Sermon Tone Analysis

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Introduction:
What is your definition of God?
Super Soul Sunday is a segment where Oprah Winfrey she asks leading spiritual leaders about what they think about God.
How would you define God, Oprah asks.
Here are the responses:
What is your definition of God?
“God is the highest place within each and every one else.
It is our divine self”
“The source of you.”
Debbie Ford “I define god as an energy.
A spiritual energy.
It has no denomination.
It has no judgments....a energy or force greater than myself.”
“My definition of god.
God is not only the Alpha and Omega, but a friend.
A confidante.
He is a buddy.
He is a lover of my soul.
That is my definition of god.”
“All encompassing love that is the source of all, the reality of all, and the being through which I am.”
“God is beyond all the forms of life.
But also indwells every form of life as their essence.
He is both beyond and within.”
“My definition of God is the ever present essence of love.”
“God is love”
“God to me is mystical law.
Because law is the nature of the universe.
It is the order of things.”
“All that is.
Everything.
Breath.
Life.
It’s Everything.
God is everything.”
Deepak Chopra, “God is the evolutionary impulse of the universe.
God is infinite creativity.
Infinite love.
Infinite compassion.”
One thing that all these responses have in common is this: they all define God according to their own definition and that is why God has given us the Second Commandment.
If we want to know what God is like, we need not look to Youtube, or Oprah to find your definition of god, but I would encourage you to look to God’s own self-disclosure revealed in the pages of Holy Scriptures.
Today, we will be looking at the second commandment which forbids false worship.
Last week we looked at the first commandment where it forbids us from worshipping a false God, the second commandment forbids us from worshipping the One true God falsely.
Whereas the first commandment is concerned about who we worship, the second commandment deals with how we worship.
If we are going to honor and obey God, we cannot domesticate god made in our own image.
We cannot make up a god in our own imagination.
Or to put it in another preacher’s own words,
God not only cares who we worship, but how we worship.
To honor God is to only worship Him in spirit and truth.
We cannot domesticate god and make him in our own image when we are made in his image.
“The first commandment deals with worshipping the right God, the second has to deal with worshipping God the right way”
“Whereas the first commandment forbids us to worship false gods, the second commandment forbids us to worship the true God falsely.”
The first commandment deals with false gods, the second commandment deals with false worship.
In our time this morning, we will look three reasons why God forbids and hates false worship, so that we can worship God rightly according to His revealed Word.
I. Why does God forbid false worship?
II.
How can we worship God truly?
Scripture Reading:
If some other man approached my wife, it is not wrong for me to be jealous for her devotion.
Is it wrong to have pictures of Christ?
Is it wrong to wear cross necklaces?
Is it wrong to have statues in your house?
“The ancient Egyptians served a myriad of deities personified in nature, such as animals, celestial bodies, and other natural phenomena.”
ESV Archaelogy Bible
Why did God give this commandment?
I. False Worship Limits God (v. 4)
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image”
Carved image is to something that was made from a material source.
This commandment is basic theology 101.
The Lord does not have a physical form and therefore is not permanently localized.
An idol localizes the omnipresent and invisible God to a visible form and present location.
I grew up in an Asian culture where sometimes you would go to a local temple and there would be a statue of Buddha.
People would offer incense there or offer some type of fruit.
Ex.
Jesus may look more Filipino than White.
Carved images misleads men.
Carved images misrepresent creation.
Do not worship false gods.
I’m sure in Thailand, there are many temples that people go to to pay respect to some type of deity.
Or maybe you grew up in the Philippines where you went to a Roman Catholic Church.
And in the Church, there is Jesus on the crucifx.
There are pictures and statues of saints all throughout the church.
He is jealous (because he requires exclusive and supreme devotion)
The problem with these statues is that it ascribes these inanimate objects with
He is judge
The Reformers rejected idols and statues because people begin to view these objects with reverence that had some type of spiritual power within them.
Israel did the same thing.
They wanted to localize and materialize God.
He is loving
Why was this a violation of the second commandment?
Because it made God localized in a calf.
It made the invisible God an object.
And it made the people worship God falsely because it also led them to engaging in immorality.
Israel’s temptation was to limit the omnipresent invisible God to a domesticated visible god of their own making.
Think about Nadab and Abihu.
And Israel would face this temptation throughout their history because of the sounding cultures that had a god for everything.
Egyptians made gods of the animals.
“Remember that the Israelites had been living with the Egyptians, who worshiped many gods, nearly all of which they represented in the form of animals.
The god Horus had the head of a falcon, the god Anubis had the head of a jackal, and so on.”
Ryken
“A holy jealousy is one that guards someone’s rightful possession.
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