So, are you a competitive person? Got a little competition in you always trying to one up everybody. I saw an interesting story of a competitive older sister this week. Um, she's eight years old and her little sister is four years old. Well, her little sister got a bunny rabbit for her birthday and she named her bunny rabbit fuzzy. Well, the older sister was bound to determine that she wanted a bunny rabbit too. So her birthday was two months later. So she begged and pleaded and she got a bunny rabbit too and she named her bunny rabbit Fuzzier. Yeah, that's real sibling rivalry right there. Right. We all have a little bit of that in us, don't we? We do. We all have a little bit of, of that competitive nature in us, whether it's an Olympic gold medal or, or whether we're trying to get a promotion at work, whether we're playing a game of uno or whether we're just trying to be first in line for the early bird special at Fratelli's Restaurant. We all like a little competition. We all have moments where we really want to win and in the right ways. And at the right times, being competitive and being in competition is a very good and healthy and and positive thing. But there are also moments when being in competition is not a good thing. It can actually be a dangerous thing. In fact, there is one kind of competition that leads to something that is much worse than the agony of defeat. It's a kind of competition that every single human being is engaged in. Right now. Every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, every person, past present and future will engage in this competition. You are engaging in this competition right now as you sit in this room or as you listen online, you are engaged in this competition. And what is that competition? Well, we are really diving in today to our new series called 10 Ways To Change the World. And what we're doing is we are looking at the ultimate universal laws of the universe. We are looking at the 10 commandments and the question that we are asking as we walk through this series and our hearts and our minds is this, how would things be better if you and I were really truly obeying the 10 commandments? How, how would the world around us be different if we were obeying the 10 commandments? We're going to be looking today in Exodus chapter 20. Our sermon today, at least the title of the sermon is facing the competition and, and what we're doing is in looking at Exodus 20 verse three, we are really going to see kind of the, the first way that we can change the world, so to speak, the the first commandment. And God gave this commandment to Moses, to give to the people. And here is the commandment. God gave verse three. You shall have no other gods before me. My brother in law has been traveling to India for the last 28 years to teach the Bible. And one of the first things he observed in his travels, there were how many gods that people worship just so many gods. In fact, according to some interpretations of religious writings, there are more than 330 million gods to be believed in and worshiped. If that's true. Finding a Godjust sounds exhausting. At the very least. So many gods, Billy Graham back in the early two thousands said this, I don't doubt the sincerity of people who believe in many gods and goddesses. I've traveled extensively in those areas of the world. I have also found in our conversations that many of them are honestly searching for the truth. At the same time as a Christian, my heart goes out to them because I know they will never find what they are seeking. As long as they stay on that road. Only the one true God can satisfy the deepest, deepest longings of the human heart and only he can give us answers to our deepest questions about life and death. That is what we graciously and boldly proclaim today that the only way to have the deepest longings of your heart satisfied is in knowing and being saved by and following the one true God. That means that the fiercest competition that you will ever face in life is the competition of allegiance. Is there something or someone that has more allegiance in your life than God? Now, let me just go ahead and confess that at times, the answer for every single one of us is yes. There are times there are moments, sometimes moments that are too consistent where some person or some place or some philosophy or some theme gets our ultimate allegiance way too much allegiance. And that's not good. That's exactly why God is giving this message to the people. He's wanting them to understand that they should not have any other gods before them before him because it was good for them. It's for their good not to have any other gods. The literal translation of no other gods before me is no other gods before my face. And we have an idea of what that means, right? When, when we turn to someone and say, get that out of my face, what do we mean? We get that away from me? Ok? I want it gone. It's either something that's, that's bad for us or something that's going to make us sick or, or something that, that is offensive or, or just something. But we, but we want it gone. Get it, get it out of my face. Well, God's not throwing a temper tantrum here about get, get something out of my face. Now, what God's saying is, you know what? You can bring those 330 million gods before my face and not a single one of them is worthy in love power or authority to be before my face. He is God and there is no other. But doesn't that sound a little bit arrogant? I mean, who does God think he is? There was a man named Elijah who followed God 2887 years ago. He found himself in a very interesting situation in, in what today is the northern part of Israel uh near the Mediterranean Sea. And the situation he found him in was a, a conflict, a conflict of allegiances, allegiances to the one true God or allegiances to a little G God named Baal. And, and I just want us to listen to what unfolded on the mountain by the sea that day and, and I could summarize but I'm not, we're just going to let God's word speak for itself. Listen to how things unfold in the record. First kings chapter 18. Then Elijah approached all the people and said, how long are you going to struggle with the two choices if the Lord is God follow him? But if Baal follow him, but the people did not answer him so much as a word. Then Elijah said to the people, I alone am left as a prophet of the Lord. While Baal's prophets are 450 men. Now have them give us two oxen and have them choose the one ox for themselves and cut it up and place it on the wood, but put no fire under it and I will prepare the other ox and lay it on the wood and I will not put a fire under it. Then you call on the name of your God and I will call on the name of the Lord and the God who answers by fire. He is God. So the prophets of Baal took the ox which was given them and they prepared it and they called on the name of Baal from morning until noon saying, oh, Baal answer us, but there was no voice and no one answered. And at noon, Elijah ridiculed them and called out, hey, call out more with a loud voice since he is a God. Undoubtedly he is attending to business or he's on the way or he's on a journey. Perhaps he's asleep and will awaken. And when midday was passed, they raved on but there was no voice, no one answered and no one paid attention. Then Elijah said to all the people come forward to me. So all the people came forward and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down and he made a trench around the altar. Then he laid out the wood and he cut the ox and pieces and placed it on the wood. And he said, fill four large jars with water and pour it on the burn offering and all over the wood. And then he said, do it a second time and then he said, do it a third time. And the water flowed around the altar. And he also filled the trench with water. And then Elijah approached and said, Lord God of Abraham Isaac and Israel answer me, Lord, answer me so that this people may know that you Lord, our God, then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and it licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people, when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, he is God, the Lord. He is God. And that's why the one true God says, you will have no other gods before me. The command is not random. The command is on purpose because of who He is. There's a man named Jeremiah that followed after God and God gave him a message to the people that went like this Jeremiah chapter 10. Do not learn the way of the nations. For the customs of the peoples are are futile. For it is wood cut from the forest. The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. They decorate the idol with silver and gold. They fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not totter. But they're like a scarecrow in a cucumber field. They cannot speak, they must be carried because they cannot walk. And the Lord said this do not fear them for. They can do no harm nor can they do any good dear Christian. We're afraid of a lot of idols today. I mean, I hear it all week long. I hear it sometimes from my own mouth. You know, we are worried and afraid of the customs of the peoples and the ways of the nations. And we seem to be forgetting our God. But our God says those customs, those ways, they're like a scarecrow. They have to be carried, they have to be made, do not be afraid of them for, they can do no harm nor can they do any good. And that's why God commanded you shall have no other gods before me before my face. There was a man named Isaiah who followed after God. God gave him a message to give to the people. This was the message Isaiah 45. There is no other God besides me, a righteous God and a savior. There is none except May God's demand for complete and total allegiance and devotion is not some cry from a, a lunatic religious figurehead. No, God's demand for complete and total allegiance and devotion is based on the astounding reality that there is no other God above him. There's none throughout history. He has established that He is God. And there is no other. The message of Elijah, of Jeremiah, of Isaiah is still our message today. We don't have a different one. Our message is still the same. The Lord God is God and there is no other God besides him. And the one true God is not just stayed off in the distance somewhere. This isn't some ancient story of fire coming from heaven. No, God himself came to us. The message that the angel gave to Joseph went like this Matthew chapter one, behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they shall call him, name his name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us, the God of Adam, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Joseph, the God of Mary, the goddess Billy Graham. That God came to us. The baby in the manger is God with us. The carpenter in the shop is God with us. The teacher in the village is God with us, the savior on the cross, is God with us. Jesus is God with us. And as Christians, we take that truth that has been proven over and over again again, whatever you don't like about Christianity, whatever you can explain about the Bible or, or measure up with the Bible in our current culture of 2024. Whatever it is, you don't understand about Christianity, don't like about Christianity or don't think that the Bible fits in with our modern time. You cannot shake Jesus. There is something about the person and the nature and the work of Jesus that cannot be ignored or it can be ignored, but only to your detriment and truly only foolishly, Jesus is God with us. And so what we do is we graciously and boldly proclaim that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We graciously and boldly proclaim that He is the perfect image of God particularly and especially when he walked on this earth. And we graciously and boldly proclaim that He is the way He is the truth. He is the life. He is the only way for things to be right with God. There is no other way. And when we look at the 10 commandments, we don't say, oh, that's, that's some neat thing that was back there in the Old Testament. Those were the commands of God, the Father. And we say that the commands of God, the Father perfectly match up with God, the Son. And part of the reason we say that is because of what God the Son said. One day Jesus said in John chapter five, the one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Jesus Christ is, is not just a nice religious leader, a you know, charismatic prophet, that's not who he is. The Apostle Paul declared this about Jesus and Philippians. God highly exhausted him and bestowed on him. The name which is above every name, past present, future and forever. Jesus Christ has the name above every name. No matter who the president is, no matter who the king is, no matter who the queen is, no matter who the coach is, no matter who the pastor is, no matter who the parent is, no matter who the authority in your life ever may be the name of Jesus and the person of Jesus is always over all authority. His name is above all other names. And this is what's going to happen verse 10 of Philippians two. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, no one's left out and verse 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father. Look, there's not just nice religious leaders and, and nice political leaders that have that kind of universal and eternal authority only Jesus. And why does that matter? Why does it matter that Jesus has this kind of power and this kind of authority? Well, it matters because we live in a world that has a lot of gods that there are there are a lot of gods, some religious gods, some material gods, even some people and some philosophies that if we're not careful, we will worship as gods. And I would just graciously say that in this election year, we're starting to sound foolish with the way we are lifting up human beings. There's only one name that is above every name don't be confused. There's only one name above every name of every political party. And that is the name of Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Let us never be confused. There are a lot of gods. So how do we approach living in a world where people think what we're doing here today is silly and foolish and ancient at best. How do we approach a world that has so many gods and say, well, there's only one true God. Well, first of all, by God's kindness, all we have to do is proclaim it. He, he does the work with the proclamation, but he's also called us to proclaim it as Paul said with, with love, to proclaim truth with love. And so what we need is we approach a world with many gods is we need to have that almost perfect mixture of tenderness and truth. And nobody had that mixture better than Jesus. One day Jesus was looking out and the Bible says this mark 634 he saw a large crowd and he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And the pastor goes on to say, and he taught them so he gave them truth. But Jesus didn't look at that crowd of people. Go, gosh, I can't believe they dress like that. I can't believe they think like that. I can't believe they live like, I can't believe they vote like that. Now, Jesus, he looked at them and he had compassion because they, they looked like they were sheep without a shepherd. They, they looked lost. They probably didn't think they were lost. They probably thought they had all the answers. Jesus could see their hearts and he looked on them with compassion. Listen, we cannot turn a blind eye to sin and evil in the world. We can't. It's, it's foolish. God has not called us to do that. But we will never look like Jesus. Le let me graciously repeat that. We will never look like Jesus when we are mad and angry at lost people for not acting like Christians. That math makes absolutely no sense. We need so much of what Jesus did and what Jesus can give us. We need to follow the example of Jesus and we need to diligently show compassion to those who claim other gods. And we need to diligently with compassion, help them to see that there is only one God and it is only in His son. There is hope and help for sin. Only one. Our approach to a world that is worshiping other gods needs to be full of the gospel, the tenderness of the gospel and the truth of the gospel. Why? Because there's a lot of pretend truth out there and there's a lot of pretend gods out there. So with gospel tenderness and with gospel truth, what we want to do is to shepherd them to the face of the one true God so that they can find life and find hope and find salvation and find freedom. And dear Christian, let us also not forget what's happening in this moment in history. God is not giving his commandments to lost people. He is giving his commandments to his people, to his chosen people, to the people that he had saved. Listen again, verse two and three, I am the Lord, your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of savory slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. As I was reminded by one of our our church members this week, the 10 commandments are this beautiful, loving kind reality from God. See, when the people came out of Egypt, there were a lot of gods to be worshiped. They, they even decided to make their own idol to worship. Why that while the 10 commandments were actually being given. So there was a whole lot of gods out there. So God in kindness and in love gave these commandments so that His people would know hey, you don't need to chase after all the other gods. They will not satisfy you. In fact, all those other gods, all those other idols, they will just lead to death. Don't forsake me for those. Don't put anything else before my face. Have me and me alone. Now, some people may say, well, I don't have any idols. I hadn't built anything. I don't have anything in my backyard that I, that I go out to and, and kneel down and say, hey, deliver me. I don't have a little statue in my house that I go and, and kneel down in front of him and say, hey, help my kids do good on their test tomorrow, you know, and, and good. All right, that's ok. But the reality is just because we have not maybe built an idol and called it a God doesn't mean that we do not have gods. You may not have a problem with the statue. But, but what about your job? What about your favorite hobby? What about your favorite sports team? What about your financial investments? What about your family? Family? Ha hang on a sec preach. That family is good. What, what are you talking about about family? Remember the command. You shall have no other gods before me. Aster beg said this, some of our most precious earthly relationships can cause us to violate the first commandment. Sinclair Ferguson says the first commandment is the one that we break the most. And sometimes we, we break it within good relationships. There were heard phrases like this. She'd do anything for those Children. Oh He worships the ground that she walks on. One day. A woman yelled out at Jesus. These words blessed is the womb that carried you. And Jesus responded to her like this. On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and follow it. Now, you're probably not going to hear that text on Mother's Day, ok? It's probably not going to be a mother's day sermon. And before you go out on social media and say that Jesus and do hate family. Let's let's just remember that the picture of what's going on here and not forget the commandment. You shall have no other Gods before me. So love God first and love God most and then love your husband or your wife, your kids, your parents, your friends, whoever it is, love them in the same way that you love yourself, but love God first and love God most because that's the only math that works with God and it's the only math that will work for you. None of the other math will ever work out. In 1945 CS Lewis spoke to the Socratic Club at Oxford University. He, he kind of delivered an essay that he had written to them and this is how he closed out his delivery that day. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else that, that's the math that works. The math that works is having no other God before God. Because that is the only way and the only truth and the only life and the only way to have the ultimate questions answered and the only way for your soul to be truly satisfied. What does that look like in real life though? That all sounds great. What, what does that look like in real life? What, what does all of this look like in the, in the nitty gritty moments of real life? Well, there's probably a lot of stories that we could probably share. I'll, I'll just share one about CT Stud and Ct Stud's name was appropriate because this dude was a stud. He just was CT as he was known, was born into a wealthy family in England, a very wealthy family uh in the late 18 hundreds is when he was born, he went to the finest schools that money could buy. Um He was one of the greatest cricket players in the world. Now, most of us don't follow cricket. But if you're talking about the late 18 hundreds, um cricket was like much, much bigger than the super bowl at the time. So, so CT Stud was one of the premier superstar athletes in the world at the time. Big time. God saved him when he was 18 years old and he immediately had a desire to give his life for the gospel. So he spent pretty much the, the rest of his life doing mission work in China in India and Africa and other places. He was serving in China when he turned 25 and his father's will stipulated at the age of 25 he could receive this massive fortune and he decided to take his fortune and give it all to the work of the gospel. But I'm not going to talk about his education or his athleticism or even his wealth. What what I'm bringing attention to ct stud for is because of his understanding of the first commandment. His understanding of how the first commandment could change the world and the way he understood it was actually in his marriage, mission work has never been known to be easy, particularly when you talk about mission work in the late 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds, it wasn't something easy to do. So maybe he was thinking about the reality that because of the danger of taking the gospel to different places in the world, he should make sure that his wife Priscilla was prepared for life without him. And so he did this regularly and he would often encourage her to pray a simple prayer just to help her heart and her mind. And this was the simple prayer Lord Jesus, you are to me dearer than Charlie ever could be Charlie. Thomas Studd understood the first commandment. He understood what it meant to have no other gods before God's face. And so in his own life and graciously in the life of his bride, he made sure that they were thinking that way. Not that it was a sermon that they remember from back in January, but it was part of their daily existence. Lord Jesus, you are to me dearer than Charlie ever could be. That's the essence of the first commandment. That's the competition that we face. And it's the greatest competition that we face. The competition of allegiance, the competition of every day being involved in that fight, that good and glorious and grand fight to desire every single day to see and savor and enjoy and pursue and honor the God who has saved us and redeemed us and given us freedom. There will be a lot of competition in your life this week and there will be competition in all of our lives for some little gods, we'll all face it. But may we see the glory and grandeur and majesty and power and authority of God, the Father and God, the Son. And may our prayers sound so much more like this simple prayer that CT gave Priscilla or Jesus. You are dearer to me than anything else, Lord Jesus, you are my treasure. Help me to see and know that there is absolutely no reason and no value and no joy and me having any other gods before? Yeah.