Only Worship Yahweh in the Way of Yahweh
So last week Pastor Joe kicked off our series on the Ten Commandments by giving us an overview of the meaning of law, and it was a super rich sermon. It was one of those sermons that’s worth going back to and listening to again and again because it will help you better understand the Bible. And this morning what I’d like to do is to start by highlighting a dimension of the law that Pastor Joe alluded to last week, but I think we see very clearly this week: it’s that the Ten Commandments are simple.
Now in one sense there’s all kinds of depth in the Ten Commandments, but still, they’re not complicated — and that’s kind of the point. They are just ten commandments.
And for perspective, remember this is from the God who is completely righteous — which means, he only always does what is right — from all eternity this God has existed in impeccable holiness. He is the God of blinding perfection. He in lives in unspotted moral purity, and flowing from his purity he has moral demands for his creatures — but the demands are so simple that he only has ten. Mainly, God just requires ten things of us. Or actually, it gets simpler than that because it’s really just one thing.
Like overall, when we get down to the essential essential, God really just requires of us one main commandment, and this one commandment is the key to every other commandment. If you can obey this one commandment, all the others will be taken care of. In fact, if you always obey this one commandment, you will not ever sin.
This is the commandment that Jesus calls “the great and first commandment.” Do you know what it is?
It’s Exodus 20, verse 3!
Now Jesus, in Matthew 22:37, he puts it in the positive. He says the great and first commandment is: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). But this is the same commandment in Exodus 20, verse 3, except there it’s in the the negative. Yahweh says, first commandment, Exodus 20: “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Simply Who and How
Only worship Yahweh. That’s the first commandment, and then the second commandment in verse 4 is just an extension of verse 3. It’s first: “You shall have no other gods before me” and second: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them…”
We’re looking at both commandments this morning in verses 3 and 4, and in summary, the first commandment is to only worship Yahweh, and the second commandment is to only worship Yahweh in the way of Yahweh. The first commandment is about the who of worship; the second commandment is about the how of worship.
Only worship Yahweh in the way of Yahweh.
And it’s that simple.
And what I’d like to do this morning is just explain a little bit more about how these two commandments look. I have five statements to make about these first two commandments, and really these statements are like descriptions of our obedience. So if we obey the first two commandments, it’s going to look like these five things. And I believe Yahweh would speak to us this morning. So let’s pray and get started:
Father, thank you for the Holy Scriptures. This morning we ask that show us your will and your ways, and that you would show us your glory, in Jesus’s name. Amen.
#1. We worship Yahweh who has made himself known.
Look at verse 3 again: “You shall have no other gods before me” (or “besides me”). This commandment simply means you cannot have other gods besides me — and the most important word in this commandment is the word “me.”
The word “me” in verse 3 is actually everything, because whoever this “me” is, he requires of us exclusive worship — and of course, verse 2 has already told us who this is. Look back at verse 2. This is the very first thing God says. Verse 2: “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”
So beneath this first commandment (and all the commandments) is that Yahweh is your God, and he has saved you.
See, this is why we have to keep the Ten Commandments in their proper context. We don’t want to snatch them out of what’s been going on here. Remember this is part of a story. It’s what we’ve seen so far in the book of Exodus, and really going back to the book of Genesis.
“Yahweh your God” in Exodus 20, verse 2 is the Creator of heaven and earth and all that is. He’s the One who called Abraham by grace back in Genesis 12 and determined to bless all the nations of the earth through him. And so he made a promise to Abraham — and now, in the book of Exodus, Yahweh has remembered that promise by rescuing Israel from slavery in Egypt.
That’s what we read in Exodus Chapter 2 just before God speaks to Moses through the burning bush. Remember: God saw the suffering of Israel and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — and so out of his great love, because he is faithful, God called Moses and he revealed himself as Yahweh.
Remember the book of Exodus is where God tells us his name, but he doesn’t tell us his name so that we can control him — he does just the opposite. Remember how he says it in Exodus 3?
Moses wants to know, “What do I tell people when they ask me your name?” And Yahweh says,
I Am who I Am. I Will Be who I Will Be. There is no other way to define Me other than in terms of Myself.
Which means: if you want to know me, watch what I do. Pay attention to how I make myself known. Look at my mighty acts of salvation.
And that’s what he does. We see this over and over again. Yahweh acts in the world, he acts in history, and he does it “so that you shall know that I am Yahweh your God!”
Yahweh reveals himself to be the holy God who saves his people — through amazing signs and wonders, in triumph over all the gods of Egypt, stronger than the power of the enemy, sovereign over the heart of Pharaoh, this is Yahweh your God! This is your God who has rescued you! Now only worship me.
And after what we’ve seen, after the way Yahweh has made himself known, we should imagine this to be the easiest commandment of all. I mean, what else is Israel going to do? Are they going to now bow down to the gods of Egypt? Of course not! This commandment is simple. Obeying the first commandment means we worship Yahweh who has made himself known.
#2. We worship Yahweh by giving him our total allegiance.
And here we need to slow down on the meaning of worship. The word “worship” isn’t used in verse 3, but it’s implied, and in other places throughout Scripture where we see this commandment repeated, the worship part is more explicit. And example would be Jesus in Matthew 22. When Jesus says to love God with your everything, he’s talking about worship. Not having any other gods and loving God with your everything are two sides of the same coin.
We see this a little later in the Old Testament, in the Book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy Chapter 5 Moses repeats the Ten Commandments, and then in Chapter 6 he basically gives the big, main takeaway of the Ten Commandments, and this is what he says. This is called the Shema. Deuteronomy 6:4,
Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one. You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Again, if you do this everything else will fall into place. And we understand what he’s saying.
Yahweh deserves our exclusive worship, and our exclusive worship means our total allegiance, and our total allegiance means we love him with every part of who we are. In other words, we can never worship “Yahweh and…”
Total allegiance means only Yahweh gets all of us.
And of course, this again makes sense. This is simple. Because of who Yahweh is, after what he’s done, can you imagine just loving him at, say, 60%? This is the holy God who saved you. How could you not give him everything?
But see now we have the problem of sin. Yahweh is worthy of our total allegiance — that’s simple. But in our sin we fail to honor him with what he deserves, and so rather than give Yahweh everything, we give him the 60% — like most of me worships him, but there are a few things in here that I’ll give him later.
And what makes this so easy to do is that 60-percenters are good people; 60-percenters are church-going people; 60-percenters might have a solid theology with fine intentions. But they break the first commandment because Yahweh doesn’t have their total allegiance.
We actually have a story in the Bible about someone like this. We don’t know his name, but he was a good guy — most likely a young professional, super wealthy — and he comes up to Jesus one day and he says, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And Jesus tells him to keep the commandments.
And he asks which ones.
And Jesus lays out the Second Table of the Ten Commandments, basically everything to do with loving your neighbor.
And the guy says back to Jesus: Hey, I’ve done all that. What else?
And Jesus says, Go sell your possessions and give them away, and come follow me.
And you won’t believe what happened next. The guy was saddened by what Jesus said and he left Jesus, “because he had great possessions” — which means, he had another god.
See, he ‘kept’ the Second Table of the Ten Commandments — he was a good guy — but he could not obey the very first commandment. He tried to have others gods besides Yahweh, and when Jesus told him to get rid of the other god, he could not do it, and notice what this means: it means he could not have Jesus.
This guy is the example of what Jesus has already taught us in Matthew 6:24. It’s that you cannot serve two masters. See, 60-percenters can’t actually follow Jesus. This is why Jesus said things like: if you are going to be my disciple, you’ve got to hate your mom and dad (see Luke 14:26). That’s supposed to get our attention. Jesus means that our love for him must be so total and supreme that every other love — even commanded loves — compared to the love we have for him is like hate. Jesus is drilling home the first commandment. The most important. To worship Yahweh means total allegiance. Total allegiance means only Yahweh gets all of us. And of course! He deserves it.
#3. We worship Yahweh by rejecting the rivals.
This is the next step in total allegiance, but from the more negative angle. The commandment is “no other gods.” The exclusive worship of Yahweh means we have to say No. It means we really have to reject the rival-gods.
Now, when I say rival, I’m saying it like this [“rival.”] Yahweh doesn’t actually have any rivals. He doesn’t share a platform with anyone. He is not one among many. So I’m not talking about rivals with Yahweh; I’m talking about rivals for our worship. Because that’s a thing. Yahweh is holy, and above and beyond every so-called god of this world, but the gods of this world do compete for our attention, and they will get our attention unless we consciously reject them. We really have to say No.
And I think this is harder for us than it should be, probably because of how these others gods look. When you think of little ‘g’ gods, I think it’s common for us to think of gods like Allah, or Brahma, or Baal, or Vishnu — these are all false gods with names. And it’s easy to assume we’ve said No to these others gods because we don’t feel any pressure from them. Very few of us have probably come to a fork in the road where we had to choose between Baal or Yahweh. That’s not our situation. But here’s the thing: Hebrew word for “god” — el — it really means power. So “You shall have no other gods before me” is not just talking about false gods with names, but this is about every kind of god/power that tries to steal your allegiance from Yahweh.
And now all of a sudden all kinds of things come to mind. What tries to rob Yahweh of your total allegiance? Whatever that is, that is a rival-god, and we must reject it. And I think the biggest rival in our day — the strongest power that wants to rule us — is Secularism.
We should think of Secularism as a little ‘g’ god of this world, and it’s really a way of seeing the world. It’s functional atheism. Secularism is a power that pictures the world with the true God completely removed from it. And it infects everything. It infects everything from how we think about security to how we look at sunrises.
“Carnal Security”
The Westminster Larger Catechism — a Reformed catechism from 1647 — gives an elaborate explanation of the Ten Commandments, and for the first commandment, there is a super long list of the sins that they believe the first commandment forbids, and one of these sins is called “carnal security.” What a phrase! It’s so relevant in our day.
Because when Secularism is doing its thing, think about how often we are invited to find security in things that are not God.
In a world without God — in a pretend-reality where Yahweh is not real — how do you think advertising is supposed to work? What do you think they’re trying to sell you? The message we hear all day long is that if we only had [blank] we’d be happy and fulfilled and we’d finally have the missing piece. If we only had [blank] we would have the security of a good life. Secularism sells “carnal security.”
Look, because Secularism says there is no God, it must sell happiness and security through God-replacements. Get this: in a Secular world where there is no God, the God-replacements are meant to be the things we buy everyday.
And I want to be clear: I don’t mean we don’t buy stuff. What I mean is this: if we buy stuff looking for the security that is only found in Yahweh, we are breaking the first commandment. We have other gods before him. There are some things to which we must say No. It doesn’t mean we don’t buy stuff; but it does mean we don’t buy stuff for the reason Secularism wants us to buy stuff. We reject the rival.
Sunrises!
Then there’s sunrises: Monday to Friday, every morning around 7:30, I’m taking the kids to school, headed east. And most mornings, if it’s not cloudy, it means we driving toward the rising sun. And you wouldn’t believe this sun! A few days ago the skies were super clear and the sun was just blazing like a giant tangerine just glowing. It was just there in the sky, blood-orange and it was singing. And in that moment, when I see that sun, I know exactly what the god of Secularism wants me to do.
Secularism wants me to say, “Meh, just the sun” — because in Secularism Yahweh doesn’t exist, remember, and that’s just a big star in the solar system, so ignore it and move on. That is the rival competing for my allegiance, trying to rob God of my worship — and you just have to say No. That is a power we must resist. It’s a rival we must reject. Because that’s never just the sun. It’s the sun! Kids, do you see that?! Look at that giant tangerine! And God just put it there! He did that for us. That sun is declaring the glory of God. Just look at it.
To worship Yahweh means we reject the rivals. We reject whatever would rob God of our worship.
#4. We worship Yahweh by refusing worldly accommodation.
And this might sound close to rejecting the rivals, but here we get into the Second Commandment. Remember the first commandment is about the who of worship; the second commandment is about the how of worship. Look at verse 4:
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I Yahweh your God am a jealous God. …
So in the second commandment, it’s not just about worshiping other gods, but it’s about worshiping Yahweh in the way that other gods are worshiped. All the pagan neighbors of Israel worshiped their gods through carved images, and the second commandment says that’s not how it works with Yahweh. The second commandment forbids us from bowing down to and serving any image of a creature, whether from heaven, earth, or the sea. And this can still sound like the first commandment. How is not bowing to an image any different from not worshiping other gods?
It is similar, but there’s a story in Exodus that shows us the nuance. It’s in Exodus 32. While Moses is on the mountain receiving the law, apparently he stays on the mountain longer than what the people wanted, and so they come to Aaron and say, Exodus 32:1, “[M]ake us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
And Aaron just does exactly what they want. He takes their gold and he fashioned it into this golden calf, and all the people look at this golden calf and say, “These are your god[s], O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
But then Aaron builds an altar and says, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh” — which means, at least for Aaron, the golden calf was not a departure from Yahweh, but it was a man-made method to reach Yahweh. This is basically another Babel and Aaron is trying to make it about Yahweh. It’s that the people could not see Yahweh, and Moses had been absent, and so Aaron is trying to make Yahweh more accommodating. Let’s get to Yahweh through a golden calf.
And why a calf? Why not an eagle or something like that? See, here’s the thing: back in Egypt, the most important animal image was a calf. The image of a calf represented the Egyptian god Ptah [pe-tah] and Israel knew this. So here’s what’s going on: Israel had seen Egypt worship their god with this calf image, and so they say: Let’s get us one of those. They’re not listening to Yahweh; they’re just trying to fit in with everyone else.
And this should be odd to us. It’s not supposed to make sense to us, although we see it over and over again in Scripture, and we still deal with this today. It’s that for some reason we assume that we can be lovers of Yahweh and still do all the same things as the haters of Yahweh. Why in the world does Israel want to be like Egypt?
Obedience to the second commandment means we refuse all worldly accommodation. We’re not trying to parrot the pagans. We’re not trying to serve Yahweh as if we were an Egyptian god.
Because he’s not. And he won’t have it. Yahweh is a jealous God. Don’t give his glory to another, and don’t act like he’s just anyone else. Only worship Yahweh in the way of Yahweh.
#5. We worship Yahweh by embracing his true image.
Here I want to be clear about the Second Commandment. The forbidding of images doesn’t mean that Yahweh cannot be imaged at all, it just means we can’t use the wrong image — which in the Exodus 20-moment of redemptive history that meant no image at all.
When Yahweh speaks to Moses and the people at Sinai, they saw “no form.” The Bible is clear about this. Moses actually highlights Yahweh’s formlessness in Deuteronomy 4, and he knew it would be a problem for Israel. Moses says, Deuteronomy 4:15-16:
Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure.
He repeats the Second Commandment. Moses knew the Second Commandment would be a challenge for the people because, like the nations, they wanted a god they could see and touch. And they wanted a god like that so badly, they were willing to fabricate that god. If they couldn’t see God like they wanted, then they’d carve their own image of him.
And not only is this breaking the Second Commandment, but in more detail, this is the man-made seizing of something out of place. We’ve seen this already in Genesis. One way to describe sin is “the seizing of a legitimate good at times or in ways that God has forbidden.”
Listen, it’s not evil that Israel wanted to see and touch Yahweh; it’s evil that they demanded that of Yahweh at a time when Yahweh said No, and in their demand they devised their own solution. They carved their own image, rather than trusting Yahweh’s plan … which would mean later that he indeed gives his image.
Later on, in redemptive history, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, Jesus Christ, who is the true image of God (see Galatians 4:4).
The apostle Paul is absolutely clear about this in Colossians 1:15, “[Jesus] is the image (εἰκών) of the invisible God.” In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul says we must see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image (εἰκών) of God.” Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the “exact representation (χαρακτήρ) of God’s nature.”
Jesus himself says in John 14:9, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” So Yahweh who hid himself at Sinai, the God who had no form, who Israel could not see or touch, he has now revealed himself in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. And the apostle John says we’ve heard him; we’ve seen him with our eyes; we’ve touched him with our hands. Jesus is God made manifest to us. He is the whole fullness of deity dwelling in a human body — one person, two natures — Jesus is God and man (see Colossians 2:9).
Obedience to the Second Commandment means we reject all false, man-made images, and we embrace the one true image, who is Jesus — the living, breathing, real image of God. And although we’ve not seen him yet, Jesus means that God has a face, and one day we will see him (see 1 John 3:2–3).
And until that day, we remember him at this Table.
The Table
Yahweh who has made himself known, who made himself seeable and touchable, also made himself breakable. Jesus humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross — and he did that for us. Jesus died for our sins. Which means, he died for all ways we break his commandments. And on the third day, he was raised from the dead so that whoever believes in him will be forgiven and saved, and welcomed to only worship Yahweh in the way of Yahweh, and that means we bow to Jesus alone. It’s simple.
That is the good news of the gospel, and this morning if you trust in Jesus, if you worship Jesus alone, we invite you to eat and drink with us.
