By Eric Taylor
Pastor, Cedar Hill Baptist Church, Cedar Hill
Focal Passage:
Exodus 20:1-6; Psalm 16:1-4a, 9-11
In 2011, I walked out of an airport and into a taxi in one of the largest cities in South Asia. It was a complete sensory overload. I never experienced anything like it in my life.
The sights, sounds, and even the smells were unforgettable. But one of the most shocking things I remember seeing was the literal idol worship on what seemed to be on every corner. From small shrines on the side of the road, to huge temples in the heart of the city, the idols and the idol worshipers seemed to be everywhere.
Immediately, I began to think, “How could these people so blatantly break the first two of the Ten Commandments?” I would later realize that this is exactly what people do who do not have a relationship with the one true and living God. You see, lost people “have other gods besides” the Lord.
However, the most shocking thing should not be that lost people do not put God first, but that saved people often act more like idolaters than people who desire to put God first in their lives.
The phrase, “Do not” in verses 3 and 4 of our text can also be translated, “Never.” In other words, God expects and deserves total allegiance from His people, and He has every right to be offended when we put other things before Him.
The reality is, God does not give us an escape clause. He always expects from His people absolute devotion and allegiance.
Now while we may not literally bow down before an idol or worship a false god (Isa. 44-45), anything that takes precedence over God in our lives is an idol, and should thus be destroyed. And our text in Psalm 16 gives us some reasons why we should put God first in our lives.
We put God first because He is our defender. David writes that God was his protection and his “refuge.” Second, God is our desire. David proclaims that there is “nothing good besides” the Lord. And when God is our desire, we are His “delight.”
In addition, if we do not place God first in our lives, we will face disaster as “sorrows will multiply” in our lives. There are people in churches today that never understand that many of their problems stem from wrong desires.
When you read verses 9-11, you see three more reasons why we should put God first in our lives. Verse 9 tells us that He is our decision, and it is seen in the fact that our “heart is glad,” that our “whole being rejoices” in God, and that we rest in Him “securely.”
Fourth, God is to be first in our lives because He alone is our deliverer. In verse 10, David’s words express his belief in the resurrection, and that God would deliver him from death and “decay.” This makes sense when you see that David believes that one day he would be in the “presence” of the Lord, and would experience “eternal pleasures.”
God has fully revealed this “path” of “abundant joy” in and through Jesus Christ. For the follower of Jesus, eternal pleasures are promised because we will be with the Lord forever. B&R