Matthew 6:24; Psalm 62
Psalm 62, we’ll read in its entirety. And it is believed that David wrote this Psalm when Absalom, his son, was attempting to establish himself as the king over Israel. Only God and God alone could establish a king over Israel, but Absalom gave it his best shot. And so Psalm 62 gives us some insight into the heart and the mind of King David when he went through it. And perhaps sometime when you’re on your bed or crying out to the Lord, Psalm 62 has helped you, has given you words. Psalm 62 says, for God alone, my soul waits in silence from him comes my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be greatly shaken. How long will all of you attack a man to batter him like a leaning wall, a tottering fence. They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse.
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be shaken. On God rest my salvation and my glory, my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Those of low estate are but a breath. Those of high estate are a delusion. In the balances, they go up. They are together lighter than a breath. Put no trust in extortion. Set no vain hopes on robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart on them.
Once God has spoken twice, I have heard this, that power belongs to God and that you to you, oh Lord, belong steadfast love for you will render to a man according to his work. And then over to Matthew chapter six, uh, just one verse. You are welcome to turn, turn there, but also, uh, this one, I believe is familiar.
We’re thinking of the first commandment, you shall have no other gods. And Jesus teaches, no one can serve two masters for 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 God and money. Amen.
We ask that the Lord would teach us to love his precepts and the good commandments of his law. and that he would give us the grace to keep them with thankfulness and with proper reverence, proper awe. There are two words that I know you are familiar with and they are the words ethics and the word morality. Ethics and morality. Morality, it starts with an M. And so think of morality as a measurement. Ethics are what we call standards. And so the ethics of the people of God, we often hear it referred to as the Judeo Christian values. You might find the ethic of the Christian. Actually, it’s the ethic of the world.
Sometimes we think, oh, the commandments of God are only for Christians. No, God expects the entire world, every human being to obey him and to worship him. The problem is, is when we don’t. So ethics, the standards in the scriptures are for everyone. So don’t compartmentalize your mind and say, oh, the 10 commandments or the whatever, those are only for Christians. No, they are for everybody.
It’s just Christians who know that Jesus has kept them for them and he gives us the grace and the desire to keep them. But ethics are a standard, like do not steal, do not commit adultery, don’t murder, don’t lie, don’t covet. honor those in authority over you. Those are ethics.
Now morality is a measurement. And if morality is low, it probably means murder rates are high. It probably means adultery is on the rise. It probably means there’s a lot of theft and a lot of murder and a lot of coveting and a lot of dishonor in the world. So the ethics are a fixed standard. The morality is a measurement.
And there are times when, because the gospel is at work and when people are following God, where there are high levels of morality. Sometimes we look in on, say, the Mormons and say, there’s a lot of morality in the Mormons. Well, that is until you watch one of those shows with the multiple wives. Then maybe your picture goes out. Sometimes we look at different sects of religion and say, oh, those are a moral people.
And that can be the case because they live by the standard. Sometimes it’s out of fear. Sometimes it’s out of, you know, like like say in the Mennonite community, the bishop will come and I’ll get shunned or whatever. There could be a different reason for that other than the heart change.
But ethics and morality, one is a fixed standard. That’s ethics, morality. is a measurement. And so what is the level of morality in our world? Well, you can sort of look at the facts and look at the figures. I want us to think about the law of God for a moment. So you get a couple of freebies with these 10 commandments. We’ll think of something maybe culturally relevant, something related to the law. And then we’ll jump into the commandment. I want you to think for just a minute about the law of God. It is his perfect rule of righteousness. God’s commands are absolute. There is no wiggle room. Do this. We look at what the command requires and we look at what the commandment forbids.
God’s law was summarized at Mount Sinai. Remember when the people of God were at Mount Sinai, God told Moses to come near, come up on the mountain, but tell the people to keep a distance and do not touch the mountain lest they die. And remember when the law was given, we find little glimpses of it in the book of Hebrews and other places. There was a lot of thunder, a lot of lightning, a lot of shaking, a lot of fear. In fact, there was so much fear. The people said to Moses, you go near to God and you listen to what he has to say, we’ll go way over here and you come tell us what he said because we can’t stand to be near all that shaking, quaking and thunder and lightning. And so the law of God summarized at Sinai given in the tablets in those moments of absolute terror were given to Moses and given to us in the scriptures.
But when we think of the law of God, the absolute perfect rule of righteousness of God, we also must quickly think of the Lord Jesus, the love of God, what Adam failed to do in the garden Jesus fulfilled when he was tempted in the wilderness. And it’s always good to remember that comparison, Adam in paradise with a helpmate, a wife.
And with everything he needed, every good gift from God failed to keep God’s commandments. But Jesus went out into the wilderness 40 days, 40 nights without food. And Satan came and tempted him. And he passed the test. He gave the scriptural answers. He remained faithful. He kept his fidelity to his father. And so the love of God is for those who look to him in faith.
And we remember in our justification, that’s related to the law of God. God sees us just as if we’ve never broken that law and just as if we’ve always obeyed it. Last week, we made a study of the uses of the law. uh, the 10 commandments, the moral law. And we looked at how the law shows us our sin. It restrains us from doing evil things. It shows us our need of a savior. But we talked about that third use, that third use, which is kind of popularized at the time of the reformation.
The third use of the law says we read the law of God and we do it willingly and joyfully, uh, in gratitude to Jesus for what he has done for us. Right now, as we move from a little thought on ethics and morality and just a couple of general thoughts on the law, we want to start zeroing in on the first commandment, which is, you shall have no other gods before me. We want to think about the exclusivity that God demands, God requires.
If I said to you, God is totalitarian, That would probably make you jump, jolt and say, no, he’s not. Totalitarianism is for wicked people like Stalin or Hitler or, you know, Orange Man. I’m kidding. But we get all that in politics. But what if what if it’s Yahweh? What if it’s the great, mighty, holy, just and loving and kind and faithful God who will do no wrong? who will keep his word. In that case, totalitarianism might be a good thing, but God is an exclusive God.
You either love and serve him or you do not. You can’t have what one writer in recent years has said. You can’t take your crummy sin-filled life and sprinkle a little Jesus on it as if it’s a condiment. Christianity is not a condiment. It’s a complete way of life. It’s a complete change of life. And so following God is a yes or no proposition. It is an exclusive relationship.
In fact, in Luke chapter nine, what does Jesus tell some of the disciples? If you’re gonna follow me, you’ve got to deny even yourself and you’ve got to take up your cross and then follow me. And then there’s those places in the gospels where he says the gospel demands that you leave father and you leave mother. You let the dead bury the dead and you forsake all things in order to follow the living and true God.
And wedding services, wedding ceremonies that use those traditional vows. There’s that vow that each spouse, the man and the wife both take. There’s that phrase at the end of the vow that says, forsaking all others. Marriage is an exclusive relationship. We say when we get married, it’s only you, babe. There is no other. And so we declare our steadfast love, our unique, exclusive love.
Well, remember how God describes the church. The church is the bride of Christ. The people of God, the church, are the bride of Christ. And both in the Old and New Testaments, The call to God’s people are to be faithful spouses, to be exclusive in our walk with the Lord and not to be unfaithful. And so when we join the church, when we profess our faith every Sunday, when we are baptized, we are proclaiming that exclusivity to God, to one another in the congregation, the watching world.
But we are also saying to Satan, I have left your kingdom. I have removed, or God has removed my chains. He has opened my prison. Sell and let me free. And what does Jesus say about our exclusive relationship with him? He says, if you acknowledge me before men, I will acknowledge you before my father in heaven.
And so we want to think now about the requirements and the things forbidden in the first commandment. So what does the Lord require in the first commandment? Very simply, he requires that he and he alone be the object of our worship. Next week, we’ll look at the content of our worship. When we get to the graven image, we’ll look at the holiness of our worship, the sacredness of our worship. And then when we get to the fourth commandment, we’ll come to the time of worship. So what does the Lord require in the first commandment? Well, he requires that we not wanting to endanger our salvation, avoid and shun things, That’s the negative side. And then positively that we do certain things. So what do we want to negatively avoid and negatively shun? Well, it’s all idolatry. It’s all sorcery. It’s all superstitious rights. It’s all prayers to saints and it’s all prayers to other creatures. We love to sing. I’d rather have Jesus than Gosh, I don’t sing that silver or gold. There you go.
Um, we, we affirm that we do not want to worship the created, but the creator, but there is still sin in us. And we, um, struggle to keep ourselves from idols. We struggle because our sinful minds are so divided. We look at the life of King Solomon, 700 wives, 300 concubines. He set up high places and worshiped other gods. And we say, what a rotten, wicked scoundrel he became.
But it’d be good to take stock of our lives and say, what in our lives do we need to shun and avoid? There are things in our lives for sure that become idols. Maybe they don’t have stone or wooden arms and legs, and we don’t go into a room and say a few things, bow or whatever. But there are things that have taken control over our lives.
And generally those things, a friend of mine says it’s all S words, silver, sex, and sloth. So laziness, immorality, and a love of money or greed or covetousness. What does the scripture say? Idolatry is connected to covetousness. Idolatry is connected to unbelief.
And so we want to avoid, we want to shun all idolatry, sorcery, Superstitious rites, prayers to saints, prayers to other creatures. Now remember, you always have to keep in mind when you’re looking at a catechism from the Protestant Reformation, there’s some Roman Catholic stuff in the mix. There’s the prayers to saints. There’s the superstitious rites. But then sorcery and prayers to other creatures.
You’ve got pantheons of gods out there and people read their horoscopes and There’s always been the big controversy in the Reformed Church of can a member of the true Church of Jesus Christ also be involved in Freemasonry or one of those fraternal orders that seems to have superstitious rights and other bits and pieces. We have to be careful to say, I am superior to God and I can stand in judgment over his scriptures. I can handle this or I can. have Jesus and a little silver and a little gold.
And so that’s negatively what God requires. Now, if you read the larger catechism, which I brought a handy dandy copy of here, it says the sins forbidden in the first commandment are atheism, denying or not having a God, idolatry, having or worshiping more gods than one or any with or instead of the true God. So it’s not God plus whatever you want to add, not having an avouching him for God and our God, the omission or neglect of anything, do him required in the commandment, ignorance, forgetfulness, misapprehensions, false opinions, where these, these Westminster folks were thorough, false opinions, unwicked and worthy, unworthy thoughts of him, bold and curious searching into his secrets. all profaneness, hatred of God, self-love, self-seeking, and all other inordinate and immoderate setting of our mind, will, or affections upon other things and taking them off from him or in whole or part.
And I’m not gonna read the rest. It’s like a whole paragraph longer. The larger catechism is very thorough, but we wanna take care to avoid and shine the things that would cause us to be idolaters. or to be idolatrous, but positively, it says that I should rightly know the true or the only true God. I should trust him alone. I should look to God for every good thing, humbly and patiently. And then I should love, fear and honor him with all my heart. Now go back up to the top of that catechism. It says, I not wanting to endanger my own salvation.
If you get God wrong, It has eternal consequences. If you ultimately get God wrong and you worship the wrong God, not the living and true God, you get it wrong, you get eternity wrong. And so we want to rightly know the only true God and he reveals himself to us in the Bible. We want to trust in him alone. Jesus quotes to Satan, remember Satan says, I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the earth if you’ll just Bow down to me. And Jesus quotes the law. He says, you shall serve the Lord and him only shall you serve. What did Joshua say?
As for me and as for my house, we will serve the Lord. So we should trust in God alone for our salvation, not Jesus plus works, not Jesus plus warm, fuzzy feelings or sentimental thoughts. But we must trust in him alone for salvation. Salvation is of God alone. And the alone is a firm word alone. There is nothing besides.
We should look to God for every good thing. If we think, you know, I worship God. I serve the Lord, but man, I work pretty hard and I get a pretty good paycheck and that paycheck buys me gas, groceries and cable TV. So I’ll thank the Lord for 80% of life, but I get, you know, 20% credit. Okay. We think that way, but we are to look to God for every good thing, humbly and patiently.
And then we’re to love, fear and honor him. We know what it is to love God. Our affections are toward him and we love him with our mind. We love the things that our brain tells us are true about him. But we love God with our feelings. We can’t help but wonder at his love for us. Why did he save me? Why was he on the front porch watching for me to come home from the pigsty? Why did Jesus die on the cross? Why, when we hold in our hands the emblems of his suffering and death? Why we think, did he love me?
I am unworthy. And so we want to love him. We want to fear or reverence him. We want to be careful. There’s something about the sacredness of a Sunday. It’s a holy day. It’s different than the other days of the week that are unholy days or every day is holy. But there’s something about getting up and getting dressed and getting ready and coming into the house of the Lord.
There’s something about silencing our heart, silencing our mind, silencing the world so that we can fear and reverence and rightly view our God and honor him both with our lips, but our entire lives. We want to love God, heart, mind, soul, and strength. And the catechism then goes on to say, in short, I renounce all created things. And I’d rather do that than go against God’s will in any way.
So stop for just a moment and say, how well do you know God? How well do you know his ways and his will? My mind keeps going back to that song. We have not known thee as we ought. We have not loved thee as we not. We have not served thee as we ought. And it goes on to, I think, a fourth stanza. And so we need to humbly remember, we don’t know much. We don’t reverence love and fear God as we ought. We are weak at it. We are not strong in that department as good as we may think. Well, then the next question, what is idolatry?
Think of Paul’s commandment to the Colossians in chapter three. He says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. And he lists a list of things which are always connected with idolatry. Put to death what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. What Paul is saying is that idolatry is often the root sin that leads to other things. If you are idolatrous, you will be covetous. If you are idolatrous, you will be adulterous. If you are idolatrous, you will have passions and desires for things which God never intends to provide for you. And so you go back to the other question.
I should rightly know God, trust him, and I should look to God for every good thing, humbly and patiently. Did Adam and Eve look to God for every good thing, humbly and patiently? Or did they get impatient when Satan offered them something else? And they quickly saw with their eyes what God had forbidden. They saw with their hearts what God had forbidden. And they saw with their hands and their teeth and their lips and their tongues what God had forbidden. And they tasted and they saw that it was rotten and it was poisonous and it was deadly.
So what is idolatry? It is having or inventing something and which one trust in place of or alongside the only true God who has revealed himself in his word. Do you ever hear of people from time to time they’ll say, I like to think of God as fill in the blank.
And there’s been all these popular books over the years. There was the shack where I think God was a black woman on the train. I mean, go figure, I’ve never seen anything like that in the Bible. Also, God doesn’t have a body like a man does. But you know, you got the whole touch by the angel thing and all those shows, they’re interesting. But we should be careful, not only to avoid those things, but also not support those things because they do so much damage. If you were to ask on the street, a person in our area, are you a Christian? Yes.
What is God like? They are probably not going to say, well, the scripture says he is infinite, eternal, or the catechism is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. And as being wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth, you are not going to get that. It’s going to be, I like to think of God as, and it’s something glittery and flowery and wrong. Um, we are idle makers. We are idle inventors and we have to be careful not to have or invent something other than the living and true God. And God has made himself known plainly in his word. And that’s where we find what he is like, what he requires of us. And that’s also where we find the solution to our idolatry in Jesus Christ. Let’s go to him now in prayer.
Our father, we thank you for the chance to be together, to have shelter from a storm, to eat ice cream together. We thank you for the chance to feast on your word today, both in the morning and the evening. And we pray that your word would be a lamp to our feet, a light to our path, and that it would show us more and more and more, day by day, clearly who you are, what you are like. And may we fall in love with you more and more. May we fear you and reverence you more and more. And may our lips and our lives, and especially may our worship honor you. We cannot wait for the day when we will see you as you are, and all our imaginations, all our vanity will fade away, but we will have a clear view of the God, the Redeemer, who has bought us and saved us. And so help and bless us now as we go this night, and we pray it in the name of Christ, our Savior, amen. Let’s sing.