You shall have...

OK.... So this is an outline of what has consumed my time the past 2 weeks...

Slide 1

My question today is…Does the first commandment have as much weight for Christians, as it did for the Israelites?

I think to answer that question we have to deal with Who is God?

If you understood God would you be freaked out?
Like Flash are you God or think that you make God?
Or like the engineer is it a fantasy concept?

What is your concept of God?

Today we struggle much like the Israelites did with the question, Who is God?
Are we much different than the people coming out of Egypt, doubting God’s power to provide?
Who is this God that protects us loves us, and wants nothing more that to commune with us?

What are some ways that God daily declares who he is to you?

Slide 2
These same questions were being delt with by the Israelites

Look at what life was like in Egypt and Today…

Multiple God’s…. Today Multiple distractions.

Riches beyond imagine…. Today you name it you can buy it.

Even as slaves they did not want for anything… Living in poverty in America you live better than half the population of the world.

Why on earth would they want 1 God, when multiple was better? Why on earth do we today need a God as provider and to worship?

The people didn’t look to God as who rescued them, they saw Moses as there deliverer, and we do not look to God for help with our problems we look to Dr Phil or Oprah.

Slide 3

So we are talking about the Israelites today.

Sitting in this stadium are 100,000 people, according to a Harris poll 7,000 of them do not believe in God. One of the more intriguing findings is that not all people who call themselves Christians believe all the conventional Christian beliefs. For example, one percent of Christians do not believe in God, 8% do not believe in the survival of the soul after death, 7% do not believe in miracles, 5% do not believe in heaven, 7% do not believe in the Virgin birth and 18% do not believe in hell.

Now do the math for Israel. I think there is a chance that some of them did not know who God was. They were looking at Moses as being who freed them from Egypt not God. There were an estimated 600,000 men coming out of Egypt that is a lot of people who did not believe in God. For God 1 was too many.

It is no wonder God says….

Slide 4

Can these people not see what I have done for them. Led them out of Egypt, Sacrificed my Son. God has true and perfect emotion, and his aggravation with Israel and us must be at least an 8 out of 10 at this point.

So God, who created the world, us, everything in it, and watches over it; has to establish who he and what he wants from us in the first commandment first.

Coming out of Egypt, in the mixed up words.

A call to a Monotheism, many gods…to the One God.

God was not just to be the first among many, or put aside while we run off to fulfill a pleasure, he was and is to be the only God, and first in our thoughts.

Jesus taught in Mathew 4 as he echoed the first commandment, 4: 10 Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.

Slide 5

When God commands no other Gods he, wants to establish a relationship with his people. He wants them and us to trust in his provision. For so long he provided for them, and rescued them. Now he wanted to open himself to a relationship with his people. The only way for this relationship to develop was for Israel to forget what they knew of their life in Egypt, forget the many gods they worshiped and turn their eyes to the one true God. This required perfect love, reverence, obedience and worship.

Much the same way when we are born again into Christ we are to turn away from the ways of this world… Romans 2: 2 do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world.

Slide 6

But often we do not do this..

The problem …we hide from God we want to separate ourselves from God. Or as R.C. Sproul puts it we try to cover up who God is. We want to stay in the ways of Egypt and minimize who God is in our lives. In the 1st commandment God demands we put nothing in front of worshiping him.

And Paul says in Eph 4: 4-6, 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

What and why do we hide?

Slide 7

The possession of God in us.. To HAVE him….

James 2:19

19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder's

HAVE!!!!!!!!!! All the things God wants from us is in the word have…..

Slide 8

Hayah

5. to become 1a ---- TRANSFORMED

1. to become 1a

2. to become like 1a

3. to be instituted, be established

4. to be 1a

2 Corinthians 3:18
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

6. to exist, be in existence 1a --- Live With

2 Corinthians 6:16
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."

7. to abide, remain, continue (with word of place or time) 1a --- OBEY ALWAYS

1 John 2:3
We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.

8. to stand, lie, be in, be at, be situated (with word of locality) 1a --- TO BE CONTENT

Job 36:11
If they obey and serve him, they will spend the rest of their days in prosperity and their years in contentment.

9. to accompany, be with --- TO BE A Companion or Friend

James 2:23

23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,"[a] and he was called God's friend.

Slide 9

God wants to reveal himself to us.

Kyle - Perfect being, with a plan for life, that presides over all, and has the emotions to care as he presides.