Worship God Alone

Title: Worship God Alone
Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:1–3

Sermon Notes: 2.01.2026 – Worship God Alone

Starting today, we will work progressively through the Ten Commandments over the next two years. This morning, we begin where God Himself begins: with the First Commandment.

I have titled this series FLOURISH, because it is in keeping God’s commandments that human life truly flourishes. If you want to live your best life now—not in the shallow sense of self-fulfillment, but in the deep, lasting sense God intends—then obey God’s commandments.

A Father Speaking to His Son

Another important detail that bears mentioning is this: the commandments are addressed to a man.

In the Hebrew, the word “you” throughout the commandments is a second-person singular masculine pronoun. That raises an important question: Why does God use masculine singular language to address His people as a whole?

To answer that, we need to see a larger biblical pattern.

The Sons of God in Scripture

There are three “sons of God” that stand out in the storyline of Scripture.

First, Adam is called the son of God.
And Adam failed.

But here in the Exodus story, a new Adam is emerging.

God is addressing Israel as His son. And what God is doing in the Ten Words—the Ten Commandments—is communicating His own character to His son.

This is not merely prohibitive language or legal language…
This is father-to-son language.

So when we read the Ten Commandments, we must understand them not simply as restrictions, but as formative speech.

A Father is telling His son what He is like—
and therefore what His son is to become.

It is God restoring His image in His son.

With that in mind, let us now hear the Word of the Lord from Exodus 20, verses 1 through 3.

BUT BEFORE WE DO, LET US PRAY FOR ILLUMINATION

Exodus 20:1-3

20 And God spoke all these words, saying,

² “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

³ “You shall have no other gods before me.

God’s Glory and Our Good: A Fatal Divorce

One of the great misunderstandings in the Christian life is our tendency to divorce God’s glory from our good. We do this constantly.

Take evangelism as an example. God is glorified when we share the good news—the glorious news—of the gospel. Yet why do we so often hesitate to do the very thing the Spirit has empowered us to do? Because, at some level, we believe that God’s glory and our good are not joined together.

So what do we do? We qualify the command.
We nuance it to death.
We convince ourselves that we are not really called to speak to others about Jesus.

And when we hear a sermon on the Great Commission, we think, “That was interesting. What’s for lunch?” And off we go, talking about the wind—turning the Great Commission into the great suggestion.

We separate our comfort from God’s glory.
We tear them apart.

Can I get a witness?

A Picture of the Human Heart

We are like my wife’s nephew—you’ve heard the story before. He is perfectly happy playing putt-putt as long as he goes first at every hole. But the moment he is asked to let someone else be first, he suddenly becomes an expert theologian, proclaiming the doctrine of original sin—worshiping yourself above all else—by crying out, “You are destroying my joy!”

We do the same thing.

We divorce loving God and loving our neighbor from our joy.

Insert whatever God forbids and you love, and you will see this principle at work every time: we separate God’s glory from our good.

 

Glory and Joy: Two Sides of One Coin

But what this passage shows us is that these two realities—God’s glory and our joy—are inseparably joined together. They are two sides of the same coin.

Forsake one, and you lose the other.
Seek one, and you find the other.

That is precisely what the people described in Romans 1 miss. They fail to see that God’s glory and our ultimate, lasting good are bound together forever.

Interestingly enough, this is the same reason Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit. Eve saw more joy in disobeying God than in giving God glory through her obedience.

That is the root of all sin: divorcing God’s glory from our good.

And that is precisely where God begins when He speaks His law to His people.

Worship God Alone

What we must see in these verses is this: joy comes through the worship of God alone.

We must worship God alone.
This is not optional.
This is not a suggestion.

God—and God alone—is to be worshiped.

But we face a problem: we are idolaters by nature. Calvin said it right, “our hearts is a factory of idols.” You soul, your will, your desires constantly fabricate idols to worship. So, if we are going to worship God alone, we first have to learn how to diagnose idolatrous hearts…

Diagnosing the Idolatrous Heart

So, a first question that we have to address this morning is this:  How do we diagnose our idolatrous hearts? Where do we place our hearts to test them—not for acidity, but for idolatricity, to coin a term?

We test things all the time. We test for electricity with a volt meter. We test if meat is cooked with a thermometer, or how the chicken shreds on the fork. We test all sorts of things. But how we do test the heart for idolatry?

To diagnose our hearts in light of God’s Word, we need to zoom out and get a clear picture of idolatry.

When you look at the number one sin in the story of Israel, you will find it is idolatry. Again and again, Israel devoted itself to idols. They crafted images of false gods and bowed down to them.

The danger in assessing Israel’s failure is assuming we must look for the exact same manifestation of sin in our own context. We assume that if we are not bowing before a statue or paying homage to an image, then we have escaped idolatry.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

External Worship and Internal Allegiance

When reading the Bible, one crucial principle to remember is that the Old Testament often deals with external realities that point to internal realities. The Old Testament externalizes our problems so that we can clearly understand what is going on inside us.

This is why you see more emphasis on outward actions in the Old Testament than on inward dispositions as in the New Testament. It is not that the internal is absent—it is there—but God is progressively moving revelation from the external to the internal.

And even in the Old Testament, God makes clear that worship is never merely external.

Listen to His words through Isaiah:

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?” says the LORD.
“Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you…
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil.”

Israel was worshiping God externally, but internally they were worshiping the gods of the nations.

And in time, that internal idolatry inevitably manifested itself outwardly.

Internal Idolatry: The Target of Jesus’ Ministry

So when Jesus confronts idolatry in the New Testament, He is not primarily aiming at external idolatry—which had largely ceased by that point in Israel’s history—but at internal idolatry.

We see this clearly in Mark 7.

The scribes and Pharisees are outraged because the disciples did not wash their hands before a meal. This was not merely about hygiene; it was a ritual practice meant to symbolize purity.

Jesus seizes that moment and exposes what is really going on. He tells them that they worship their traditions more than God. They worship their rules more than God’s commands.

How does Jesus know this?
He tells us—by quoting Isaiah.

“Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
(Mark 7:6–8)

 

Lips That Move, Hearts That Do Not

Jesus is essentially saying, “Don’t you see it? Don’t you get it?”

Your lips move—but your heart does not.
Your knees bend—but your heart remains stubborn.

You act as though you are worshiping Me, but you are not.

You worship your preferences.
You worship your ideas.
You worship your attitudes and opinions.

As for My commands—you may not reject them with your words, but you reject them with your actions.

A Warning to the Church

O church of Jesus Christ, are we a church that sings the songs, reads the Bible, quotes the catechism—and yet our hearts remain unmoved, unbothered, unimpressed by the God of Scripture?

Many of us have been in church for a long time. And because of that, our danger is closer to the Pharisees than to almost anyone else in the New Testament.

Why?

Because we know our Bibles.
We know doctrinal statements.

But that has never been the point.

The question is not whether we know doctrine.
The question is whether doctrine changes us.

Do we reorient our decisions and our allegiances because of what God reveals in His Word?

That is the test of idolatry.

Do we obey God—or not?

Saul: A Case Study in Idolatry

You remember the story of Saul.

Samuel commanded Saul, by the word of the Lord, to destroy Amalek completely—to devote everything to destruction. Saul was to spare nothing.

But when Saul went out, he spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites. He also spared the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fattened calves, and the lambs—directly disobeying what God had commanded.

And then we read these sobering words:

“The word of the LORD came to Samuel:
‘I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.’”
(1 Samuel 15:10–11)

When Samuel confronts Saul, Saul acts as though he were innocent.

“I have performed the commandment of the LORD,” Saul says.

But Samuel replies, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?”

All Saul can offer are excuses.

“They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the LORD your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.”

“Samuel, understand, man. Look—we’re taking the best of the sheep for sacrifices. You don’t understand, Samuel. It’s for God.”

Let me translate that into modern American English.

“Samuel, you don’t understand. You don’t see it. Of course I obey the Great Commission—I give money to missions.”

“You don’t understand, Samuel. We live in a post-Christian culture. You act like it’s easy to talk to people about Jesus.”

“I mean, I am obeying. Just because you don’t like how I do it doesn’t mean I’m not obeying.”

Or this:

“What do you mean, Samuel? I do my Christian duties, if you will. I come to church, give my offerings. Who cares if I am not striving to love others, I am here and that is what counts. I think you’re taking this too far. Relax, Samuel.”

Different, but the same.

Disobedience cloaked in excuses!

But Saul’s actions tell a different story.
And more importantly, the disposition of Saul’s heart tells a different story.

Obedience: The Test of Worship

Samuel then declares a word that should ring in our ears, church—a word that should cause us to pause and examine our ways:

“Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.”
(1 Samuel 15:22)

And then Samuel exposes the heart of the matter:

“For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
he has also rejected you from being king.”
(1 Samuel 15:23)

Samuel equates rebellion with idolatry.

And the telltale sign of idolatry is disobedience.

Obedience is the acidity test we apply to the heart to see whether it is idolatrous or not.

Jesus does the same thing.
Samuel does the same thing.

And the warning is the same:

Do not let your lips move while your heart remains unmoved.
Do not let your knees bend while your heart remains stubborn.

Why? The telltale sign of worship is obedience!

If the telltale sign of idolatry is disobedience, that means what you are worshipping is what you are obeying.

95. What is idolatry?
96. Idolatry is having or inventing something in which one trusts (obeys) in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed himself in his Word.

So, the question is this: what are you obeying?

Theologian: Whose imperatives do you obey? Does the voice in your head come from advertisements, popular songs, YouTube or Netflix shows? Who is your true Lord—not your professed Lord, but the one who actually speaks with authority into your life? If the voice in your head says “Do this,” but the voice from Sinai says “Don’t,” which do you listen to? When you silence the Lord’s voice, you’ve deafened yourself because there’s an idol in your ears.^[1]

MAIN POINT: The call of God upon His people is this: we worship Him by obeying Him. We enjoy him by obeying!

What Moves the Heart to Worship God Alone?

So the question I want us to consider for the remainder of our time together is this:

What do we need to know and believe in order for our hearts to move to worship God alone?

1. You Worship God by Remembering That You Belong to Him

We see this immediately in verse 2. The Ten Commandments do not begin with an imperative, but with a declaration:

“I am the LORD your God.”

Before God gives a single command, He establishes belonging.

What does this declaration mean? It means several things.

First, it means that you are accountable to God.
You are required to give an account for the way you live, the choices you make, and the loyalties you hold.

Second, it means that you have lasting comfort because God is with you.

Our catechism begins with this very truth:

What is your only comfort in life and in death, in body and soul?
That I am not my own.

I do not belong to myself.

What misery there is in belonging to self.
What tragedy it is to belong to my own opinions, my own thoughts, my own ideas, my own emotions.

But I belong to God—body and soul, in life and in death.

And if I belong to God, then nothing can separate me from Him. That means I am secure.

Israel was a small nation—exposed, vulnerable, like grasshoppers before elephants. Their lives were laid bare before the watching world. And yet, God was their God.

They belonged to Him.

The voice that thundered from Mount Sinai declared:

I am the LORD your God.

You belong to Me—to My justice, yes.
To My holiness, yes.
To My righteous decrees, yes.

But also to My mercy.
My compassion.
My salvation.
My grace.

Are you beginning to see how God’s glory and our good are inseparably linked?

So, again, what do we need to know and believe in order for our hearts to move to worship God alone? You Worship God by Remembering That You Belong to Him

2. You Worship God by Knowing That He Is Working for Your Good

Notice how verse 2 continues. God does not only say who He is toward us; He says what He has done:

“Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

God identifies Himself as a redeeming God.

The God who commands is the God who delivers.
The God who requires obedience is the God who has already acted for your good.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism captures this beautifully when it asks:

What is the chief end of man?
Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

Our joy and God’s glory—bound together.

Always have been.
Always will be.

With that truth: God tells us, v. 3 – “You shall have no other gods before me.”

We know the story of Israel

We all know that almost immediately after the commandments were given—while the words were still, as it were, drying on the stone—Israel rushed down the mountain to commit idolatry. They immediately forsook God and gave their love to idols.

That moment reveals something crucial: God’s people needed a better mediator than Moses—one who could not only deliver the law, but also demolish idols. Not merely the physical, visible idols, but the invisible idols of the heart.

And that is precisely the promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the one who truly liberates us.

For this reason, it is essential that God reminds Israel that He is the God who delivered them from the bondage of Egypt. In the same way, God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son.

And within that kingdom, its values and priorities are summed up in the Ten Commandments.

Which means this: we are not liberated from God’s law—we are liberated to keep God’s law.

God’s call to us in Christ

God, through Peter, tells something similar in 1 Peter 2

⁹ But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

¹¹ Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

Notice the language of belonging and deliverance, followed by a subsequent command!

Grace always precedes duty but never abolishes it!

Conclusion

This morning, God is calling us to worship Him—and Him alone.

Without a doubt, there are countless idols we are fighting against—idols that, as Peter says, wage war against your soul. God is reminding you today that you belong to Him. And because you belong to Him, you are accountable to Him.

You are called to glorify Him.
You are called to worship Him.

This is what you were created to do.
And this is where you will find your most lasting joy.

So put away the idols.
Put away disobedience.
Put away the passions of the flesh.

Put away everything that wages war against your soul.

And lean on your God—the God who has saved you through Jesus Christ, His Son; who has delivered you from the domain of darkness and transferred you into the kingdom of His Son.

And as citizens of that kingdom, worship God—and God alone.

^[1] Peter J. Leithart, The Ten Commandments: A Guide to the Perfect Law of Liberty, Christian Essentials (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020), 26.