Serving No Foreign God (Part 1)

Reference Scriptures:

Exodus 20:1-6; Romans 2: 1-2; Matthew 16:24

Our church has spent the last two months dissecting the teachings of the Bible on “trusting in the Lord.” We have discussed some of the benefits and challenges of this subject. One of the benefits we established during this examination was, “God answers prayers”, and I must say that the Bible is full of compelling evidence in this regard. I have, for the past few weeks, shared with some of my associates that I am fully persuaded by the belief that we are in the harvest time for the ministry. I have further shared the importance of congregants guarding against turning their back on God as they receive their breakthroughs. The importance of remaining in God even in this season cannot be overemphasized as it will secure us the sustainability of our breakthroughs. Remaining faithful to God despite our circumstances is key in our faith. The role played by remembering the great things that the Lord has done is critically important in ensuring that we do not turn our backs on him, no matter what comes our way.

This message will demonstrate how God demands he be the only recipient of our worship. Due to time and space, we will limit our discussion of God's unwillingness to share to three brief parts; the first one focuses on maintaining a good relationship with God, then putting counter-measures, and concluding with Paying the necessary price. Christianity is one faith that operates based on relationship and the followers of this faith have the responsibility to maintain it. Paul speaks of the need for believers to work out their own salvation. Though salvation was secured by grace, however, those who have received this gift have an obligation to service it.

Maintaining a good relationship with God: Exodus 20:2-6

This is an extract from the well-known 10 Commandments. It is not difficult to see from reading them that the laws are based on relationships. The first part places emphasis on the relationship with God, while the second part deals with the relationship with fellow men. Our study for today will focus on the first part, which when mastered impacts the second one positively.

In this passage we find God issuing an instruction to his people to maintain a healthy relationship with him by remaining loyal to him. It is very important to note that the instruction was given to the believing nation who had a history with God. These are people who had a first-hand experience of the saving power of God; they have witnessed the grace of God at work.

Exodus 3:7 affords us a perfect picture of a nation that has persevered in trusting God against all odds. While they were slaves in Egypt, for many years the nation presented her case to God and nothing seemed to work for them; however, they never stopped trusting God. God finally came through for them hence the reminder in Exodus 20:2. One gets a sense from reading this verse that God saw what he had already done for the nation as reason enough for them to remain loyal to him. According to this verse, nothing could give the nation an excuse to make themselves an idol or worship any other god. It is also interesting to note that there is no evidence in the Bible suggesting their prior engagement in idols’ worship, however, their breakthrough came with opportunities to dishonuor God. For instance, their freedom enabled them to interact with other nations on an equal basis and as result exposed them to their influences. It should be remembered that at the time most nations were worshipping idols. It was in knowing what was awaiting them out there that God warned them against adopting this foreign practice that was going to ruin their relationship with Him. God reminded them how far he has been with them, in order to enable them to resist temptations to bow to other gods.

There is also no evidence pointing to an instance where other nations tried to help Israel out of slavery. However, as soon as God set them free, these nations were ready to influence them against the same God who had set them free. Many years may have passed since then, yet similar tendencies remain in place to this day. God continues to love his people and come to their rescue whenever they are stuck in a mess. The command not to worship idols has not changed a bit and therefore worship is reserved only for God. Worshipping anyone or anything will affect our relationship with God.

I must state that obeying this command has become trickier these days. Primarily because the idols of today are mostly non-physical and as result not easy to detect. There are many examples of idols that cannot be seen by a naked eye yet compete with God for the attention and worship of believers. Let us look at Fame for instance; the things that people do to gain and maintain fame are mind-blowing. Media platforms have kept us abreast with things that some of the celebrities do in order to remain relevant to their audience and the general public. The love for being the centre of attention has caused many to do whatever pleases the crowd. It is no longer a question of right and wrong that determines the actions of the individuals, but how the majority receives them. The excessive desire to please everyone makes people stand for nothing yet do everything that would make them acceptable to many.

It is so unfortunate to note that the same conduct is found also in church lately. It is no longer the Word of God that gives direction to the church, but what pulls in crowds. The deep-seated desire to be famous has led to the compromise of fundamental biblical principles that the church was founded upon. The church cannot be seen to be discriminatory and therefore should accommodate everyone, so many argue. Jesus argued that “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). It is important to note that no doctor seeks to maintain people’s sicknesses, but to cure them; neither did Jesus come to keep people in their sins, but to provide an enabling environment for people to repent from their sins and live righteously (Luke 5:31). Some people correctly liken the church with a body shop, where all the cars that are dented are taken to; however, it is of great importance to note that those cars do not leave the body shop in the same state but restored. It is for this reason that the body shop should not be confused with the scrapyard which serves a different purpose. It is for this very same reason that I argue that the church cannot stop serving the purpose for which she was founded in order to look non-discriminatory and remain famous; however, she must stand for the principles enshrined in the Word even at the risk of being unpopular. Being famous cannot take the place of God in the church unless if fame has become our idol and center of our worship.

Love of money is another great example of non-physical idols that many, including believers, worship. Though I believe that no in-depth explanation is needed for this one, I would like to cite a few Bible verses that support this view. Paul in his letter to Timothy argued that the excessive love for money leads people to do despicable things (1 Tim 6:10). According to Paul, they have even abandoned sound principles in their quest to accumulate more money. Jesus presented the love of money as a competition to serving God (Matthew 6:24), making it an idol. According to this passage, the love of money and genuine worship of God cannot coexist; one should make way for the other. Even though Solomon spoke of money as an answer to everything (Ecclesiastes 8:20), the conclusion drawn by the book he authored is that life without God is useless. It is, therefore, safe to argue that money should not be used to replace God in our lives.

It is once again so regrettable to note that the love of money has led many to manipulate scriptures so as to accumulate more. Though there are no physical idols visible in our churches, the tendencies cited here compete with God for our pure devotions. Lest I be accused of selecting just a few maybe to cover my own shortcomings in this regard, let me conclude by arguing that anything, either behaviour or the things we accumulate that we choose over God becomes our idol and make us guilty of contravening Exodus 20:2-6. I must also state that some of these contraventions are made unconsciously and therefore we need some form of countermeasure to in place so as to protect ourselves from worshipping other gods unaware. Though this is no easy task, Paul has left us a great model we can employ to succeed in this matter.

In the next part, we will deal with measures we can put in place to ensure we are not lured away by the many idols that lurk and lust for our attention in our everyday life as well as the price that we need to pay in order to follow God wholeheartedly.

#ServeNoForeignGod

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