The sermon 'One God to Worship' by Jason Dohm explores the first commandment, emphasizing the exclusivity and supremacy of the one true God. The speaker begins by referencing Psalm 119, which highlights the importance of seeking God wholeheartedly and adhering to His statutes. The sermon then delves into the preface of the Ten Commandments, where God asserts His right as the lawgiver based on creation and redemption. The first commandment, 'You shall have no other gods before me,' is discussed in terms of its requirements and prohibitions. It requires total love and devotion to God, as outlined in the great commandment to love God with all one's heart, soul, and mind. The prohibition against other gods underscores the human tendency to redirect affections and trust towards idols. The sermon emphasizes that true worshipers must worship in spirit and truth, attacking rival affections and ensuring that God alone captivates their hearts. The speaker also addresses the jealousy of God, who will not share His glory with others, and warns against atheism and polytheism. The sermon concludes by highlighting the honor and privilege of serving the one true God, whose worthiness demands our complete devotion and worship.

So as we set out into Ten Commandment territory, I've been told we're gonna work through Psalm 119 as a sermon text week after week. So this week I have verses one through eight. Turn with me to Psalm 119, 1 through 8. That are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity.

They walk in his ways. You have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes. Then I would not be ashamed when I look into all your commandments. I will praise you with a brightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments.

I will keep your statutes. Oh, do not forsake me utterly. Amen. You may be seated. The title of the sermon this morning is One God to Worship.

We're three weeks in and we're just getting to the first commandment. First commandment is eight words, we are going to take two weeks on it. This is going to take a while. Last week we had the inspired preface, meaning this is God's preface to the Ten Commandments. Here it is.

God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the house of Egypt. Out of the house of bondage. In these two verses, God lays claim to being God and to being their God, to being the God of this people. He lays claim to them. He essentially says, I went and got you, and you now have a claim on me.

God has asserted His right asserted his right to be the lawgiver. It's a double claim. First, people owe God their existence. He says, I am the Lord your God. That means Jehovah.

Jehovah means the existing one. In other words, you exist because all existence is in me. I am the existing one. The life giver is the law giver. Make sense?

If you create, give being to, give life to, you get the right to make the rules, to give the laws. And the second claim is redemption. This is a people he bought out of slavery. When you buy, you're the master. So you get to give the laws.

Here's the road map for our two sermons on the first commandment this week and next. It will be a road map that will be pretty much like for the rest of the commandments too, although I hope I won't too rigidly adhere to it. But we'll see, there will be a rhythm as we work through the commandments. Today, one, what the first commandment requires, two, what the first commandment forbids, three, what the first commandment teaches about God. That's as far as I'll be able to get today.

I'm confident of that. Then next week, four, how have we failed to obey the first commandment, we'll be applying. And five, how the Lord Jesus has perfectly obeyed the first commandment. So that there's a way forward for you and me. In Christ, as we come to our text, let's ask the Lord to help us.

God, according to your word, in a thousand places, but especially here, you alone are God. There are no other gods. You stand by yourself as God. You alone are worthy, but you are so worthy. No one deserves allegiance, affection, trust, except for you.

But I pray today that yes, We would identify our idols so that we could smash them, but that our eyes would be upon you, that our hearts would be captivated by your beauty, and we would relish taking you as our God. There is a God to be worshiped. A God who ought to be worshiped. Let us take this as the great privilege of our lives, the great honor of our lives to worship you, to be your people. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

One, what the first commandment requires, if you're taking notes on the handout and filling in blanks, requires, fills in the blank. What the first commandment requires. At this point I want to take us back to a first principle from my introductory sermon two weeks ago. Jesus' view of the law should be my view of the law. Any controversy there?

Anybody want to argue about that? However it is that Jesus conceives of the law, views the law, holds the law, is the way I want to conceive of the law, view the law, hold to the law. And you should feel the same. Listen to Matthew 22, again this is familiar territory, Matthew 22 verses 34 through 40. But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.

Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Jesus a question, testing him and saying, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

So Jesus tells us how He holds the law, how He views the law. He gives us a framework upon which to hang every commandment in the whole Bible. Loving God with all the heart, all the soul, all the strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself. So even though the first commandment is framed in the negative, it is a thou shalt not, don't do this. The first commandment may be more than any other of the commandments in all the Bible, hangs on the great commandment.

Love God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind. This is the issue on the table. Is there affection for God in your heart? Do you love Him? You must love Him.

This is what the first commandment says. There is a God in heaven who is worthy of every ounce of your affections, love him, you must love him. This is what this commandment is about. If you only come away from it thinking in terms of what you must not do, don't do this, don't do that, you'll have a half truth at best. That will be so sad if we come away from the first commandment saying, don't do this, don't do that.

Yes, it is wrapped up in this commandment. The commandment is framed in the negative, but this is about a glorious God in heaven who is worthy of all of your affections and the Bible says you must worship him. As we work our way through all ten of the Ten Commandments, we're going to find that each of these coins has two sides. So some will say, do this, but there will be implicit, that means don't do these other things. And some will be framed as don't do this, but implicit will be do this, give yourself to this.

So here we start in the first commandment. It's framed in the negative, but there's another side of that coin. And we know that because what Jesus says, on these two laws, loving God, loving your neighbor, hang all the law and the prophets. So you have to come to the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me and say How does this relate to love for God? God is keeping us from something in order to keep us for something.

Let me say that again. God is keeping us from something. He's holding us back from something in order to keep us for something, to preserve us for something that is really good, really worthy. Really worthy. There is a greater objective in his mind than just the absence of something.

It is the presence of something. It is the presence of true authentic worship, a recognition of all that he is worth as the God that the Bible reveals him to be. So though the first commandment is framed in the negative, it assumes that I do take the one true God as my God. In a sense, the great commandment is a restatement of the first commandment, or vice versa. I'm not sure which you should say comes first.

Probably the great commandment. The great commandment, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, is a restatement of the first commandment. You shall have no other gods before me. But you shall have me as your God that is the affection of your heart. To truly take God as your God involves far more than just signing on to some external patterns.

To truly have this God as your God obviously involves so much more than just signing onto some external patterns. I go here on Sunday. I have a checklist that has a little Bible reading on it. Praise God that you come here on Sunday. I'm glad you're here.

I'm glad I'm here. We should. It is on my list. If you saw my list, You would see Bible readings at the top of it, so I'm not taking it off my list. But there's a heart behind all of those things.

But you can do all of those things without the heart. This is what you always have to keep in view. So do I. Jesus said that true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is seeking people who worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Truth is according to how he said he desires to be worshiped. So yes, there are patterns for our worship. God cares about those, yes, but it's Spirit and truth. It is designed to be, all of those patterns are designed to be an overflow of things that are happening in the heart. Affection for God, love for God.

That's what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter 4. True worshipers worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Their hearts are never far away when they are engaged in the patterns given to us by Scripture. Their heart is there. Their heart is bearing down to express love for God.

To bow down in humility and overflow in love for God. These worshipers are doing so much more than just forsaking. You get the picture of that? John chapter 4, Jesus face to face with the Samaritan woman at the well. True worshipers worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

You get no sense of forsaking. He's not demanding forsaking there. There's so much there. It's about what worshippers do, not just what worshippers refrain from doing. They're embracing something, not just forsaking something.

Yes, we should forsake idolatry. That's in the first commandment. But it's really more fundamentally about what we are to embrace. God in heaven who is worthy of all of our love, of all of our trust, of all of our allegiance, all of our worship. These worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth attack all rival affections.

They attack them. They see, sense rival affections in their heart and they wage a holy war against these rival affections. All competing affections have a target on them in the hearts of these worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth. And they do so because their hearts have been captured by the beauty of the king. I would fear for you if you had that on your list.

Attack competing affections today. It might not be a bad thing to put on your list, but These worshippers are attacking the rival affections because they have seen the beauty of the king. He has captivated them. He has captured their hearts. He captured, he took their hearts prisoner by his beauty and his worth.

God is their God. God alone is their God. And when they sense a competing affection, a rival, they wage a holy war on it. Because they know that not only is God their God, they are part of his beloved people. God loves me, so I'm rooting out competing affections.

When you take the one true God as your God, he has your affections and your trust. When you take the only true God, there's only one God. When you take Him as your God, He has your affections and your trust. You love Him and you throw yourself upon Him as your only hope. In our wedding vows, almost all of us said something like this, I take you forsaking all others till death parts us.

This is the spiritual equivalent of that. God, I take you forsaking all others. And death won't even part us. It's even better than your wedding vows. You forsake all others in order to take him as your God.

You must forsake all others in order to take him as your God. He doesn't put up with rivals. He doesn't stand for competing affections. And when he sees them in the hearts of his people, he wages a holy warfare on them too. That was number one, what the first commandment requires.

Number two, what the first commandment forbids. Taking notes on the handout, forbids, fills in the blank. What the first commandment forbids, in short, any gods other than the one true God are forbidden. Any other gods are forbidden. And it is framed in the negative which should tell us something.

There is a strong bent in your heart to reallocate, redirect your affections and your trust to other things. We're going to talk a lot about that next week when we get to applying. God would not have framed it in the negative saying, thou shalt not, don't do this, watch out for this, if there wasn't a bent in your heart towards redirecting your affections and your trust to something else. Nobody has a household rule to tell the kids to stay out of the slime and the gutters. Don't eat the slime and the gutters.

You don't need a rule for that. Nobody has a bent towards that. It's disgusting. The reason it's framed this way is because we need a warning against it because there's something in our heart that will, since sin entered the world, will redirect our affections and our trust. That's why it is framed this way.

That it's framed this way tells us something very significant. We need to be warned. Let's deal with the actual words of this verse. First an important and interesting distinction lost in English. You is singular.

Not you all, y'all shall have no other gods before me. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall have no other gods before me." Think of this.

God speaks to a multitude. He has come down and He is speaking to probably Millions of people. Hundreds of thousands of people. A great multitude, but the constraint is given to you. And you.

And you. The constraint is given to the individual. You here is singular. Listen to Deuteronomy 13. You can go there if you want.

Deuteronomy 13 verses 6 through 9. Deuteronomy 13 verses 6 through 9. If your brother, the son of your mother or son of your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul secretly entices you saying let us go and serve other gods which you have not known neither you nor your fathers of the gods of the people which are all around you near to you or far off from you from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, you shall not consent to him nor listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him, but you shall surely kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death and afterward the hand of all the people." Now think of this, a command to a multitude in the plural where no one is, we're all responsible together which sort of means none of us are responsible individually. It's sort of a corporate obligation where there is a sense in which your safety, if you go with the flow, Deuteronomy 13, absolutely contradicts that.

If the closest one to you, if your spouse, or your brother, or your mother, or your father comes and says, let's go serve a false god, you cannot conceal them, protect them, ignore them, heed them, Ignore them, heed them, but you lead the charge in their death. You cast the first stone as the witness against them. With the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. Going with the flow is never acceptable. You can never heed anyone, no matter if it's your best friend, if it's your mother.

You cannot heed. You cannot protect. You throw the first stone. Going with the flow is never acceptable and never an excuse. Never, never, never.

You shall have no other gods before me. To God obviously this is an offense of the first order. The wages of every sin is death. Some sins God doesn't want to wait to pay the wages. And this is one of them.

And we should pay attention, especially, especially, especially to the sins that God, that are so devastating that God doesn't want the wages of death to be paid later. He cannot not have any patience with this sin. So you is singular, then shall have no other gods. The transliteration of this is Elohim and this is what we see in verses one and two. We're back in Exodus chapter 20 now and this word used, you shall have no other gods, has already been used in verse 1 and in verse 2.

And God, Elohim, spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God, Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. So God has already claimed this term. In verses 1 and 2 he says, this is who I am. It's overwhelmingly translated God in the Old Testament, and That's a perfect translation, but it literally means ruler and judge. It is God as King.

God is ruler. God is judge. He's already laid claim to it before he even gets to the first commandment. This is me. This is no one else.

This is me. I claim this word, this title. Finally, you shall have no other gods before me. This is spatial, not preferential. What does that mean?

In other words, you shall not prefer any other gods to me, make sure I'm your favorite, but rather, you shall not have any other gods in front of me. It literally means face. You shall not have any other gods before me, in my face, in front of me. It's spatial, not preferential. Not make sure I'm your favorite god.

Make sure I have preeminence among your gods. It's not that. It is make sure that you bring none other before me in my face as a god. The implication is that no matter how secretly you give away God's place, it is actually done in front of Him. You shall have no other gods before Me in my face.

You thought you hid it. You thought you were just cultivating it in the secrecy of your own heart. It is before me. It is in my face. No matter how secretly you give away God's place, it is in His face.

Several of the commentators I read this week equated it to adultery in front of your spouse. Shocking. You recoil from the thought of it. But why would the commentator say that? Because idolatry in the Old Testament prophets is over and over and over and over again called spiritual adultery.

It's cheating on your spouse, your God's bride. You cheat on him when you take other gods. You commit adultery in front of him when you take other gods. I hope your mind recoils from that. It should.

It should make us think differently about diverting our affections and our trust to another. Hebrews 4.13 Hebrews 4.13, and there is no creature hidden from his sight. But all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. You can never serve another God without it being in His face. It's in His face.

It's open and naked before the one to whom you must give an account. You shall have no other gods before me, in front of me, in my face." So simply put, the first commandment forbids atheism and polytheism. It is unlawful not to take God as your God. He is God. Whether you take him as such or don't take him as such, the reality of the universe stands fast.

He is God. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. It is unlawful not to take this God for your God. He is God. He is the existing one.

That is atheism. No God. The first commandment forbids it. And it is unlawful to take any god but the God of Scripture, even to say the God of Scripture gets to be the best and highest among the gods. No, All of that is polytheism.

He isn't interested in being the top of the heap of gods. He alone is God. There is none other. Ultimately, When you have a second God, what you said was your first God is not the God of Scripture. Scripture doesn't allow for that.

The word of God doesn't leave any space for that anywhere. So you've turned even your conception of God into an idol when you take the second God, and the third, and the fourth. I should also note the immediate context. The Israelites just had direct proof against atheism. They are three months removed from the ten plagues in Egypt that caused the Egyptians to send them out with wealth.

Please go and take our gold. They just went through the Red Sea and now God has descended on the mountain in cloud and smoke and fire and is audibly delivering the Ten Commandments to them. They have direct proof against atheism. And the Israelites had direct influences of polytheism. They're coming out of Egypt, God's everywhere, they're going into Canaan, God's everywhere.

I don't want to contextualize this commandment too much. This is part of the eternal moral law of God. You have to understand the context with which these ears who are hearing the voice from heaven are hearing this. Atheism cannot be an option for these people. They've just had direct proof against atheism, but they also have direct influences of polytheism, many gods from where they're coming and where they're going.

That's number two. What the first commandment forbids. Number three. What the first commandment teaches about God, If you're taking notes on the handout and filling in blanks, teaches fills in the blank. What the first commandment teaches about God.

I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm forgetting something important, but I'll give you three things and then you can tell me in the extended teaching time what I missed. Three things. Number one, he is worthy and he alone is worthy. Since we determined to hold the rope, how many times have we been to the vision of Revelation chapter 5, the search in all of creation for just one who is worthy to break the seals? John's weeping.

No one has found who is worthy. The angel says, Don't weep. There is one worthy Redeemer who has purchased with His own blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation of people to save to Himself. You shall have no other gods before Me is rooted in truth. There is one and only one in all the universe who is worthy of our ultimate affection and trust.

There is one and only one. Look in heaven, look in earth, you can look under the earth. You'll find one who is worthy of our ultimate affection and trust. He ought to be loved. He ought to be believed on.

It's actually a great privilege. On the other side of the cross it's not burdensome at all. When you've been bought with that blood, redeemed by that blood, the first commandment goes from being a crushing weight that you can never escape to the greatest honor of your life to take this God for your God. He is worthy. He bought you, reconciled you, He's taking you to heaven to be with Him forever.

At His right hand there are pleasures forever more. That is what He's marked out for you. What a privilege, what an honor on the other side of the cross. He ought to be worshiped. For the redeemed, it is pleasure to worship Him.

Maybe you've drifted away from that experience. It sort of jolts you a bit to hear, it is pleasure to worship. If that's you, if you have some sense of distance from that, It is pleasure to worship. It is pleasure to have this God as my God and have my heart just erupt in affection. Then do heart work.

Repent, Turn around and run as fast as you can in the other direction to reclaim, it is pleasure to worship this God. That's number one. He is worthy and He alone is worthy. I think that is the heart of the First Commandment. It's framed in the negative.

Don't have other gods. Don't redirect your affections and your trust to something else. What's the heart of that? He is worthy. Only He is worthy.

Number two, and it flows right out of his incomparable worth, he is alone. Separate. Other. Holy. All those mean the same thing.

He is alone. Not lonely. He stands alone. Separate. He's not like you, and He's not like anyone else you know or ever will know.

He is other. He is holy. A lot of times when we think of holy we think of righteous. That's only a sliver. Holy literally means other or separate, distinct.

Exodus 9 verse 14. God tells Moses to say, He said this to Pharaoh. Exodus 9 verse 14. For at this time I will send all my plagues to your very heart and on your servants and on your people that you may know that there is none like me on the earth. Moses go tell Pharaoh this, You're getting ready to experience all this for one great reason that you yet you may know that there's no one else like me He said this to an idol worshiper King of Egypt all your gods you think you're a god.

There's no one else like me on the whole face of the earth. Isaiah 46 verse 5. Isaiah 46 verse 5. To whom will you liken me? And make me equal and compare me that we should be alike?

It's a rhetorical question. You better answer that question, no one. To whom will you liken me? No one. And make me equal and compare me?

No one. That we should be alike? No one. God is in a category by himself. He's not the best in a category.

Don't you understand that? God is not the best in a category. The most worthy in a category. He's in another category and there's no one else with Him in that category. Listen to how Paul says it in 1 Corinthians 8.

This is 1 Corinthians 8 verses 4 through 6. Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. For even if there are so called gods, whether in heaven or on earth as there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things. And through Him we live." What's Paul saying? Everybody else who aspires to that category is just make believe.

Make believe. He's in the category by himself. There is no such thing as another God. They're inventions. They're not real.

That was number two. He is alone, separate, other, holy. Number three, what else does the first commandment teach us about God? He is jealous. He will not share.

He will not be robbed. His jealousy prevents him from sharing and allowing himself to be stolen from. Isaiah 42 verse 8. I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved images. I'll not share it.

I'll not share it. Ten Commandments. We're coming to it in verse 5. In the second commandment, You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting iniquity down generations. I'm jealous.

Deuteronomy 4 verse 24. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. What happens to the other gods? They're burned up by the jealousy of God. He is a consuming fire.

He is a jealous God. He will not share. He will not allow himself to be robbed of the glory that is due to him. He is the maker of all things. He will not be robbed and cheated by his creatures.

It is crime for created ones to shortchange the one who gave them their existence. Applications 2. Applications. Two, we need the do as much as we need the don't. Don't have other gods, Don't have other gods.

Do have this God. And give Him, render to Him the glory that is due to His name. In the great day when God judges the living and the dead, I firmly believe in my heart of hearts that the greater crime will not be redirecting affections to the other gods. It will be what was due to God that wasn't given to him. That will be the great crime.

All of the crimes will damn, I know that. And it is a great crime to redirect and give your affections, give God's place in your affections and your trust away to something else. I know that. But the great crime is, he was worthy and you wouldn't give it. It was right and good and the most fitting thing in the world, but you wouldn't give it.

You withheld it from him. How could he deserve it more? Study his nature and his character, his eternity. And on top of that he sent his only son from heaven but you withheld it. Oh it's such a crime.

Listen to Exodus 34. Exodus 34, God hides Moses in the cleft of the rock and he passes before him and shows him just a glimpse of his back so that he won't be consumed by his glory. We read this, Exodus 34 verses 5 through 7. Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord and the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. What more do you want than a God who would announce himself like that, full of mercy and compassion, long suffering and forgiving sin?

What more do you want than a God? Why would you withhold? We need to do as much as we need to don't. Worship this God, He is worthy. Oh, let him capture your heart and take it prisoner to be his own.

Captivate you so that when you sense a rival affection, you wage a holy war against it because it's not worthy of your affection or your trust. Number two and lastly, James' introductory sermon point three was, you need a new heart. You need a new heart. I was taking notes, but I also asked him to send me his notes, so I cheated. You need a new heart.

This is for the worship of a Redeemer. Don't you try to law keep your way into God's favor. Don't you try it. This is for the worship of a Redeemer who doesn't have law keeping for salvation, for righteousness hanging over their head. It will always hang.

You'll never escape it. If you succumb to that, law keeping for salvation, you'll never be free. This is for the worship of a Redeemer who has purchased you with his own blood from every people and tribe and tongue and nation so that you'll be there in that scene in Revelation 5 praising him for all eternity. Thomas Watson says this, It is more honor to serve God than to have kings serve us. Serving the true God is delightful.

God, may it be so of us. Would you make it true of us that it would be for us more honor to serve you than to be served by kings? I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.