Exodus 20:1-21 · The Ten Commandments
Who's Number One?
Exodus 20:1-3
Sermon
by James Merritt
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9/11 - All of us know that date. Because of that date, another cabinet level department was created to serve the President of the United States - Department of Homeland Security. Note the keyword in that department which is home. The greatest way to protect the homeland is to protect the homes in that land. That is why I am beginning a series of messages I am entitling "Homeland Security." We are going to be dealing with the Ten Commandments, because the greatest way to protect our homes is to teach our homes the what and the why of the Ten Commandments.

I am not the first person to say that Homeland Security and the Ten Commandments are tied together. James Madison, who is called, "The Father of the American Constitution", said this, "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of our politics upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves according the Ten Commandments of God." What an amazing statement! Do the Ten Commandments really carry that kind of clout? That kind of authority? That kind of power? After all, there are only ten of them - one for each finger. They are not very long. You can recite all of them in less than a minute. They are so simple the Bible in Exodus 34:28 simply calls them "The Ten Words."

Yet as simple and short as they are, most of us don't know them and you obviously can't keep commandments that you don't know. A Gallup Poll a few years ago revealed that while 85% of Americans believe that the Ten Commandments are still binding today, only 15% could name five of them. You might think that is probably not too unrealistic for a secular society, but what about religious people? Newsweek magazine once reported that of people who go to church only 49% of all Protestants and 44% of all Roman Catholics could name even four of the Ten Commandments.

It reminds me of a Sunday school teacher who was teaching on the Ten Commandments one time and she asked her kids the question, "Can anybody here list the Ten Commandments in any order?" One little boy raised his hand and said, "I can." She said, "Go ahead." He said, "Okay. 3, 6, 1, 8, 4, 5, 9, 2, 10, 7." I was tempted to give a pop quiz today just to see how many of the Ten Commandments you could name without being prompted.

It is not enough just to know the Ten Commandments we must live them and teach them to our children if we are going to have true "Homeland Security", because the Ten Commandments were given to the family of God that the family of God might teach them to their families.

In Deuteronomy Chapter 5, Moses restated the Ten Commandments that he had received from the Lord on Mt.Sinai. In Chapter 6, Moses gives these instructions. "These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7 NASB)

Did you know that your home is to be a law school? Parents are to teach their kids these commandments, not only to learn them, but also to live them. Here is the reason why. "Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!" (Deuteronomy 5:29, NASB) God said these commandments bring homeland security by securing the home.

I don't mind telling you the older I get, the more my greatest ambition in life is that my children and one day, my future grandchildren, love God and each other more than they love anything or anybody else. I recently conducted the wedding of my oldest son. I wrote a special wedding ceremony that I will only use for my sons and maybe for my grandchildren. I gave them four challenges and this was one of them, "The greatest responsibility you will face as the parents of my grandchildren is to do everything in your power to pass the baton of the Gospel to them. Rear your children to love God and to honor their father and mother." I want it to go well with my children and my grandchildren. I want their homes to be secure.

Before we get into the first commandment, you need to understand that these laws were not given to the Nation of Israel as rules for a relationship with God. These laws were given as a reflection of a relationship with God. You don't keep the Ten Commandments in order to have a relationship with God; you keep them because you do have a relationship with God. The Ten Commandments are not rules for religious people; they are guidelines for God's people. They were meant for God's family.

As our sons began to grow up, we established certain rules in our home: do your homework, don't talk back to your mother, make your bed, and be home on time. I did not give these rules to my kids so they would be my kids; I gave these rules, because they were my kids. These rules simply reflected how I wanted my kids to behave.

Now you will see why the first commandment is not only the first commandment, but it is foundational to the other nine, because if you don't get the first one you will never get the other ones. In the first commandment, God is not saying, "If you want to have a relationship with Me, this is what you have to do." He was saying, "If you have a relationship with Me, this is what you want to do." The first commandment forces us to answer the question, "Who's Number One?"

I. God Deserves My Undivided Attention

It was the third day of the third month, about 3500 years ago, God had literally snatched from the jaws of slavery, a rag-tag totally unimpressive people from one of the greatest military powers in the world. God promised them that He would make them into a nation and bring them into their own land. Before He did that, He brought them to a place called Mt.Sinai, so He could reveal His heart, His mind and His will to His people.

For the first time in the history of the world, God speaks directly to a nation. "Then God spoke all these words, saying, 'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.'" (Exodus 20:1-2, NASB)

Notice immediately what God does. Before He tells His people what He wants them to do, He first tells them who He is and what He has done.

When He begins with the words, "I am the Lord your God." In that one statement, we find the bedrock revelation of scripture. There is only one Lord. There is only one God. This revelation of one indivisible, almighty, all sovereign, all knowing God, was and still is unique in all history.

Then it gets deeper. He said, "I am the Lord your God." Surprisingly He uses the second person singular showing that He has a personal relationship with each of His people. That personal relationship is also a saving relationship, because He goes on to say, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." (Exodus 20:2, NASB) God was reminding the Israelites that He was not only their Lord and their God, but also their Redeemer.

There are some people who misunderstand the Old and the New Testament and think the Old Testament is all about the law of God and the New Testament is all about the grace of God. Yet, the very first commandment is full of grace. What did God do for these Israelites? He redeemed them and He rescued them and He restored them, not because of anything they did, but simply because He loved them. In that simple sentence is a great history lesson that the Israelites needed to be reminded of.

Remember, God did not give the Ten Commandments until Chapter 20. You can't understand Chapter 20 until you go back and read Chapters 1-19, because they tell the story of how God, by His grace, saved this nation and brought them out of Egypt.

When you go back and read the first 19 Chapters, you will find that the Nation of Israel was trapped in Egypt, in bondage as slaves, with no way out and no place to go. God heard their cries, saw their tears and God answered their prayers.

He sent plagues on Egypt. He sent disease and finally on the night known as "Passover", He sent His death angel through all of Egypt killing the first-born in every family except those who painted the blood of a lamb over their doorpost. That night, Israel learned perhaps the greatest lesson that God ever taught her and that is - If you will trust Me and trust the blood that I shed for your sins, I can save you.

Then, there was the time they were standing on the shore of the Red Sea with water in front of them and Pharaoh's army behind them. What did God do? He parted that Red Sea, brought them safely to the other side and destroyed the Egyptian army in the process.

Later we read where for three months as these Israelites wandered, they got thirsty and when they did, God would open up a rock and pour out water for them. When they got hungry, He fed them every day with what the Bible calls, "manna", which was bread from heaven.

It was only after God had set His people free that He gave them His law. Don't miss that order. Before God gave the Israelites rules to live by, He first delivered them from slavery and redeemed them and established them as His own personal people.

Many people think that in the Old Testament, salvation came by keeping the law, but in the New Testament, salvation comes by grace. The truth is salvation has always come by grace. You don't keep the law to earn the grace of God; it is the grace of God that enables you to keep the law.

The law that God was about to give was for those who had already been redeemed. They had a relationship with God before the rules were ever given. Rules never establish a relationship with God. You do not keep God's rules to have a relationship with God. You keep God's rules, because you have a relationship with God.

God had already proven that He could meet every need His family has. What He asked in return was their exclusive trust and their exclusive worship. He said in effect, "Because of who I am and what I have done, I want your undivided attention. I am the Lord your God."

II. God Desires My Undivided Affection

This is going to come as a real shocker. The Ten Commandments are not about the law of God. They are really about the love of God; His love for us and our love for Him. You may be thinking, "How in the world can you say that these commands have anything to do with the love of God?" I believe it is because of what God has already done in the first 19 chapters of the Book of Exodus prior to giving the Ten Commandments.

When He said, "I am the Lord your God", He was saying in effect it is not enough just to believe in God. God has to be your God; the God that you love and the God that love you.

If we could skip ahead a moment to the first commandment that is actually given in verse 3 we read these words, "You shall have no other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:3, NASB) Notice that in this commandment, God speaks to us in the singular. God says, "You [individually] shall have no other gods before Me [personally]. This god we are to worship is not a god, but the God, who wants to have an exclusive love relationship with each one of His people.

This God who gave these commandments is not primarily a God of law He is primarily a God of love, who wants us to love Him and share His love with others. Jesus himself said, "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me." (John 14:21, NASB) If that is true, you can't separate the law of God from the love of God.

Just in case you think I am imposing this on the Ten Commandments and just forcing my understanding of it, let me take you back to a story that happened in the life of Jesus. There was a lawyer who came to Jesus and he was trying to test Him and he asked Him this question, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" (Matthew 22:36, NASB) This was a trick question, because there were Ten Commandments as the lawyer well knew and he was trying to get Jesus to tell which was the greatest of all.

Listen to the brilliant answer that Jesus gave. "And He said to him, 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.'" (Matthew 22:37-39, NASB)

In other words, Jesus said, "You can basically reduce the Ten Commandments down to two: love God and love your neighbor." Jesus said, "The Ten Commandments are not about law; they are about love." We love God by keeping Him first, not worshiping any other god, not misusing His name and keeping His day holy.

We love our parents by honoring them. We love our spouses by being faithful to them. We love our neighbors by respecting their property, telling them the truth and not wanting what they have. So when you keep the first four commandments, you are just loving God. When you keep the last six commandments, you are just loving others.

The Bible doesn't say, "God is law." The Bible says, "God is love." You cannot only reduce the Ten Commandments to two, you can actually boil the Ten Commandments down to one word. The word is not law the word is love.

That is why God says go back to who I am; I am the Lord your God who desires a personal, loving relationship with you. I am the God who delivered you from bondage. I am the God who rescued you and redeemed you and restored you. Nobody loves you like I do and you should not love anything or anybody like you love Me. God desires my undivided affection.

III. God Demands My Undivided Allegiance

First God tells us who He is, "I am the Lord your God." God then tells us what He has done, "Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Now God tells us what He wants. "You shall have no other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:3, NASB)

Now we can understand why this is indeed the first and the foundational commandment. The greatest challenge in your life and my life is to keep God first. The hardest thing about being a pastor of a church, and a large church, is not preaching (though that's probably the second largest burden). It is not administration. It is not counseling. It is not ministry. The single greatest challenge about being a pastor is maintaining a close personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ and making sure He is first in my life. That will always be job one for God's family; to make sure that nothing comes before God in our priorities, in our plans or in our practice.

I read somewhere where someone said we ought to think of the Ten Commandments as marriage vows rather than a set of laws and that makes sense to me. Just as a good marriage is founded on an excusive, mutual commitment of one person to another person and the trust that goes with that commitment, what God was saying to Israel and to us is basically this, "I want to have a relationship with you and I want you to have a relationship with me. If that relationship is going to work, we have to establish some ground rules. The first ground rule is this - I am your God. I am not one god among many. I am the God and I want to be your God. I brought you out of Egypt to make you My family and My people. No other god has a claim on you like I do, so don't you have any other gods except Me." Strong stuff, but the right stuff.

This command was totally without prescient in the ancient world. No other nation prohibited the worship of other gods. Every nation just assumed that every other nation would serve its own gods. On this issue, the God of Israel was unbending, unyielding and uncompromising. God is totally intolerant.

Listen carefully to the way this commandment is worded, "You shall have no other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:3, NASB) That doesn't mean it is okay to worship other gods as long as you put God first. When God says, "Before Me", He is not just asking to be put at the top of the list or the head of the line.

The words, "Before Me" literally mean, "Before My face." You can translate it this way, "You shall have no other gods in my presence," but that doesn't let you off the hook, because since God is everywhere that means you cannot worship any other god, but this God anytime, anyplace for any reason.

This is what was so unique about both this commandment and this God. Basically what God was saying was, "With Me it is all or nothing. I want to be your one stop shop. I don't want you to ever go to any other god for any other reason." You may remember the slogan of The Three Musketeers, "All for one and one for all." That is exactly what God is saying, "There is one God and one God only for all of us. All of us are to be totally committed to the One and only God.

I know that is not politically correct. I know it goes against the spirit of the age in which we are living. A few months ago, Jim Carrey gave an interview on 60 Minutes and he invited the cameras to one of his most beautiful and private spots, what he calls his "center of the universe" where he goes to escape the world. He talked about his feelings about God. He said, "This is where I hang out with Buddha, Krishna...all those guys...I am a Buddhist, I am a Muslim, I am a Christian. I am whatever you want me to be...It all comes down to the same thing...They are all the same God and it is this conviction and spirituality that makes me happy."[[1]]

Jim Carrey may be funny, but what he said is not. There are some things that are not meant to be shared and cannot be shared. A unicycle can't be shared. A piece of confidential information should not be shared. The sexual love between a husband and wife should not be shared. There is one thing that God says He will not share either. He said in Isaiah 42:8, "I am the Lord; that is My name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols." (Isaiah 42:8, NLT)

Stephen Covey in his book, First Things First, describes a powerful illustration that he has used in workshops to make a point about priorities. He sets a large jar on the table in front of the room and places beside it all sorts of softball-sized rocks. He says to the crowd, "How many of these rocks do you think I can fit into this jar?" Someone guesses thirteen. Someone guesses nine. Someone guesses twelve. He then begins to place the rocks one at a time into the jar counting as he goes; all the while asking the group if the jar is full. The crowd keeps saying, "No," until it is really near the top. Then the audience agrees that the jar is full.

He then brings out a bucket with a bunch of smaller rocks and pours them into the jar. They filter all around the bigger rocks. As he pours, he asks the audience, "Is it full?" Now they say, "No," because they know what is next. He brings sand and then water; now it is really full.

He then asks the group what is the point of the illustration. After a few guesses he says, "The point is this. If the big rocks don't go in the jar first, they don't get in the jar at all."

The big rocks are the things you believe are most important in your life. The biggest rock of all, as far as God is concerned, is making sure that He gets into your jar before anything else.

In case you are wondering what all of this has to do with you, when you and I were born in a spiritual Egypt, a house of bondage called sin, God sent Jesus Christ to rescue us, redeem us, and restore us to His family. God wants you to put Him first, because when He sent Jesus to die for our sins, He put us first. So answer the question in your life - "Who Is Number One?"


[1] Sixty Minutes, November 21, 2004.

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., Collected Sermons, by James Merritt