Audio Worship 6/14/2026, "First Commandment - What is Required", Exodus 20.1-3

Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1735

June 14, 2026

Exodus 20.1-3           Click here for audio worship.

Dr. Ed Pettus

(This is an extended outline, not a verbatim transcript.)

 

“First Commandment – What is Required”

 

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.

 

 

  • The Only True God

 

The First Commandment is foundational to our understanding of God and even ourselves. This is the God who is the “I am”, who is Lord of lords, and our God. He is the One who delivered the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt and He has delivered us out of bondage to sin and death through His Son Jesus Christ. Because He is who He is, we are commanded to have no other gods before Him, for He is the only true God.

Each Commandment has two aspects we will be exploring: that which is required by the Commandment and that which is forbidden. I had someone ask what more could be added to some of the Commandments that are so direct and clear. What more can be said beyond you shall not steal or covet or that we shall honor the Sabbath? Hopefully, through this series, we will discover a great deal of teaching that proceeds from the simplicity of the Ten Commandments. Books have been written interpreting the widespread meaning and coverage of the Ten Commandments. We will explore the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger Catechism. It is in the Catechism where we see the doctrines expounded that teach what is required and what is forbidden with each Commandment.

 

The First Commandment requires that we have no other gods before the Lord our God. It requires that we acknowledge the truth of His identity as Lord and God, as the “I am”. It requires our trust that He is the only true and living God. This is the proclamation of the Scriptures in places like Psalm 95.6-7, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.” Because He is the only true God we are required to worship Him, bowing down before Him to bring Him glory in our worship and praise.

This is foundational to our Christian religion and faithful practice. All things are done and spoken for the glory of God. Psalm 115.1-8 is a prime example of the only true God as compared to the false gods of the world. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” You shall have no other gods before the living God because all the other “gods” (little g) are lifeless, impotent objects of human origin. They are formed out of the material God created but they have no power, no vision, no speech, no movement, and cannot even clear their throat.

But our God is in the heavens and He does as He pleases. You see, our God can do! He can do as He pleases because He is the Living God and able to actually do something! He speaks, sees, hears, smells, and has hands to uphold us, Isaiah 41.10, “fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” He walks with us and we with Him! The last of the list about false gods is that they cannot even clear their throat, cannot make a sound at all, while our God is the one who spoke everything into existence. This is why He and He alone is the God we worship and we will have no other gods before Him.

 

  • To Worship and Glorify God

 

The First Commandment requires that we worship and glorify God. The first question of the Shorter Catechism is about our chief end, which is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. How do we glorify God? The Larger Catechism says this: we glorify God “by valuing, meditating on, remembering, highly regarding, honoring, adoring, preferring, loving, desiring, fearing, believing, trusting, hoping, delighting, and rejoicing in Him.” There is so much to unpack here and each of these answers to the question of how to glorify God have a Scripture reference, a proof text, to show this is the way to bring glory to God. So, for example, from this list: to fear the Lord – Isaiah 8.11-13, “For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” Or on the other side is to delight in the Lord, Psalm 37.4, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

The Catechism teaches us to be zealous for the Lord, to call on Him in prayer, and to offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

Romans 12.11, “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.”

Philippians 4.6, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

These are ways we worship and glorify Him and thus keep the First Commandment. All through the Bible we learn more and more about what it means to have no other gods before the Living God.

 

  • A Living Sacrifice

 

In keeping the First Commandment we are to obey God and submit our lives to Him completely. As the only true God there is no other god like our God and no other god to whom we may submit our lives. So we read in James 4.7, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” From the prophet Jeremiah 7.23, “But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’” Submission seems to be a bad word in the world today. Modernism teaches us to submit to no one and nothing, but to live as autonomous beings without boundaries or rules, especially rules from the God of the Bible. This Commandment calls us to do as Paul teaches in

Romans 12.1-2, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” As a nation we are about to celebrate 250 years of freedom, but that freedom is not the anarchy of lawless freedom to do whatever anyone chooses. We have established, mostly from the Bible, laws that govern freedom and actually support more freedom than does a society or life without the Commandments. No other gods requires that we abandon worship of self, of fame, of riches, of anything other than the Living God.

As a people and as an individual we are obeying God’s Commandment when we are fully given over to sacrifice our lives to Him alone. We give Him our time and efforts, our resources and energy; we give all of our life to worship and serve only God. It is a daily sacrifice as in taking up the cross each day to follow Jesus (Luke 9.23). It is a daily devotion as in meditating on His Word day and night (Psalm 1). It is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving as we acknowledge that all good gifts come from above (James 1.17).

 

  • Walking With the Lord

 

Our final thought on what is required in the First Commandment is to walk humbly with our God. Micah 6.8, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” We are to seek to please God in all things in our walk with Him. Colossians 1.9-10, “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

Walking with the Lord and keeping His commandments are synonymous! Deuteronomy 26.17, “You have declared today that the Lord is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice.” The beauty of walking with the Lord is that the Lord walks with us by the Holy Spirit, to keep us in His Word, to obey His voice, and to have no other gods before the Living God.

 

What is required of the First Commandment is to acknowledge that this God is God, the only true God and in acknowledging this we worship and serve Him only. We are required to offer our lives to Him in joyful obedience and love, to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever! And we are called to walk with Him in humble repentance, trusting in Him for life. When we fail to obey this First Commandment we set ourselves up to fail in all the Commandments. Failure to have no other gods leads to other gods, other devotions that have no life and cannot give life. The gods of our day and context are not like those of old made of wood or metal, but gods like the love of money or desires of the world. They can be anything that keeps us from worshiping the only true God. Failure to have only God as our God leads us to forget God and use His name inappropriately if considered at all. Failure to the First is failure to love God and then it is not long before we fail to love those made in His image, our neighbor. We know this Commandment, therefore, may we keep it wholly (entirely) and holy (sacred), for this is the only true God who delivered Israel out of slavery and has also delivered us out of bondage to sin and death. Let us thank the Lord God, and the Christ, and the Holy Spirit that we may gain strength toward obedience with joy! Amen.