Sermon

Exodus 20:1-17

Oh, God, You Eat First!

Check out these helpful resources
Biblical Commentary
Sermons
Children’s Sermons
Hymn Lists

Exodus 20:1-17

Oh, God, You Eat First!

Richard Niell Donovan

A “Frank & Ernest” cartoon shows Frank and Ernest in front of a wall of bookshelves in the “Law Library.” Frank is saying to Ernest, “It’s frightening when you think that we started out with just 10 commandments.” And so it is!

At Mount Sinai, God gave Moses two tablets containing Ten Commandments. Today federal, state, county and municipal laws fill entire libraries. Our world has become very complex, and we have tried to keep life civil by making more and more laws. Somehow we don’t seem to be much better off.

The Old Testament includes more than ten commandments. Jews counted 613 commandments in their scriptures, and they had many books to explain the meaning of those 613 laws. But the Ten Commandments were special.

• The Ten Commandments formed a core around which all the rest of the laws were constructed.

• The Ten Commandments pared down to the bare minimum the instructions people need to live in harmony with God and man.

• The Ten Commandments were concise. Every Jewish child could know them by heart—and they did. Anyone can remember Ten Commandments.

If the Ten Commandments served as the heart of the Jewish law, the First Commandment served as the heart of the Ten Commandments. In fact, we could say that the First Commandment is the essential commandment for which all the other commandments are simply commentary.

A SUBSCRIBER SAYS: “I have a number of resources that I use but I always find yours the most comprehensive and helpful. Thank you.”

TRY SERMONWRITER!
Resources to inspire you — and your congregation!

GET YOUR FOUR FREE SAMPLES!
Click here for more information

The First Commandment says:

“I am Yahweh your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.
You shall have no other gods before me” (20:2-3).

The First Commandment was the center of Jewish faith and practice. We have lost sight of the importance of the First Commandment. If someone were to ask, “What is the most important commandment?” most of us would say, “You shall not murder.” We consider that most important, because murder is such a heinous crime. Murder is so final! It seems far worse to murder someone than to steal their possessions or to lie about them. If you steal a person’s possessions, he might conceivably get new possessions. If you murder him, however, how will he get back his life?

But the Jews understood that murder was, in fact, one of the lesser crimes. The greatest commandment was not, “You shall not murder.” The greatest commandment was:

“I am Yahweh your God….
You shall have no other gods before me.”

This was the greatest commandment, because it was the locomotive that pulled all the rest of the cars. “You shall have no other gods before me.”

• The person who observed this commandment needed no other commandments.

• The person who put God first needed no commandment against idolatry. How could a person who truly worshiped God also worship wood or stone?

• The person who put God first needed no commandment to use God’s name with respect. How could a person who truly worshiped God use his name disrespectfully?

• The person who put God first needed no commandment to remember the sabbath day—to keep it holy. For the person who truly worshiped God, every day was holy—and the sabbath day was the holy of holies.

• The person who put God first needed no commandment to honor his or her father and mother.

• The person who put God first needed no commandment prohibiting murder.

• The person who put God first needed no commandment prohibiting adultery.

• The person who put God first needed no commandment prohibiting theft.

• The person who put God first needed nobody to say, “You shall not give false testimony.”

• The person who put God first needed no commandment that said, “You shall not covet.”

The person who put God first moved through life as straight and true as a train that follows a powerful locomotive on a track across the Midwestern plains. As long as the locomotive pulls straight, all the cars follow in a straight and true path.

And so, when we put God first in our lives, our lives will pull straight.

• We will watch our relationships with our families straighten out.
• We will watch our relationships with our neighbors straighten out.
• The vibrations of our lives will smooth and the noise of our lives will hush.
• As we come into harmony with God, we will find ourselves in harmony with our families—with our neighbors—and with ourselves—and with our world.

It seems that we must learn and relearn this lesson all through life.

• We don’t want to follow; we want to lead.
• We don’t want to submit; we want to control.
• As God pulls steadily and faithfully forward, we lurch to the right and we lurch to the left.
• We dig in our heels.
• We are not satisfied to move in God’s direction, but are determined to move in our direction.

And we have the scars to prove it. The wreckage trails in our wake—because we refused to listen—failed to heed—insisted on doing it our way instead of God’s way. That is true for every person here today. The Bible calls it sin. The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall(en) short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And so we have.

But if we can get the First Commandment right, everything else will fall into place. God says, “You will have no other gods before me.” If we can finally come to the place where nothing is more important to us than God—and God’s will for our lives—then Christ will bless us with the peace that passes understanding. We will become as the Rolls Royce travelling down a superhighway. The loudest sound we will hear will be the ticking of the clock.

We could learn a great deal from Korean Christians at this point. Korea has become the great Christian nation of the late-Twentieth Century. The largest Christian church in the world is not in Dallas or Southern California but in Seoul, Korea. South Korea is sending Christian missionaries to the United States. We taught them so much about Christ in the earlier part of this century, but they are teaching us so much about discipleship today.

South Korea is also sending Christian missionaries into Manchuria. Two million people have fled from Communist North Korea into Manchuria, and the South Koreans are sending missionaries to tell these expatriates the good news of Christ. These missionaries are discovering people who have been taught nothing about God but who nevertheless pray. They just felt a need to pray.

When the missionaries began to teach them about Christ, one man said,

“Oh, I already know about him.
We say our prayers to him every day,
but that is not the name by which we call him.
The missionary asked about their prayers. The man said,
We say our prayers
when we gather around the evening meal,
and we set out all the places
for the members of the family.
Then we set an extra plate.
We all sit back and say,
‘Oh, God, you eat first!'”

The first commandment says:

“I am Yahweh your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.
You shall have no other gods before me”

When we recover that kind of respect and reverence for God, we will learn what it means to be truly “blessed.”
Scripture quotations from the World English Bible.

Copyright 1997, Richard Niell Donovan