Lutheranism 101 - Part 7 - The 1st Commandment

Before we get started here I'd like to make a shout out to my life long buddy Brad and his wife in Idaho who today celebrate 20 years in marriage. You guys are making me feel old. Happy birithday as well and quit reminding me that you are younger than I am. That just means I get to retire first.

Well before we tackle the First Commandment we must mention that there are two tables of the law in the Ten Commandments. The first part includes commandments 1-3 and deals with our relationship with God. The second part includes commandments 4-10 and deals with our relationship with other people. The Bible sums up the first part by saying, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." The second part is summed up by saying, "And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." And then of course the over all summary of all the commandment is love. If we could love perfectly we could keep the commandments perfectly.
The First Commandment is, "You shall have no other gods." That brings up the question of who is God? Scripture tells us that God is Triune. He is the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons in one divine being. We also use the term Holy Trinity to describe Him. This is the only true God according to the Bible. The Trinity is not fully understandable to the human mind, but it is what Scripture shows us God to be. For instance look up these Bible verses. Deuteronomy 6 :4 indicates to us that God is one. Matthew 28:19 talks about three people in that one God. 1 Corinthians 8:4 again tells us that there is one God. 2 Corinthians 13:14 then tells us again about three people in that one God. These are just a few among many on the subject in Scripture. We will get more into the Trinity when we come to the Apostle's Creed. You can also come to the Monday night Bible class on April 23rd, where I will be teaching about the Trinity.
The First Commandment forbids us to have other gods. Well that's easy right. Just don't set up any idols in your house, don't go to any Buddhists temples and you will be okay, right? Hate to tell you this but it isn't that simple. We break this commandment whenever we put anything else before God. In other words it doesn't have to be a physical idol. Money for instance can be a god. We can get so caught up in making it that we put God to the side. Other people can become gods for us. Whenever we consider them or their opinion of us more important than God then we are breaking this commandment.
Here are some practical applications: You stay home and watch a football game instead of coming to church. You spend all your time watching TV or on the Internet instead of taking some time to read your Bible and pray. You spend all your money on stuff you want instead of giving a tithe to God. You don't talk about God or His morals because you want to be popular instead of being faithful to God. You worry all the time about retirement and think everything depends on you instead of trusting in God. You get caught up in all kinds of activities to the point that you have no time for work in God's kingdom. In all these cases you are worshipping other gods, whether it is money, TV, the Internet, sports, yourself, other people or the things of this world. These are all forms of modern idol worship. Whatever gets between you and loving God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, is your god.
Sounds like a pretty hard commandment to keep doesn't it? In fact it is impossible, we have all broken this commandment. Only Jesus has kept it perfectly. That is why we have this thing called forgiveness.
So now that we have forgiveness how do we keep or live out this commandment in a positive light? That is another thing we must remember. The Ten Commandments are not just thou shalt nots, they are also thou shall do this. The way we keep this commandment is by honoring God with our lives. In other words turning them over to Him and trusting that He has a plan for our life. We also keep it by devoting our lives to Him no matter what our occupation, age or abilities are. God uses all people to enlarge and strengthen His kingdom. We also keep this commandment by trusting in Him and praying to Him asking for His help in every area of our life. In other words we realize that He is God and we are not.
The fact is if we could keep this commandment we could keep all the others as well, because if God was first in our lives all the time everything else would automatically fall into place. It is because we cannot keep this commandment perfectly that we break all the others as well. That is why ultimately all sin is against God himself and not just the person we may directly sin against. Again that brings us back to thanking God for the His Son's death on the cross for our sins against this commandment. Now we have the freedom and forgiveness to strive to keep this commandment for the glory of God.

Here are some verses for you. Philippians 3:19; John 5:23; Proverbs 11:28; Proverbs 3:5; Matthew 10:28, 37; Matthew 22:37; 1 John 1:8

In answer to a question that I asked previously about why we continue to ask for forgiveness when all of our sins have already been forgiven, I offer this: We continue to repent of our sins because we continue to sin. Yes these sins have been forgiven already by the cross of Christ, but in repentance we are admitting that we have committed them and that we are dependent upon the cross of Christ for that forgiveness, which we receive through our faith. In repentance we are showing our dependence upon God for His grace and mercy. We are also keeping open that communication between us and the Father. When we stop confessing our sins we are saying that we don't need God's forgiveness or we don't want it. We are in effect rejecting God. Confession shows that we recognize our sins; it also shows that we know where our forgiveness comes from. As Luther said, "Our lives are lives of repentance." We must also remember that our lives are lives of forgiveness as well.

So how did you do on the Law/Gospel questions? Mark 12:30-31 is Law; Col 2:8 is Law; John 3:16 is Gospel; Col 1:6 is Gospel; Matt 28:19 is Law; Rom 10:4 is Gospel; Gal 3:13 is Gospel; Psalm 37:5 is Law.

Pastor Fred