Connection in Covenant with God | Sunday, October 11, 2020

I am the LORD 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. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. (Deuteronomy 5:6–11)

In a year when our plans collapsed, the God still on the throne calls us into covenant—and that covenant begins with exclusivity, adoration, and reverence for His name.

God Is Still on the Throne

This has been an extraordinarily challenging year, and a lot of the things each of us planned and expected in 2020 have not come to pass anywhere near how we expected. In the midst of extraordinary circumstances, I am truly grateful for the promise of Scripture that God is able to work all things together for the good in the lives of His people. If we trust in God as He is revealed in the Scriptures, then we trust in Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.

My plans for 2020 did not include church exclusively online, distanced learning for my kids, weddings with masks, or birthday drive-through parades. But God works all things according to the counsel of His will, and He is able to work the same things together for His ultimate good. That is truly good news. In spite of all the craziness, I am expecting God to do great things in and through His church.

I love the passage in Isaiah 6, where after the death of King Uzziah, Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, seated upon a throne. Although the throne in Israel was vacant, the throne in heaven was not—and God is still on the throne in 2020.

The Two Tables of the Law

We began last time to consider the actual law of God, the Ten Commandments, though I admit we didn't get very far. Today we begin to peel back the layers of the law and see how they might apply to us some 3,400 years after they were first given.

Commentators and preachers have often observed that these commandments are divided into what are called the two tables, or two tablets, of God's law. The law deals both with man's vertical relationship to God and his horizontal relationships with other people. As we talk about often here at Cross Connection Church, God created us to live life in connection with Him and then with one another in a harmonious way. He created us for connection. Sadly, our rejection of God's law—which is called sin—has destroyed that harmonious connection.

The law gives us a starting point for how God intends to deal with the disconnect. It does not deal with it entirely; it is just the starting point. The first four commandments deal with the vertical, godward relationship; the last six deal with the horizontal, manward relationship. Over the next couple of weeks we will be looking at this section of Scripture.

Obedience Rooted in Relationship

The basis for obedience to the law, both vertically toward God and horizontally toward one another, is relationship. God says, "I am the LORD your God." These laws are for those who desire to connect with God and with one another. If you reject God, you reject His law; if you reject His law, you reject Him. And in rejecting Him and His law, you also reject His blessing and all the privileges promised to those who live in covenant relationship with Him.

One of those privileges is redemption. God saved the people of Israel and brought them out of the house of bondage in Egypt. Now, on the basis of His redemption of them and their relationship to Him, He says, "You shall have no other gods before me." God expects and commands exclusivity.

God Expects and Commands Exclusivity

I realize I've probably already lost some of you, because some people have a difficult time with claims of exclusivity. But I want to suggest that more than any sophistication on your part, such an issue might actually reveal immaturity and a lack of understanding about relationships rather than any refinement or poise.

Every married individual intuitively understands this. We live in a time when cultural views of marriage have shifted, but not for the better—we hear of same-sex marriage, plural marriage, open marriages, and polyamory. There is no possible way to see this as a positive shift regarding marriage.

When you married, you entered into a covenant with vows before God and witnesses, and you did so with the expectation of exclusivity. That covenant entitled you and your spouse to certain benefits and blessings—not only intimacy, but provision, protection, mutual satisfaction, and companionship. All such benefits assume exclusivity, and as soon as the covenantal exclusivity is broken, good luck enjoying them.

It is fascinating that God's command here does not explicitly deny the existence of other gods—that's a discussion for another time—but it forbids any rival. The covenant relationship you have with your wife does not deny the existence of other women, yet your wife would be entirely right to declare, "You shall have no other woman before me." Amen, ladies. And the inverse is true: "You shall have no other man before your husband." Because of the covenant relationship, there ought to be no rivals. There can be only one.

Jealous for Our Devotion

God's second command follows logically: "You shall not make for yourself a carved image... You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God." Pay careful attention to the words hate and love in these verses. These are relational categories.

As I shared back in January when we began our study, scholars view Deuteronomy as an official document ratifying a formal relationship between the Lord and Israel. These are the marital vows, if you will—the covenants, conditions, and restrictions of a relationship. In this relationship, God demands proper adoration and representation, just as your spouse expects you to adore her. If someone asked you about your wife and you misrepresented her—"Oh, she's a friend of mine"—good luck with that.

God will not suffer rivals. He will not turn a blind eye toward the banal hatred of indifference. He will visit the iniquity—that is, punish it—of those who scorn and hate Him, although He promises mercy and blessing to those who love Him, as seen in their fidelity and faithfulness.

Mark this well: God is rightly jealous for our devotion and affection. God is not jealous of us. He doesn't pine over the things you and I have—that would be ridiculous—but He deeply desires our devotion and affection, in the same way a faithful spouse does. Some people fight against this because they lack maturity; they are infantile in their affections. It's called childish selfishness, and it fails to recognize the relational aspect of the commands.

If you don't like God and His commands, understand that because He is good and loving, He has given you autonomy. You can choose not to be in relationship with Him and not to observe His statutes. But you cannot at the same time expect His blessing—certainly not eternally.

Taking His Name with Solemnity

"You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain." There are different ways the third commandment is interpreted, but sometimes those differences reveal ignorance about what this is really about.

More than a few times you've been corrected, or corrected someone else, for using "Jesus" or "God" as a curse word or an expression of disgust. I understand if the flippant use of God's name angers you; the casualness with which we speak of God could certainly be wrong. But I'm not convinced the third commandment is necessarily legislating against that.

A week ago I did the first wedding I've done all year, and as the couple turned and faced their guests and I presented them as Mr. and Mrs., I thought about how, traditionally, in marriage the wife takes the name of the husband. This tradition has come under fire in our increasingly anti-patriarchal cultural moment, with some viewing it as oppressive and misogynistic. I find it a beautiful and honorable tradition that acknowledges the biblical principle that in marriage the two become one flesh, and in doing so the wife bears the name of her husband.

At issue in the third command is that Israel, in covenanting with God, is taking His name as the people of Yahweh. He will be their God and they will be His people. Therefore the command teaches us that we must take God's name with the utmost solemnity. Solemnity isn't a word you hear often in 21st-century America, but it's the right word here. You should not enter into a covenant relationship with the Almighty without first reverently considering the implications.

Count the Cost

In New Testament lingo, we would say you need to count the cost. Jesus says it like this in Luke:

Whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it... Or what king, going out to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?... So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.

There are great benefits and blessings to being a people in covenant with the one true and living God—both in this life and in the life to come. But the one who would enter into such a covenant must recognize what these opening commandments teach. God expects and commands exclusivity: "You shall have no other gods before me." He demands proper adoration and representation and is rightly jealous for our devotion: "You shall not make for yourself any carved image and bow down to them." And therefore we must take His name with the utmost solemnity: "You shall not take the name of the LORD in vain."

We might wrongly think these commandments, given 3,400 years ago to Israel as they prepared to enter the promised land, are not applicable for us today. But they are absolutely applicable, and we need to take note of what God teaches us through them.

Closing Prayer

Father, I pray that as we think about these things today, and as we meditate upon them throughout this week, You would speak to our hearts about the reality of what they teach us. May we see that we take Your name as Your people. Jesus, we are called after Your name—the people of Christ, those who follow after the way. You are the way, the truth, and the life. I pray that we would represent You well and recognize what it means to take Your name, and that You alone would have the exclusive throne in our lives, the leadership over us as our Lord. Do a work in transforming us by the renewing of our minds as we think about these things this week. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.