Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Today on Abounding Grace, we draw your attention to the first of the Ten Commandments.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Men and women worship all sorts of things: people, philosophies, thinking, and false gods. False gods. To the children of Israel, He says, "I've delivered you, I've fought for you, I've won the battle of the gods, now worship Me alone."

You remember the battle of the gods. Each time a judgment came on Egypt, one of the gods that they favored was being judged at the same time. I've won the battle of the gods. I've proven to you through the plagues and through My mighty hand. You shall have no other God worthy of your praise.

Guest (Male): "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." It's the first of the Ten Commandments, and we'll take a careful look at it today on Abounding Grace as we continue Pastor Ed Taylor's new study of Exodus. We'll be going at a slightly slower pace here in Chapter 20 so we can glean as much as possible from these Ten Commandments. We start things off considering together why the law is important or why we study the Ten Commandments.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Open your Bibles; Exodus Chapter 20 is where we are. If you want to hold your place in Exodus, before we get there, I'll read a scripture in Deuteronomy and then also I'll use John 15. So, Deuteronomy 7, John 15, and then we'll end up and land in the first few verses of Exodus 20 today. I titled the message The Ten Commandments Part 1.

We'll spend some time looking at the Ten Commandments or the ten words that God gives to His nation because God loves His people. That is demonstrated throughout the scripture. God loves His people. The nation of Israel, the one that we've learned and been following, despite their murmurings, despite their complaints, despite the attacks against Moses, despite the difficulties, the doubts, God loves them all.

And yes, they're fearful. They're human. They're fearful, they're hesitant, they fail, but He loves them supremely. You can fit yourself in that same category as you may measure out all the faults and failures that you carry and the weaknesses, or you look in the mirror and assess your life and you might find so many reasons why you're unlovable or not worthy of love or stuck in some decision you made in the past.

But I asked you to turn to Deuteronomy Chapter 7. I love this reminder as God is revealing to us through Moses why He set His love on Israel. It says in Deuteronomy 7:7, "The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples. But because the Lord loves you and because He would keep the oath that He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage and from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Therefore, know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments."

It will be out of love. The nature of God, God is love. It will be out of love that now God gives this new nation a series of rules and regulations that will help guide their lives and guard their hearts. Laws regarding people, property, and their piety, their worship. What God is doing to the nation is revealing Himself to them.

They have lived for generations, as we were reminded with the life of Joshua, living with the identity of slavery. They had an understanding of who God was. They cried out to God for deliverance, but now God is taking them deeper. This is very similar to your relationship with God yourself. As a born-again, new believer, you only know so much. You know what you've been taught, you know what you heard, you know what little you've read in the Bible.

But over time, you find God reveals more of Himself to you. You don't become more of a believer; rather, you become more informed of who God is, which is what makes you a better believer. You don't learn a bunch of facts about God; when God reveals Himself, you learn about who He is. You're not falling in love with facts; you're falling in love with God and all that He is.

That's what's happening here at the very beginning. He wants them to know who He is. It's a personal time and a powerful time. It's a closeness that's being revealed, a commitment, a promise. He's keeping His covenant. He wants them to know that He's the one who freed them. A teaching will always reflect the heart of the teacher. So as God seeks to teach them and instruct them, He's revealing Himself.

Every statement that God makes is a reflection of Himself. It's a mirror of the inside of His character, of His nature. What God is saying is, "I've chosen you, Israel, to be in a special relation." It's far different than how most of us have been taught the Ten Commandments or any of the directions that God has given us. It's like sets of rules: follow the rules and be a good little Christian, be a good little Christian boy or girl, be really moral if you follow the rules.

But what God is saying is, like any good parent, "I want relationship with you. And these are the conditions of relationship. This is who I am and I want you to know who I am because the more you know who I am, the more you will begin to love Me and treat Me with love. And when I say something, as a dad, don't touch the hot stove. Well, that's not a rule to bum you out. I want to protect you. I want you to trust Me because if you trust Me, you'll experience far less pain in life."

That's the heart of a parent, how much more our Father in heaven. Go forward to John Chapter 15 with me now. Such a beautiful moment in the teaching life of Jesus. In John 15, notice with me in verse 12. Jesus says, "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I've loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."

Then He begins to talk about this relationship. He says, "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you." It's another way of saying Jesus says, "If you know Me, you'll trust Me. And if you trust Me, you'll obey Me." It's love. Love leads to trust leads to obedience. They're all mixed together.

He says in verse 15, "No longer do I call you servants, because a servant doesn't know what his master's doing, but I have called you friends, for all things that I've heard from My Father I've made known to you. You didn't choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you." This is the pathway of fruit: relationship, abiding, love, listening, receiving, obeying. That's the pathway of fruit.

We don't think of it that way. We don't have a list of, "If I do A, B, C, and D." They're all mixed together. That love of Jesus leads to friendship and listening and obedience, and it comes very naturally. The Pharisees, remember, came to Jesus with a question. Matthew Chapter 22, verse 36: "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"

And Jesus answered, "You shall love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself." When you take the teachings of Jesus and you back into the Ten Commandments that were given today, you'll see that the summary of Jesus, the summary of loving God and loving your neighbor, covers the entirety of just the Ten Commandments, the summary of the 10 first things that God reveals to the nation of Israel that are important to His heart.

The first four commandments deal with man's relationship with God. The following six commandments deal with man's relationship with man. And that makes sense, doesn't it? Everything begins with loving the Lord God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Your vertical relationship, your relationship up and down between you and God, is first and foremost. It is not in any way secondary to anything else.

Your relationship with God is not secondary to some denomination, some theological teaching, or some interpretation. Your relationship with God is first and foremost. You are to love, I am to love the Lord God with all my heart, soul, and mind. My vertical upper relationship, when it is on target, when it's in a right place, then my horizontal relationships will be better off as well.

Of course, if both of us have a walk with the Lord and things are going vertical well, then we're going to have a really good relationship. But if in my life, if my abiding life in Christ is what it needs to be in the moment and I'm drawing from Jesus all the strength and wisdom and resources that He has for me in my relationships with others, they will go a lot smoother. I will walk in the Spirit, not fulfilling the lust of the flesh. I will demonstrate the attributes of God's agape love. I'll be walking in love that is supernatural, not forced, but I get to and I want to and I'm living out because God lives in me.

Often I'm asked, as we jump in, in summary, "Why the Old Testament? Why are we studying the Ten Commandments? Why is it necessary?" Some might even go as far as to say, "I'm a New Covenant Christian, why don't we just spend all of our time on the New Testament?" There'll be even some that would say, "I don't even want to spend any time with Paul or James or anyone, let's just pay attention to the red letters."

Did you know there's a group today known as the Red Letter Christians? They only follow the red letters. And whoever decides the red letters, they only follow the teachings of Jesus in that strictest sense. But they are in disobedience because the Bible claims itself that it's all inspired by God. The teachings in the red letters will match the teachings with the black and white letters.

It's not just following Jesus. You will never really fully understand the New Covenant unless I have an understanding of the Old Covenant. Where did the New Covenant come from, and why is there a need for a New Covenant? We're going to learn a lot of that as we study through Galatians verse by verse, but it's important to know that the teachings of Jesus are important and the Holy Spirit inspired Paul and his teachings are important and James and Peter and Moses.

God is the author of the Bible, not just parts of the Bible, and it's important that we follow them. So first and foremost, as we study the Old Testament, understand that the law reveals a righteous standard. It is the guide, a set of foundational principles of holiness. Apart from the Sabbath of the Ten Commandments, nine of the commandments are repeated in the New Testament multiple times. When we get to the Sabbath, we'll have a summary teaching on the Sabbath, but I have gone in more depth just on the topic of Christians worshipping on the Sabbath and the significance of the Sabbath in the New Covenant in other Bible studies.

Remember the law, if you're taking notes, there are a few things to remember about the law. Again, number one: the law reveals God's love for His people. The simple act of God revealing Himself was an act of love. Again, remember in relationships, perhaps let's go back to a familial relationship. You have a child, but you never choose to talk to that child. You completely ignore them. You don't tell them anything about your history. Nobody would say that's love.

There are a lot of words to describe that, but love's not one of them. Because out of love, you want to share your life and reveal what family this child was born into. A love holding back is not love at all. Revealing God's love is not negative, but positive and protective. The law will become a series of guidelines designed to lovingly protect the nation as they move forward.

Number two: the law helps keep our love on track toward God. Not only does it reveal God's love, but it helps us keep on track. We know theologically we're not saved by the law; we're saved by grace through faith. Yet obedience is a display of our love toward God. It's something that you can see practically as an outgrowth of love. It's as James said: you can talk about love all you want, but I want to see it. It needs to be seen and demonstrated. Jesus would say in John 14:15, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."

Number three: the law restrains evil. Man is born with an evil nature. I know that runs contrary to the world system that we live in today, which teaches that man is good, born good, nothing wrong in them. But Psalm 51:5 is clear: "I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me." We were born in sin, we inherited sin, and we do sin.

The law was given to restrain evil. It doesn't prevent evil, but because of the law, many choose not to cross, and it restrains evil. It not only defines it, but restrains it. Finally, a very important aspect of the law is that it reveals my heart. If it wasn't for the law, I wouldn't really know the depth of my heart.

If I was speeding all the time as a driver, which typically I do not speed— I try not to be in a hurry. I'm not saying I never speed, but I'm not typically late. If there were no speed limit signs, you would never know you were speeding. You would choose to go as fast as you want no matter the neighborhood, whether there's a school there or whether children play in that area.

If there were no signs, there would be no revelation that you are going faster than what is really necessary in that area. So the signs not only help to restrain evil— no doubt, the sign slowed you down. That was good, it restrained evil. You were speeding, you saw the sign, whatever motive, and you slowed down because it restrained evil. But it also revealed your heart.

If the sign slowed you down, your heart was bent toward obedience. That's what you did. You slowed down, you checked the number, and you made a decision. Or you saw the sign and you noticed it, checked the number, saw that it was larger, and didn't slow down. That reveals your heart. What is that? You're a lawbreaker; that's your heart.

You don't care about the speed limit. Whether you come to terms with that or not, that's the truth. Whether you get caught for it or not, I'm a lawbreaker when I speed. There is no debate. You think something so simple that happens so often and you begin to apply it when you're reading through the scriptures. You see something revealed and it's like a mirror to you.

You read what you have in the Bible and then you compare it to your life and you find that my life doesn't match what I'm reading. Your life doesn't match what I'm reading in Jesus' teachings, and you choose not to correct it— it reveals the depravity in your heart. It's something that God would want us to know: this is for your good. It's also for the good of others, those that are close to you, those that you love. Without these signposts along the way, we would never know.

Notice in verse 1 now of Chapter 20. "God spoke all these words saying," verse 2, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." If you like to write in your Bibles, you can write next to verse 2: new identity. They have been given a new identity. Their old person has passed away. Behold, all things have become new. They are no longer slaves in Egypt. They have been delivered.

Egypt becomes a type of our sin. In your life in the New Covenant, you are no longer in bondage to sin. Even though you may have habits— you can think of the routines that they took with them into the wilderness: when they went to sleep, when they woke up, the flashbacks they may have had of being beaten, having to make stones out of hay, and having people yell at them, and all the trauma that they carried with them into the new land.

You can see that God is saying, "Look, I just want you to know before anything about your life, I want you to know something: you have been delivered and I have delivered you. I get the credit. I'm the one. You did not do it. You didn't do it in your own strength. You didn't do it in your own power. You didn't do it because you got up and left. You didn't part the—" so many ways that it could have been repeated.

But He just simply says, "Hey, I'm the Lord. I'm Jehovah. I'm the becoming one. And I'm the one that brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. I am the one." God's desire is to become to you what you need Him to be. The Great I Am. And notice in verse 3 now. He says, "You shall have no other gods before Me."

This is the command of exclusive worship. God doesn't share His glory with anyone. This might be the year you write in your Bible cross-references in the margins or next to the verses wherever you can fit them in. You can have your own Bible where you can look up verses that relate. That's what a cross-reference is.

Here's a verse that's very important. When He says, "don't put any other gods before Me," I want you to think of Isaiah 42, verse 8. "I am the Lord, that is My name. And My glory I will not give to another, My praise to carved images." No other god, which tells me a few things. Number one: there are other gods, little G. Men and women worship all sorts of things: people, philosophies, thinking, and false gods.

To the children of Israel, He says, "I've delivered you, I've fought for you, I've won the battle of the gods, now worship Me alone." You remember the battle of the gods. Each time a judgment came on Egypt, one of the gods that they favored was being judged at the same time. I've won the battle of the gods. I've proven to you through the plagues and through My mighty hand. You shall have no other god worthy of your praise. God has the right to demand exclusive worship in your life as well.

Guest (Male): Pastor Ed Taylor on Abounding Grace with the first of the Ten Commandments. Ed, it might be easy to gloss right over this first commandment, "have no other gods before me," thinking it's not a problem in our lives. But we can so easily set up gods in our lives and maybe not even realize it's happened. Any final thoughts about how we can spot an idol or false god in our lives?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Larry, the place to look for all of us is where our devotion lies, where our passion lies. What are we really into? It doesn't take long to find out what they're really into. One of the things you'll find out here in Denver, when you're talking to people about football, you will find out very quickly if someone's into the Broncos or not. And if they're not, they're either not a football fan or they have their own team, because that's who they're into.

That principle of knowing what you're into, who takes your time, devotion, energy, effort, is something that you want to watch out for as it relates to removing singular worship of God. Jesus said it best: He said, "No man can serve two masters." We always want to be on the lookout for any other masters that are knocking at our door: career, hobby, goal, name, notoriety, social media cred, followers. All of those things really do take away our devotion from God.

I was thinking today of this principle that God gave us. I was taught it over and over again and now it's mine, so I get to teach it. Not because I was taught it, but because I believe it, and it's this principle: only one life will soon be passed and only what's done for Christ will last. That singular focus. Remember what Paul said: "This one thing I do." Let's make sure the one thing we do is worship the one true God. Everything else will fall into place. No competing idols, no competing loves. Such a great question.

Guest (Male): Thanks again, Pastor Ed. And friend, you can hear this message again online at aboundinggraceradio.com. Maybe you're looking for a good book to go through. Here in the month of March, we've picked out an excellent one written by Tim LaHaye and Bob Phillips.

It's titled Anger is a Choice, and it provides counsel and exercises to help us better understand the causes of anger, how to control it, and how lack of control affects us physically and spiritually. We'll send you a copy when you support Abounding Grace with a gift of $25 or more. Just call, ask for Anger is a Choice. Our number is 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE. You can also order online at calvaryco.store.

Next time on Abounding Grace, we'll continue Pastor Ed Taylor's study of Exodus. Thank you for listening today, and we'll look for you tomorrow as we open the Word together in search of God's abounding grace. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.