Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Do You Worship? | Torah | Exodus 20:1-3, 22:16-17

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

How can you know what you truly worship? Can you identify your idols? In today's episode, Keith shares four tests that reveal what you worship. Find out what Exodus 20:1-3, 22:16-17 says about who you should worship and why. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Exodus 20:1-3, 22:16-17 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. My name is Keith Simon, and right now we're going through the Book of Exodus. We are finally to the point in Exodus where we get to talk about the Ten Commandments, and I'm excited. I'm excited because I believe that our country needs nothing more than the Ten Commandments. These are God's laws that he intends everyone to live by, and yet these are the laws that our country has strayed away from and ignored for way too long. Don't you agree that the Ten Commandments are essential to life? Don't you agree that this world would be far better off if everyone followed the Ten Commandments? Don't you agree that our country has ignored God's commands for way too long?

Hey, I got a question for you. Can you name the Ten Commandments for me? No, really. Can you name all Ten Commandments? I got you, didn't I? I mean, you don't know them. Not you might know a couple. You maybe will get to half, but you can't rattle them off, can you?

Okay, so here's the deal. We're all for the Ten Commandments in general, but we don't really know them. We don't really know what they teach, and we don't personally follow them. We're going to spend the next few days looking at each of the commandments individually. Today is the First Commandment. Here's where it starts in Exodus chapter 20. And God spoke all these words, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. There's nothing that captures the spirit of our age more than the question, who are you to tell me what to do or how to live? God knows that humans always ask that question. So before he gives us the Ten Commandments, he explains his authority and right as the lawgiver. In other words, he explains to us what gives him the right to tell us how to live. Let's read the verse again.

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. So I am the Lord your God. Here he uses the word Yahweh. He is the great I am, the sovereign and almighty Lord. He is the supreme, self-existent, eternal, unchangeable God. I am the Lord your God. That word your is the second person singular. It indicates that God has a personal relationship with each and every one of his people.

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. God is saying, I am the one who heard your cries for help. I came to rescue you from the hand of the Egyptians and freed you from slavery. So who am I to tell you what to do? Well, I'm the one true God. I'm your God. I am your Redeemer. This is incredibly important. Exodus 20 does not start with the law. It doesn't start with the commands. Instead, it starts with grace. It starts with God saying, look, I brought you out of slavery to sin. Now I'm going to tell you how to live in your relationship with me. I've accepted you in Jesus, therefore obey. Now, if you reverse those, so you say, well, I obey so that I'll be accepted, that's a completely different religion from Christianity. Christianity is, I am accepted, therefore I obey.

All right, that sets up the first command. You shall have no other gods before me. Now, that command assumes that everybody is worshipping something. Everybody is worshipping some sort of God. Bob Dylan knew that. Here's a line from one of his songs, but you're going to have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord,

but you're going to have to serve somebody. Nobody put it better than the American writer and intellectual David Foster Wallace. Wallace was at the top of his profession. He was an award-winning, best-selling novelist who committed suicide in 2008. It was incredibly tragic. But before his death, David Foster Wallace gave a famous commencement address at Kenyon College, in which he said this to the graduating class. Now, remember, he's not a Christian, but listen to what he said.

Here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And pretty much anything you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you find your real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly.

And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. Worship power? You will feel weak and afraid. And you will need ever more power over others to keep the things. fear at bay. Worship your intellect? Being seen as smart? You'll end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they are evil or sinful. It is that they're unconscious. They are default settings. David Foster Wallace says you are by default a worshipper. And that's completely in line with

the First Commandment that teaches that everybody has a God. The question is, is not whether you'll have a God, it's what your God will be. What will you worship? Have you ever seen the thrones of monarchs, kings of the past? Like maybe Queen Elizabeth's throne or Charlemagne's throne or King Tut's throne. Now, they're made of different material. They have a different shape and size. They're from different eras, different countries. There's a lot of things that are different about those thrones. But one thing they all share in common is that they're all one-seaters. None of them are meant to be shared. Only one person can be on the throne. That's the point the first commandment is trying to make. At the very core of our being, on the throne of our heart, there is only room for one.

And by all rights, our creator, the one who loved us enough to die for us, should be sitting on the throne of our heart. See, when it comes to worshiping God, it's all or nothing. That's the way it's always been. God is calling us to have an undivided heart. It's not God Plus or God and something else. Joshua put it this way, but if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. Or in First Kings, Elijah went before the people and said, how long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Bail is God, follow him. Or Jesus put it this way.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. God's people have always faced a choice. None of this is new. There's always been other gods clamoring for attention, and God has always demanded our exclusive loyalty.

How do we identify the false God? You might call them idols that we worship instead of the true God. How do we know what our idols are? There are several tests that people talk about. And each test is trying to give you insight into your own heart to tell you what you truly worship. But before you get to those tests, let me just say, don't expect your idol to be a bad thing. An idol is usually a good thing that we love too much. An idol is usually a good thing that has become an ultimate thing.

thing. Idols can be a hobby or an interest, a sport, a desire for find things in life, health, ministry, marriage, kids, good stuff that has taken the place of God in our life. So the first test to find out what my idols are, what I worship other than God, is what I would call the love test. What do you love? Origin, one of the famous church fathers who lived centuries ago, said this, what each one honors before all else, what before all things he loves and admires, this for him is God. It only makes sense, right? We're called to love God with all our hearts and minds, but if we give our love to someone or something else, then that's the true God that we are serving. So what do you love? Where does your mind go when it is free? How do you spend your money? What do you get excited about? However you answer those questions is what you worship.

And if it's anything other than God, then that is an idol that is competing for the throne of your heart. Second test, the trust test. What do you trust? Where does your heart go when you experience trouble or problems? Martin Luther said this. Whatever your heart clings to and relies upon, that is properly your God. So what do you trust when you're in trouble or discouraged or lonely? Some people trust in things that turn into addiction, like shopping addictions or pornography or drugs or alcohol.

That's what they trust to pull them through hard times in life. Some people trust in good things like jobs or insurance policies. Some people trust in government or family or social position. Some trust in science and medicine. Now, notice these are all good things, but God alone is worthy of our trust. So when we find ourselves trusting something other than God, we are putting our finger on one of the idols that compete for the throne of our heart. How about a significance test? What gives you significance in life?

Think about the movie Rocky. And Rocky said that if he were to be Apollo Creed, he would know that he's a somebody. What is it in your life that tells you that you're a somebody, that you're important? Is it your appearance? Is it the social circle that you're in? Is it the stuff you own? Is it being the smartest person in the room? Is it a certain office in your company?

What is it that tells you, I'm a somebody, I matter? Because whatever you're relying on to define you, to give you that somebodyness, that is your God. That could be something that is competing with God to sit on the throne of your heart. Okay, here's the last test. It's the negative emotions test. If you follow your negative emotions, they will almost always lead you back to things that are potential idols in your life. By negative emotions, I mean things like anger, fear, worry, anxiety, frustration. The reason that we experience those negative emotions is there's something we think we need in life, need to make us successful, need to make us happy, need to make us secure.

And if we don't get those things, then we get frustrated and angry and worried and anxious and all that. So just ask yourself, why am I so worried? Why am I so scared? What do these negative emotions reveal about what my heart thinks it needs in life? They might be an indication of what you're truly trusting in. Go back to Bob Dylan for a moment. He said, you've got to serve somebody. So who are you going to serve?

Joshua said, as for me, in my house, we're going to serve the Lord. What do you say? Who are you serving? Who's sitting on the throne of your heart? Hey, thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talk newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week. It'll challenge you to grow in your faith, give you interesting background on today's passage, and a lot, lot more. Just click the link in the show notes to sign up. It'll help you deepen your journey with Jesus.