You shall have no other gods before Me.“You shall have no other gods before me.Thou shalt have no other gods before me.Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
11 sermons cite this verse
… the Lord's Prayer. The first three commandments are all present in the first petition of the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves an idol who is in heaven, who does not live in temples made by man or consists of stone or gold or a statue. Hallowed be thy name. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. So let's take a look at the basics of the actual commandment on the word level here in Exodus 20. First word that you should notice in our verse this evening is the word take. Take the name of the Lord in vain. What does it mean to take the name of the Lord in vain? Well, that word take is the Hebrew word nesah, which means literally to bear or to lift up. So when someone, now it's more of a legal term back in the ancient world, when someone bore the name of an ancient deity or even the one true God, what they would do is they're taking an oath. That's what they're doing, they're taking an oath. So whenever you get to the third commandment, when you're reading system act theologies trying to figure out the heartbeat of the third commandment oaths come up over and over again which is also part of the reason why we're going to be reading about oaths the rest of this evening it has to do with oaths what about the other basic of the third commandment …
… So hear the first commandment again. You shall have no other gods before me. At first that can sound restrictive, but once you know the God who speaks it, that he's eternal, that he's sovereign, that he's providential, that he's wise, that he's good, that he's loving, all of a sudden you go, oh my goodness, this is actually liberating. And then you say, I need to stop asking money to guarantee my tomorrow. I need to stop asking creation to save me. I need to stop asking people to justify me. I need to stop asking children to give my life meaning. I need to stop asking my career to tell me who I am. I need to stop asking control to give me peace. They can never do it. Only God can do those things. They are created things. Know Him, the Scripture is telling us. Trust Him, the Scripture is telling us. Submit to him the scriptures are telling us. Wait for him when we receive every good thing from his fatherly loving hand. …
That's why he said, think about what the Lord said in the commandments. he said thou shall have no other gods before me now we think it's like priority no before me in front of me blocking me blocking you from seeing me he wasn't in competition he's not jealous it talks about i'm a jealous guy he's not jealous of a god ain't nothing to be jealous of why would you be jealous of something that's nothing so it's not that he's zealous for you and he knows that if you put a god before him you won't be able to see him and if you can't see him you can't be freed by him are you hearing me God showed me he's gonna do some work tonight I can't wait till we start praying he's gonna do some work I already see it I already see deliverance happening I already I see healing happen. I already see breakthrough. I see anointings, impartation coming in one way, leaving out another way. …
… I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me, he showed this man that his God was his money and you cannot serve God and mammon, Lord of the proud then we see grace being given to the humble in the case of Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a leader of the Jews. He was a teacher in Israel. Therefore, he was thoroughly versed in God's law. He was of humble heart because he came to Jesus and acknowledged the deity of the Son of God. He says, we know you've come from God, for no man can do these miracles that you do unless God is with him. So Jesus gave the sincere secret of truth with a humble heart and a knowledge of sin by the law, the good news of the fine being paid for him. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And it was not foolishness, Nicodemus, but the power of God to salvation. Similarly with Nathanael. …
… The first two commandments are, you shall have no other gods before me and you shall not make an idol of anything, any physical thing. Don't make it an idol and don't worship it, right? This is what Jesus is talking about. He's going right back to the first one or two of the 10 commandments. And that is we don't make idols of the stuff that is in this world or even of the people in our lives. We don't make idols and we don't worship what isn't God. So this is the first point. You go to the great commandments, right? Jesus says there are two great commandments. The first one, love God with all that's within you, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Are we loving the right things or the wrong things? And what happens to our hearts is they are so easily led astray to find ourselves loving the things we were not meant to love. …
… the land of slavery and here's the first commandment are you ready for this you shall have no other gods before me. That's it. So again, God has, has led them. He's shown them where to walk. They've been delivered from slavery. Now God's saying, okay, here is how you walk. A lot of us use maps. I use maps all the time. I told you in our Christmas services, I'm directionally challenged. And even when I follow my Apple maps, I congratulate myself if I can just follow those. That's how bad my sense of direction is. It's horrible. And it's really interesting, isn't it? Get in the right lane. Turn right. You've reached your destination. You know, all those little things. I love that. But for me, it's easy even to get lost with the maps. It's important for us to consider and think about the Ten Commandments being a map, because we're all following different maps. Everybody you meet is following a map. This map is basically God's map for successful living. …
… And God is clear in the book of Exodus. He said, you shall have no other gods before me. no idols and a lot of people woke up today nobody rolled out of bed is like you know what I just love I've got idols galore well you know I just signed up for four idols yesterday it's just it's gone fantastic no but inevitably we allow our job our finances family we allow things to take priority over God in our life, not on purpose, inadvertently. And God said, no, I want to be the premium and the priority of your life. Put God first. It's kind of like we're now in NFL season. Anybody thankful we're in football season? Hallelujah. Glory to God. Every week, I got to tell you, every week we got people wearing jerseys every Sunday right now. It's crazy. I just don't know who's going to show up. Last week we had a Packer jersey in one service. We had a Charger jersey in the other. I had to deliver. This is a guy wearing 49ers gear. I had to deliver a 49er spirit. Thank God we ain't seen a Raider jersey. I don't know what would happen. I don't know. I've never seen a Raider guy in church. I've never seen it. My man's got a… Is that a Ram jersey in the back? Stand up right here. Look at this guy. Oh, he put a… My guy went like this. Yo, he went like this. …
… And none of the boys had to answer. I said, honor the Sabbath. Come on. but I tell you God in the 10 commandments says you shall have no other gods before me so money cannot become my idol money cannot be what I serve and the more I tithe the more I'm obedient to the to give God 10 of my income the more the open heaven happens in my life and I am free from the love of money come on is there anybody here that you want to love God more than you love come on everybody clap together this is our prayer so why does god say to tithe how much did he say to tithe what was the what was the percent 10 why does he say this because it's like 10 apples he says out of the 10 i want one you keep nine you keep 90 when i give that one i am reminding myself and i'm reminding my bank account i am not my source god is my source i'm going to give you four things to write down today. Last week, I gave you all Ms. This week, I'm in the As. Okay, write down the first A today. You need to acknowledge, acknowledge. You need to acknowledge God is my source. When I give to God, I am saying before this money ever came into my account, it belongs to you. Because everything I have, everything that's good in my life, it is from you. You are my supplier. So when I think about God, I think about God. He gave me, …
… to another or my praise to idols. I'm not giving any of my glory to any idols. No, sir. He says in those commands on those tablets, you shall have no other gods before me. God said that. Why did God say that? Because we have other gods before him. And when we do, we worship the less and not the best. And so again, he has to intervene and say the first thing. Let's just start with this. don't have any other gods beside me. we see God's glory in our creation, everyone who is called by my name, who I'm created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Say, Louis, I don't know what my purpose is. I'm not really, haven't figured out yet what God's will is for my life and what God's purpose is for my life. Well, I can help you with that today. That's when we can settle today. God's purpose for your life is to understand that you were created for his glory yeah but that doesn't answer the question and we're going to get to this in just a second of like what am I supposed to do it doesn't matter just do it for his glory that will rule out some things by the way that you can't do for his glory but just about everything else is ruled in you could be an orthodontist for his glory. Not any different than being a preacher for his glory. …
… That is righteous wrath, because what is the commandment in the Ten Commandments? You shall have no other gods before Me. And there they were, worshiping a God of their own making while He was getting the Ten Commandments. This is righteous indignation, and Moses was entitled to it because God was entitled to it. God is angry with the wicked every day. God loves righteousness, so by nature He hates evil. Psalm 69, 9, David said, "'Zeal for your house has eaten me up.'" David meant that when you are dishonored, when your house is dishonored, it is consuming me. "'Zeal for your house has eaten me up,' he said. Then he said further, "'The reproaches that fall on you fall on me. When you are dishonored, I feel the pain.'" That's a very, very legitimate kind of suffering when you suffer empathetically with the dishonor being heaped on God. It is angering to a righteous person to see God maligned and blasphemed and scorned and mocked and ridiculed. …
… And he was checking them off. Thou shall have no other gods before me. He said, I don't do that. Thou shall not make any graven images. I don't do that. Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. I don't do that. Honor your father and mother. Yes, I do that. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Yes, sirree. Don't steal. I don't. Don't kill. I don't. Don't commit adultery. Never have. Boy, what a good boy am I. He said, I was just doing real good. I was doing super good. Till he said, I got to the last commandment. And I read that one, and it wiped me out. Listen to how he said it in Romans 7, verse 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. I had not known sin, but by the law. That is, the law is what peeled me back and showed me that I was a sinner. For I had not known lust. …