Commandment #2: Making a god in Our Image
Exodus 20:4-6
I. Introduction
- Nine commandments?
1. Catholic difference in the 10 commandments.
2. Charlton Heston was against making it nine b/c he would have to change the name of his movie.
3. Catholics combine the first two and split the last one.
4. We could just have 11!?
-Most ppl breeze over the first two recognizing their similarities and ignoring them both.
-Why would God be so specific as to add a commandment that has already been stated?
-He wouldn't, there is something more for us in this 2nd commandment?
-It's more than a plaque on a court house wall.
II. Scripture
III. Background
-1st commandment: You shall have no other gods before me.
-2nd commandment: You shall not make for yourself a carved image.
-There seems to be a redundancy... no.
1. 1st deals with anything before or beside the Lord.
2. 2nd deals with some specifics.
-If you break the 2nd commandment you have broken the first.
1. If you break any other commandment you have broken the 1st.
2. The first two are interconnected b/c of their importance.
-Allow me to make three points this morning: This commandment is about...
1. ...taking something that God created or blessed you w/ and making that the object of your worship.
2. ...what you worship being what you begin to look like.
3. ...bringing God down to our level or making Him in our image.
IV. Perverting a Blessing
-To make an idol or graven image you must use stone, wood, or something you find on earth.
1. An idol usually represents something that you would find in nature (golden calf)
2. How twisted is it to believe that the finite is infinite.
3. "You shall not make..." seems a silly way to start talking about deity and objects of worship.
-People can worship their temporary gods, I will worship the eternal.
1. Muhammed is dead, Joseph Smith is dead, Buddha is dead, Krishna is dead, etc.
2. These had a beginning and an end.
3. But God has no beginning and will know no end.
4. He is eternal
-We tend to worship what has been created instead of the creator.
1. You can worship the trees, the animals, human physique/beauty, the sun, or the moon.
2. But you are only worshiping what God created!
-We worship the blessings instead of the Blesser.
1. Talents, charisma, reputation, fame, money, intellect, are all blessings that are worshiped.
2. You can reverence those things, but I will shout praise to the God that brings such blessings.
-Ill. Israelites complain and God sends poison snakes.
1. Moses intercedes for them & God says to make a bronze snake for them to look at. (Numbers 21)
2. But later Hezekiah had to destroy the snake (2 Kings 18) b/c the ppl worshiped it!
-Ill. Paul in the book of Acts is worshiped b/c God healed through him.
-We do it w/ good things too.
1. Ill. Sacred cows!?
2. Ill. Theological ideas, traditions, ppl.
-By the way, we don't worship...
1. ...the Bible, but the one who wrote it.
2. ...the cross, but the one who died on it.
3. ...the preacher, but the one he speaks for.
4. ...the church, but the one who's body it makes up!
5. ...salvation, but the one provides our salvation.
-St. Augustine said: "Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used or using anything that ought to be worshiped."
V. Worship What You Become
-The problem w/ making an idol for yourself is that you become what you worship.
-Whatever is the recipient of your praise, reverence, worship, or zeal is what you will begin to look like.
-Ill. That's why companies market w/ movie stars, atheletes, singers, etc.
1. Ppl worship these kind of folks and desire to look like them.
2. We are plagued w/ ppl desiring to physically look like the world.
-Ill. You will act like what you worship.
-Ill. Ultimately you will begin to think like what you worship.
1. Music influences the very way you think!
2. Who you hold company with influences your thought life!
3. Ill. Parent & child political leanings similar.
-The problem we have in the church today is that many are making idols to which they are becoming!
1. Bow at popularity & reputation!
2. Bow at booze and partying.
3. Bow at sensuality & sexuality.
4. Bow at money & possessions.
5. And as our life revolves around these things, so does our thoughts, our actions, & even our appearances.
-But it's in the church.
-Ironically, our idols begin to look more like us.
1. It really has to do w/ the first temptation in Eden.
2. Genesis 3:5 "God knows that when you eat of it [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God...."
VI. God in Our Image
-Do you know that Christians have minimized God?
1. Or at least tried to in our lives.
-Ill. Joel Osteen "Become a Better You"
1. Christianity is more about temporary things than it is eternal today.
2. Mike Yaconelli "Let's all decide to stop trying to convince the world that Christianity is true because Jesus makes us prettier, happier, thinner, wealthier, bigger, more successful, more popular, healthier, stronger, and more influential than everyone else. Do we actually believe that the world is impressed with our fancy new churches... converted beauty queens and professional athletes, our book sales, or our crusades? The world is laughing at us– mocking us and the Jesus we supposedly are serving."
-We desperately want to "understand" God.
1. W/ understanding comes control.
2. What we don't understand we cannot control.
3. So scholars & theologians spend all day in ivory towers trying to figure our God (some merit in this).
-But we can't figure Him out!
1. He simply wants our praise.
2. Our worship, obedience, & reverence!
-We humans can control an idol or image.
1. So we try to bring God down to our level.
2. A level that is more manageable for us.
3. The problem is we are not worshiping God, we are worshiping our idols.
-Ill. Europeans have brought God down to a theological idea/ historical relic.
1. Very religious, but church attendance continues to decline.
2. Liberalism and moral looseness continues to prevail.
-Bringing God down to our level effectively makes me the object of my own worship.
1. B/c I decide what the nature of God is.
2. I decide what is right and wrong (problem in Judges).
3. Anne Lamott "You can safely assume you've created God in your image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
4. George Orwell "When men stop worshiping God, they promptly start worshiping man, with disastrous results."
-Ill. N. America has compartmentalized God.
1. We give God an hour or two in a week.
2. The rest is ours to do as we please.
-We make God stay in his house, and we control what goes on in ours.
-Ill. OT understanding of the temple was that God's name dwelt at the temple.
1. God was not confined there.
2. Acts 17:24-25 "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything."
VII. Conclusion
-God does not live in this church, he lives in you.
1. He cannot be created.
2. He cannot be dictated to.
3. He cannot be changed.
4. He cannot be cloned.
-Where we go wrong is trying to do what cannot be done.
-Isaiah 45:20 "They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save."
-We've even gone so far as to believe that God needs us to survive.
-Ill. Bumper sticker: "I support the 10 Commandments."
1. God doesn't need your vote of approval.
2. His Word is eternal.
-Really, His Law is what will support you and I through life.
-Let's stop trying to make God in our image.
-Let's allow Him to make us in His image!
-Do you want a false god you create from your imagination?
-Or do you desire to serve the true & living God?
Response
