NO IDOLS - HONOUR GOD'S NAME | 10am

Come today to these opening commandments.

It's our second in the series.

If you missed last week, do go back and listen to it.

It's an important starting point.

But today we're looking at commandments one and two of the laws that God gave to Moses.

Number one, you shall have no other gods before me.

And number two, you shall not make for yourself an image.

Now, at first glance, these opening commandments can seem a very long way away from modern life.

Maybe as you hear them, you think of that ancient world of tribal gods, of competing deities, and it seems a very long way away from your day-to-day in modern Western life.

And maybe even you think, you know, these considerations just aren't that relevant anymore.

You know, in our culture, it's basically a settled kind of agreement, even across all the major religions, that there is only one God.

In fact, if we fall out about something, it's whether that one God even exists.

Maybe we should focus on the later commandments, you know, the practical stuff.

And yeah, of course, they are the first and second commandments.

And I think once we begin to think about them, and I hope we will see that today, that just as much as ever before, God means these words for our good.

He desires our devotion.

He wants us to worship him alone.

And actually to do so is foundational to the whole of the life of faith.

And actually one of the great challenges of the life of faith is clearing out all the man-made things that we put in God's place.

And that is no different today.

So let's have a look at these two commandments.

We start with the first one, worship the Lord alone.

Worship the Lord alone.

Verse three, you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall have no other gods before me.