This summer we're taking a new look at the old moral law we call the Ten Commandments. These rules for life are as relevant as this morning's newspaper. Actually, they are far moreso. Talk about up to date. Talk about current.
These ten words from God, are words to live by. We adhere to these commands, that is, we keep these commands because we know God and because we love God and because we want to please Him. I hope that's your heartbeat here today. I hope you know Him. I hope you know Him, by faith through His Son. I hope you have a desire to please Him, to serve Him, all of your days.
That's why these commandments are important to us. Because all of the Bible is important to us. As we strive to read it, and comprehend it, and to obey it, by God's grace. It's a challenge, it's a hard thing to do, but it's a thing that has great reward.
No man has perfectly kept this law, of course. (only the God-Man, Jesus, ed.) We don't challenge you to keep the law in order to come into proper standing before God as far as justification. We do not keep the law in order to BE saved, but we keep the law because we HAVE BEEN (already are, ed.) saved. And God has placed within us His Holy Spirit, and so now we obey Him from the HEART.
As we've said previously, the first four of these ten commandments are God-ward. They are directed toward Him. The final six commandments are the horizontal relationship as we interface with our fellow man.
These first four commandments are established to protect the integrity of our worship to God. In the First Commandment, God informs us that He will have NO RIVALS. It is simply not possible for you to have God, and to have other gods. It cannot be done. Jesus said,
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13)
You CANNOT serve God and pleasure. You cannot do it. It just cannot be possibly done. He will NOT accept the worship of one who has other gods, in addition to Him. Or certainly in preference to Him. He will not accept it, and that certainly limits the field of worshippers that are gathered in churches today, maybe even here in this place. (no doubt, ed.) True worshippers.
In the Second Commandment, God insists on TRUE and SPIRITUAL worship. No graven images to be set up, either materially or even in the imagination. For no image can do proper justice to God. We are not to use any image to assist us in worshipping Him. And I think that the second commandment leads, quite naturally, into the Third, which is our subject for today. And I'd like to introduce this message with a question;
Upon what then do we focus our worship?
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Let's pray...
