“1 God 1 Way”

Exodus 20:3

Rev. Dustin Largent

August 24, 2025 

 

Why the Ten Commandments Matter

Good morning. Great to have you all here today. If you're new here, we run through books of the Bible, usually. That's kind of how we go. I'm focusing on a small part of the book of Exodus right now called the Ten Commandments. We just started it last week. You got here just in time to be able to kind of catch it all. I'm going to give you just a quick preview of what we did last week because it leads into what we're going to talk about today. Let me just remind you of why we have the Ten Commandments—why they exist. Why did God give them to us?

The reason I want you to understand why is because there's a lot of confusion about why we have the Ten Commandments. If you misunderstand the purpose of the commandments, then you end up misunderstanding the God that gave them to us. It's really important that we understand this and see the truth of this.

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The very first reason—one of the reasons—is that they show the freed saint how to live a full and free life. We talked about that last week. God didn't give the Ten Commandments to those that were in slavery in Egypt until after they had been freed. There was a whole bunch of Israelites that were in Egypt and they were slaves. And God didn’t say, “I know what I'll do to free you. I'll give you a bunch of rules to obey. And when you obey all these rules, then all of a sudden you'll be free.” That's not what He did. He freed them by His mighty hand. And then afterwards, He gave them commandments so that they could stay free—so that they could learn how to live a free and full life. So that's the reason He gives us the commandments.

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But not everybody that hears the commandments understands or has been freed by God. There are people—you know people—most of the people that hear the Ten Commandments, they don't know God. They don't know that God hasn't freed them. And so when they receive the Ten Commandments, they're hostile toward the commandments because they think the commandments are hostile toward them. They hear a commandment and they say, “Well, this commandment makes me feel bad. I don't feel good.” That's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to make you feel bad if you don't love God or if you don't have a relationship with God, because they're supposed to point out the error within you. They're supposed to point out the sin within you.

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So, I talked last week about a mirror—that the commandments are like a mirror. You look in that mirror and you don't say, “Boy, am I good looking.” You look in that mirror of the Word of God and you go, “Man, I'm a mess.” Right? I don't measure up to God when I look in the mirror. I need something. But then I don't ask the mirror to fix me. Right? The mirror can't fix me. I can't take the mirror and start to clean my face with the mirror. That doesn't work.

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No. It shows me that I need to go elsewhere. And that's the third thing that it shows us. It shows us that once you understand that you've got a mess on your hands—that you're not in relationship with God, that you're a sinner, that you are not right with God—the commandments then point you to the one who will free you and fix you by what you see there. It points us to Jesus. So, the Ten Commandments—we're going to find out through this series—they're all about Jesus. They're all about Jesus. And they're how to live a free and full life.

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The Misunderstanding of the Commandments

And here’s where the confusion is. There is some confusion. The confusion is that when you talk to folk—you talk to people, right? You talk to them about different things. And somebody will say, “Well, thou shalt not kill,” or “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” or “Thou shalt not this or that—bear false witness, thou shalt not commit...” They’ll say those things.

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And a lot of people—I would say more than half, probably easily more than half, most people, because other religions kind of function this way too—believe that the way you get to heaven is to climb the rung of these commandments. Right? There’s ten commandments. It’s like a ladder. There’s ten rungs. And you start climbing that ladder.

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And if you can keep—well, you might mess up on a couple of rungs, right? You might have blown the adultery one. You might have blown the false witness one. You might have cheated on your taxes. But for the most part, “I’m a good person,” right? “I’m good enough that I’m able to climb this ladder to God.”

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That’s the misunderstanding of the commandments. That’s not how it works at all. It’s not how it works at all.

So, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take a look at this. We did verses one and two last week. Today we have eight words that we’re going to look at. It’s verse three. If you got it, you can turn to it in Exodus chapter 20, verse 3:

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“You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3)

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You shall have no other gods before me. Hmm. That’s kind of different. This is different than the other commandments we’re going to read because the other commandments are going to give you a whole lot of do’s and don’ts. “You better not do this. Don’t do that. Please do this. Don’t do that.” Right? There’s do’s and don’ts. This one is foundational for all the other commandments we’re going to get after this because this commandment is telling us about our relationship with Him. It’s defining the relationship.

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Defining the Relationship with God

How many of you ever—well, any of you that dated anybody, maybe you’re in college, maybe you’re in high school, I don’t know—we won’t get too specific. You’re dating somebody or you’re getting married. All of a sudden, you don’t know where the relationship is. Right? You’re like, “Dude, I mean, I’m sitting at home and some girl—I’m digging on some girl’s chili. I don’t know.” And I’m like, “Hey, what? You know, I like this girl. But I don’t know if she likes me.” Right? “I think she likes me. She went on a date with me. But I don’t know what I am. Are we just friends? Have I been friend-zoned? Or is there more to this?”

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“Is she my girlfriend or is she not my girlfriend? Can I go date anybody I want? Or if I date somebody, am I going to get a fork stuck in my face?” Like, I don’t know what my relationship is with this person. So, you have what’s called a relationship-defining talk, don’t you? Where you sit down and say, “Listen, I’m a guy. I don’t understand anything about any signals you’ve given me because I’m a dude and I can’t tell—I cannot—I don’t translate woman. Right? I can’t understand it. So you got to point blank tell me: Do you like me at all? Am I okay to date another girl or should I not? Are you my girlfriend or are you not? What’s this relationship?” “I got to define it. Like, is it just you and me now? Or is it you and a bunch of other guys too? I want to know what the deal is.”

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God is explaining in verse 3. He says, “Listen, here’s the relationship-defining talk: We’re exclusive. It’s just you and me. There ain’t no other gods.” Right? “There ain’t going to be any other gods. No gods.” This idea—and you’ll read this throughout Scripture—says:

 

“I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” (Leviticus 26:12, Jeremiah 30:22, Ezekiel 36:28)

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That’s the way He always talks. “I shall be your God, and you shall be my people.” Right? Not that you will have a bunch of gods. “I will be your God.” Now this is radically different than what we knew back in Egypt. In Egypt, they had all kinds of gods. You had a god for this. Like, you had a god—it’s harvest time—and you had a god you went to. And that god doesn’t care if you worship other gods. He doesn’t care if you’re exclusive. He’s only there to help you with harvest.

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But then you’re trying to get pregnant over here, and so you go to another god—that’s a fertility god—and you’re talking to the fertility god and you’re praying to that god, giving sacrifices to the fertility god. That god doesn’t care about being exclusive. He doesn’t care that you’re over here offering sacrifices somewhere else because your gods are in different areas of your life. “I’ve got a god for this. I got a god for that. Here a god, there a god, everywhere a god-god.” Right? We’re just worshiping everywhere we can worship, right? But God doesn’t say that, does He?

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God says: “You shall have no other gods before me.”  (Exodus 20:3)  

 

No other god. No Side Gods – Total Devotion

So, what does God say when He gets to the greatest commandment? What’s the greatest commandment?

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“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

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You mean not just the part of my heart that is for fertility? Not just the part of my heart that’s for the harvest? Not just the part of my heart that has to do with this or with that? No. He says, “Listen, there is no other god. You shall have no other gods before me. And you will love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind.” You don’t have one god for your heart, one god for your soul, one god for your mind, one god for your strength. He says:

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“You will love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength and with all of your mind.” (Luke 10:27)

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You're gonna love Him with all. It’s all to God. He wants to be exclusive. He didn’t want you having any side gods, right? Just like my wife says, “No side chicks.” I say, “No side dudes.” We don’t have any side anything, right? It’s just us. It’s just us.

I mean, I think the best way to understand this—“no other gods before me”—is really to look at marriage.

What’s the biblical definition of a marriage? In Scripture, it is one man and one woman. Okay? One man and one woman. Not five men and one woman. Not six women and one man. Not one man and one man. Not one chick and one chick. It’s one man, one woman. That’s the definition of marriage.

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Marriage is given to us by God to explain to us and show us the relationship between us and the church. And so the picture that’s always given to us in Scripture is of Jesus as our groom and we are the bride of Christ. And He’s going away. He’s going to come back and get His bride and bring us. And He’s made us spotless to be a spotless bride. I mean, all the symbolism is all there.

And so, when I married Julie, I said, “You shall have no other husbands before me.” That’s what I said. I’m not willing to share you. I think I was justified in saying I’m not willing to share you at all. No one else is to function or do for you or to you or with you what a husband does—except me. All right? Nobody.

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We said in our vows—I remember standing up there—we said, “Forsaking all others.” Remember that in the vows? Forsaking all others.

I promised Julie, “Listen, I won’t love anybody like I love you. I won’t be intimate with anybody like I am with you. I won’t give access to myself to anyone like I do you. I won’t claim as my own and protect and provide and serve and share with anybody else in the world the way I am with you.”

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Marriage as a Picture of Devotion to God

I mean, imagine if I decided I was going to have another wife. I’d be a dead man. And for good reason. For good reason. Because it’s a picture of the relationship that we have with God. It’s a picture of:

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“You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3)

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It pictures that. I mean, after she got the fork out of my face, she’d say, “No, it’s her or me. You gotta pick one of us. You gotta pick one. And if you pick the wrong one, I take half your stuff.” “You need to get rid of her. You need to never speak to her again. You need to never associate with her again.” Those other gods that you worshiped—those other girls that you were involved with in the past—when you were back in Egypt, those gods that you worshiped, that you loved on, that you cared about, that you were always seeking their approval—those gods in your own life—they are no longer to be a part of your life. You need to get them out of there. “I don’t want you friending your old gods on Facebook. I don’t want you doing anything like that. Get them out.”

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Loving God with All Your Heart

And this is related to the Ten Commandments that are the great commandment:

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“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

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If I take another wife or a girlfriend, what am I communicating to my wife? And what are you communicating to God if you have taken another god? You’re communicating that you don’t love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind. You love Him with part of your heart, because you love these other gods with part of your heart. It’s revealed in what you’re doing.

If I had another woman, I would be saying to my wife, “You don’t have all of my heart, because some of my heart is going here, some of my heart is going there.” You can’t do that. All of it goes to God. He wants all of you. So that’s what God means when He says:

 

“You shall have no other gods before me.”  (Exodus 20:3)

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Why No Other Gods?

But that still leaves a question. Reading this, I said, “Well, how come?” Is that a real question? “How’s come? How come? Why?” Why? I mean, why can’t I have any other gods? I mean, they always had other gods before. What’s the reason why I have to only serve you? Why can’t I serve you and then have some other gods—like money and other things that are important to me, that I rely on and I trust in? Why can’t I have all that? Well, you can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. Let’s go back to verses one and two. It says:

“And God spoke all these words: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.’” (Exodus 20:1–2)

So, the first part of this whole thing of the Ten Commandments—this is how it starts. It says:

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“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2)

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Now let’s put that in context. God’s people were in Egypt. They were slaves. They were in misery from their slavery. God hears their cries as they’re crying out to God for help. Now they had other gods they were worshiping, but God’s the one who steps in. And God listens, right? God hears them. He hears them. He has mercy. They’re crying for freedom. God doesn’t give them any commandments at the time, right? That’s not His thing. Instead, God—and God alone—delivers them by His own mighty hand. That’s what He does. He delivers them.

 

Learning to Live Free

Once they’re out of Egypt, God needs to teach them how to be free people—because they don’t know how to be free. Their whole life, they lived as slaves. They’ve always been slaves. You know, that’s kind of how it is. You become a Christian. God frees you from a life of sin. You’ve got habits that are bad. You were living for yourself. You were living all... it wasn’t good, right?

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And then God frees you, and then you still have this propensity, right? You still got a little Adam in you, right? And you’re saying to yourself, “Man, why am I struggling? Why am I struggling to love God and to serve God and to...?” Well, you have it because that’s still a part of you, right? And so God wants you to live a different way. And so God gave the commandments to these people saying, “Listen, you’re free, but I need to teach you how to live free.” And so, the commandments are here to teach us how to live freely. How to follow God. How to live like the freed people that God made us when He died on the cross and when we committed our life to Him.

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God’s Authority Revealed on the Mountain

So, God calls Moses up the mountain. I love this. They’re freed. They’re wandering around. All the Israelites are coming. Moses goes up on top of a mountain called Mount Sinai. They’ve just gotten freed, okay? And God needs to teach them how to be free. They don’t know how to be free. So, God calls them up on a mountain—or calls Moses up on the mountain—Mount Sinai. He says:

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“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2)

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In other words, the reason that you can’t have any other gods before you and you have to do these things is because no other god freed you from slavery. You had a ton of gods, but none of them freed you from slavery. They had 400 years just for you from slavery. You cried out to Me and I came running. You cried out to Me and I made a way for you to cross the Red Sea. I made a way out of slavery.

That’s what Jesus does. He says, “I make a way for you out of slavery through trust, through faith in Jesus Christ—grace through faith—so that you could follow Me.” So, He goes up on this mountain. And when He’s up there, it’s pretty scary. There’s lightning and the mountain’s shaking, right? It’s kind of freaky and people are freaking out.

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“Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.” (Exodus 19:18–19)

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I mean, that’s quite a spectacle, isn’t it? Imagine that. That would freak me out. Right? That would make most of us freak out. God’s speaking. The mountain’s shaking. And then He’s going to give these commands. Give these commandments. I mean, all of a sudden now I know that the person who’s talking from heaven—He’s got some veracity. He’s got some authority. We should listen to this God. Right? He’s saying, “Listen to Him. Listen to God.” He’s got something to tell you—how to live to be free.

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From Sinai to Bethlehem – A Clearer Revelation

You’re thinking, “Man, could God ever do anything like that again? Could God ever be clearer than He was? Lightning, smoke, fire? And then speaking—could God ever have been clearer that He’s speaking to His people?” Could He? Yes, He could. Because through the prophets, God promises something even more glorious. Two thousand years ago, instead of descending on a lightning-striking, loud, thunderous, violent, smoke-covered mountain, God comes down in the peace of a baby in Bethlehem.

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Instead of thunder and a shaking mountain, His coming is peaceful. He’s got animals and a manger with a shining star. And so, what God proclaims clearly in the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, He communicates again—but this time much more clearly. It’s not just a list of ten rules.

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He says, “I’m going to show this as clear as I possibly can. Maybe you didn’t get it back on Mount Sinai. That was pointing to this more clear picture of who I am and how you live a full and free life.” “I’m going to give it to you so that you can see it and you can touch it and you can hear it and you can live among it. I’m going to give you the Word made flesh, and He will be among you. And that will be the clearest and final presentation of My truth—of how to be free and full.”

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“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” (John 1:14)

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Right? God Himself became flesh and now He’s dwelling among us. So He’s here—not just from a loud voice up in the sky—He’s here. And you can see the Ten Commandments. You can see the Word of God. You see it lived out and you see it being clarified as Jesus talks through the commandments with people.

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“You have heard it said... but I say...” He clarifies it. At Sinai, God gave the Word of God to the people through Moses. But in the coming of Christ, the Word Himself comes down in its clearest and fullest form.

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The Mountain of Clarity – Listen to Him

In closing, let me just show you one more mountain. We got time for another mountain. If you’ve got a Bible, turn to Luke chapter 9, to another mountain.

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“About eight days after Jesus said this, He took Peter, John, and James with Him and went up onto a mountain to pray.” (Luke 9:28)

 

So, all of a sudden, what do we got? We got God up on a mountain. Now let me tell you something about this mountain. This isn’t the same mountain. This isn’t Sinai. This mountain is actually within the Promised Land. I don’t know if you knew this—Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land. The first time Moses ever enters the Promised Land is right here, because he appears with God on a mountain in the Promised Land. But watch what it says:

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“As He was praying, the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.”  (Luke 9:29)

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Does that remind you of another mountain? Flashing lightning. Everything’s getting kind of crazy.

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“Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about His departure”—the word in Hebrew is ‘exodus.’ Jesus is about to exodus the earth—“which He was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.”  (Luke 9:30–31) Now skip down to verse 34:

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“While He was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.”  (Luke 9:34)

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Does that sound familiar to anybody? God’s on the mountain with Moses, and the same cloud that was on Mount Sinai is now on this mountain. And a voice comes from the cloud. It’s the same voice that spoke from Sinai, now speaking again—and Jesus is there. The same voice. So just like back in Exodus, God is going to speak. He’s going to tell us how to live full and free lives. He’s going to tell us how to be His people. And He’s going to be even clearer this time—with Jesus.

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And I say, “Alright God, You showed back up on the mountain. You’ve got Jesus there. You’ve got Moses. You’ve got Elijah. Last time You gave us Ten Commandments. What’s the new commandment?” “Give us—how do we live a full and free life? We’re waiting. Tell us, what is it? What is Your word that You want to say to us for how to live a full and free life?”

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“A voice came from the cloud, saying, ‘This is My Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him.’” (Luke 9:35)

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Listen to Him. The answer is to listen to Jesus. It’s pointing to Jesus. This is not an eleventh commandment. Listen to Him.

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Jesus – The Fulfillment of the First Commandment

Jesus perfectly fulfills the first commandment, because He is the God before you. He’s the God more before you than you’ve ever had a God before you. He is before you in the flesh, and:

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“You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3)

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Except for Him. No other God before you but Jesus. No other God. God says, “You shall have no other God before you,” and it’s the same God who said: “Listen to Him.” (Luke 9:35)

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The Only Way to the Father

Look what it says in John 14:6. This is Jesus speaking—the one who God just told us from heaven to listen to. This is what Jesus says:

 

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

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Jesus is saying, “You shall have no other God before you—but Me.” Then in John 10:29–30, Jesus says:

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“My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:29–30)

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Jesus is God. So how do you show your devotion? How do you obey the first commandment? Some of you are wondering, “How do I obey the first commandment?” Here’s how you obey the first commandment. This is how you do it. This is how you live a full and free life. Very easy.

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The way you show your exclusive devotion to our God—Yahweh—is through your devotion to Jesus as the only way to Him.

We worship Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life. And we shall worship no other god except for Him. You worship Jesus. You hear Jesus. When you worship Jesus, you worship the one true God who delivered us from slavery. And anybody who doesn’t worship Jesus cannot worship the one true God. You can’t worship the one true God talked about in Exodus 20:3, unless you do it by worshiping Jesus. It’s the only way.

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The Call to Salvation – Jesus Made a Way

Because Jesus said:

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“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

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If you’ve never come to the Father—if you’ve never come to Jesus—this is new to you. There’s a lot of people, a lot of gods out there, a lot of people claiming, “Well, you get this way, you climb the rung up to heaven. There’s lots of ways. Obey the commandments.” That’s not how. The one way is through putting your faith and trust in Jesus. We are sinners. We recognize that. We’re not perfect and right before God. We’re not right in relationship with Him on our own. We’re born not right. But Jesus fixed the problem. He became sin for us. He suffered the suffering that we deserve. And in doing so, He substituted Himself and says, “Listen, I’ve done this because I love you.”

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Come to Jesus – From Slavery to Freedom

“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

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That means you don’t have to get your act cleaned up before you give your life to Jesus. He died for you and loved you and was willing to die for you—even when you were jacked up and messed up and sinned and blaspheming Him and everything. He loved you then. He says, “Come to Me. Turn away from a life of slavery. Turn away from Egypt. Get out of Egypt.” “Grab onto Me. I have made a way—just like the Red Sea—I’ve made a way by faith. Come to Me, and by that path, I’ll lead you to freedom.” And then the way you will live a full and free life is: you. And it’s so clear. It’s so clear.

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It’s so easy to understand. Basically, You’re telling us that You love us and You don’t want to share us. That You’re the only God there is, really. All those other gods are so-called gods. They don’t even exist. There’s only one true God, and it’s You. That’s why You are the only one that could save them from slavery in Egypt, and You’re the only one who can save us from our sins. You’re the only God.

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Closing Prayer

We love You. God, we turn from our wicked ways. We pass from death to life through faith in what You did on the cross and Your resurrection. And God, we commit right now in Jesus’ name to listen to You so that we can live full and free lives—for Your glory—in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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