is our response to God. Where we engage with our heart, our soul, our mind, and strength to respond to the Lordship, the first placeness of God.
It’s About Satisfaction…
- Satisfaction with God’s ability in us and through us in our relationship with him and with everything else.
- Satisfaction with God’s pace and timing of our growth and maturity and the growth and maturity of others.
- Satisfaction with the measure of rest and enjoyment that God gives us inside of our passions, hobbies, and worldly things.
- Satisfaction in God’s provision for our every need both practical and spiritual.
- Satisfaction with God’s leadership in giving us perspectives, outlooks, and action steps to face the trouble that the world serves us.
- Psalm 37:4. Defines satisfaction…
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart —Psalm 37:4
- Satisfaction means that delighting in God has resulted in perfect provision for my experience here and now. Good timing. Good results. Good enjoyment. Good peace.
- The results of my relationship with God are enough.
It’s about God’s Spot
- The second commandment is warning about all of this because God’s blueprint for relationship with him is under constant threat.
- Here’s the danger. God wants the first place spot as our Lord, the first place spot in our Worship, and first place spot in our satisfaction.
- And we’re under constant threat and temptation to actively move God out of His spots.
- Here’s how we do it:
- We do this when we exchange God’s Lordship: We turn to someone or something else and say, “This is my God”. And we’re loyal to it. Someone or something else has literally taken God’s God spot.
- We do this when we misplace worship: Giving our first and best heart, soul, mind, strength efforts to something other than God first.
- In our hearts: We become over-enthralled with something or someone else and God either takes second place or is removed.
- In our souls: Our deepest first connections happen between us and something or someone else other than God.
- In our minds: Our study and our research, our day dreams, our thinking and best planning go to something other than God first.
- In our strength. We leverage our schedules, our energy, our resources toward someone or something else before God gets any of it.
- We do this when our satisfaction gets compromised and we trust completely in something or someone else to provide what only God can provide.
- It sounds like this. I’m a Christian, but I’ll ultimately be satisfied when
- It sounds like this. I’m a Christian, but I’ll ultimately be satisfied when
- The second commandment, when it comes down to us, is a warning about creating a new way to do relationship with God.
- Creating, replacing, or adding on to God’s spot… in any of these three things.
- And when we trade-out God or force God to compete in any area, there’s no telling what our experience will be.
- Our hearts or our culture will always offer methods, solutions, people, philosophies, and lifestyles that compete with God for Lordship, Worship, and Satisfaction
- The Ancients struggled with this.
- Our ancestors in the old testament modeled very well, what not to do
- Our ancestors of the Old Testament had God revealed in creation, experience, and in his word (through Moses and the prophets) and they had their reality – their farms, the families, their felt needs and desires.
- They had God, just like we do.
- They had to choose. Just like us.
- They had legitimate wants, just like us: Good weather, success in wars, sun and rain for their crops, children and thriving families, satisfying relationships, strength, maturity –
- But when pressure, fear, and the uncertainty came, their legitimate wants turned into ugly desires and practices.
- They decided… Our fundamental needs cannot and will not be met by the one true God, so we will pursue an alternate reality…
- Here’s what it looked like for them…
- They chose other Gods: Bel, Nebo, Ashtoreth, Chemosh, Molech, Baal, Dagon…
- Their counterfeit gods required worship in order for them to get what they wanted.
- This gave our heart, soul, mind, and strength response. They created objects, statues, icons, mindsets, systems, and places of worship where they would engage in activities like prostitution and sacrifice (often child prostitiution and sacrifice) in order to gain healthy crops, good weather, fertility, success in war, and all kinds of other things
- And their satisfaction was compromised. They didn’t receive the results they wanted. They gained the generational chaos and confusion in the places that mattered and worked at life apart from God.
- We hear things like this and think…What?! Is this really true.
- So much of it was truly detestable
- How can this commandment be the same for us today?
- Today
- Is Lordship and Worship and Satisfaction an issue for us? Today? Absolutely!
- I think, more than ever we engage in this battle
- We can think of idols in a traditional “Old Testament” way, statues of wood or stone, but remember idolatry is when we work to create, replace, or add on to God’s design for Lordship, Worship, and Satisfaction.
- Idolatry is when the promise of the God’s perfect spot inside of his blueprint for relationship drifts from center stage – and something else takes God’s place
- Here are some things worth consideration.
- Modern Day Idols
- Performance: Trying to please someone in order to get acceptance or approval
- Perfectionism: Trying to perform to standards that you have set
- Performance of others: If people don’t do things, you become judgmental or unloving
- Hobbies, Sports, Money, Success, Position, Power
- Being respected or admired by others
- Being in control
- Family: Having a healthy family, looking like a healthy family
- Relationships: Boyfriend, girlfriend – Having a boyfriend or girlfriend.
- Ideologies: Politics or a “movement”
- Worldly pleasures: drugs, alcohol, sex
- Things: My car, clothes, shoes, etc.
- These things can either literally become our God, they can become the fuel for our Worship, and they can be the metrics for our satisfaction.
All three aspects of God’s design for relationship, Lordship, Worship, Satisfaction are at risk
The danger for us, is that truly, anything can become an idol or a place where we create an alternate reality to go about our relationship with God.
It’s about calibration
- But here’s the opportunity in the second commandment.
- The second commandment is all about calibration.
You may be thinking… so How Do I know?
- So how do I know if my kids, that I love and am called by God to shepherd, have become an idol?
- How do I know if my marriage, which is a covenant commitment, has become an idol?
- I believe that my work is a way that I bring God glory; Is it an idol?
- My hobby brings me such peace and rest and helps me engage in all of the other areas of my life; Do I have to stop watching football or riding my motorcycle?
Calibration involves getting an X-Ray of Your Heart.
- The battle for Lordship, Worship, and Satisfaction is waged in our hearts.
- We cannot look outside of ourselves to find where idolatry is coming from
- Here is the one confession we work so hard to avoid…
- Our deepest, most pervasive, most abiding problem is us. If we can humbly make admit that our lives will never be the same, for the better.
- The scriptures encourage x-ray diagnostics of our hearts…
- Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart!Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me,and lead me in the way everlasting! —Psalm 139:23-24
- How do I go about an X-Ray of the heart?
Ask good questions:
- Do I want what I want, or do I want Christ’s lordship over my life?
- Where am I defending myself?
- What are my goals, expectations, intentions?
- Where do I look for security, meaning, happiness, fulfillment, joy, or comfort?
- Where do I put my basic trust?
- What am I afraid of?
- Who or what do I love and hate most of all?
- How do I define success or failure in a particular situation?
Follow the trail of your time, money, and affections, asking, will I:
- Sacrifice for it
- Spend time on it
- Spend money on it
- Talk about it (all the time)
- Protect it/defend it
- Serve it
- Think about it
- Worry about it
- Get angry when someone blocks you from it or messes with it
- Build your schedule around it
- Daydream about it
Look For Chaos
- Work backward from the chaos in your life to your heart
- Idolatry creates confusion with everyone around you.
- Unchecked idols lead to ugly explosions and strong emotional responses.
- Relationships always suffer. Ask…
- Why am I punishing this person?
- What am I expecting so much from this person?
- Why do I have this conflict?
Don’t be tricked to claim immunity!
- Idolatry is never satisfied!
Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. —Ephesians 4:19
Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed —James 1:14 Even the apostle Paul articulated the struggle
For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do… O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death —Romans 7:15, 24
- Left unchecked, Idolatry will blind us to common sense…
- Drive a man or woman who has a beautiful spouse to pornography
- Drive a family who has financial peace to invest in a get-rich-quick scheme
- Drives a working man or woman to work 70 hours a week trying to land bigger salary
- Drive a passionate follower of Christ to abandon the church
- Idolatry is never satisfied!
- But here’s the good news…
It’s about the Gospel
- The Second Commandment points us to a true gospel.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. —1 John 2:1-2
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. —2 Corinthians 7:10
For there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. —Romans 8:1
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. —Philippians 1:6
Pastor’s Challenge
- Questions:
- Who or what is your God?
- Is God at the heart of my worship: The daily activities that get my heart, soul, mind, and strength?
- Am I truly satisfied?
- Actions:
- Go to God for an X-Ray of your heart.
- Allow the gospel to calibrate your relationship with God.