The Head Coach You Can't Subsitute (Commandments 1 & 2)

Then God spoke all these words: 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. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the arth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.

  

If I randomly pulled 22 of you up here and said, let’s play the game. Ready go. What would you do?  Well, some of you would probably make up your own rules and start playing. Others of you would be wondering: What’s the game? How do you play? How do you win? How do you score? What can you do? What can you not do?  What’s the objective of the game?  What’s the strategy of the game? You’d be asking for the rules.  We need rules. 

We believe a lot of things about rules.  Sometimes we like rules, they give us structure and know what to do.  Rules help us distinguish between right and wrong.  Rules help us know who’s in and who’s out.  Rules help us navigate all kinds of things. They help us navigate our computers, our cars, the road, our work, our appliances and our relationships.  Often the “rules” are unspoken and even unnoticed until someone breaks a rule, or we go somewhere and the rules are different.  You don’t use the rules of soccer while playing football, or the rules of football when you’re playing baseball.  We may not often claim it, but we like rules.  We’re at least quick to cry “foul” when someone breaks a rule.  Anyone who’s watched a football game with a “Real” fan knows what I mean.  “Off-sides! Off-sides! Come on ref! Get some glasses!” or “That’s holding.  Did you see that?!  Holding!” The rules matter to us, mostly when they’re broken or when we suffer injustice at the hands of another.  We don’t always mind so much when we’re the ones breaking the rules. 

Here’s the thing, if you’re playing the game, it’s in everyone’s interest to play by the rules. Because if you all play by the rules and you play well, then what’s supposed to happen, happens. 

Before we understand God’s rules, we have to understand why we have them  in the first place.  Some of us feel like the Commandments are ancient and outdated. Some of us feel like only some of them are worthy of being followed. Some of us feel like they seriously impinge on our fun. So what’s the point of God’s rules anyway? 

The point of the 10 commandments is to nurture our relationships with God and with each other.  From Genesis 3, the story of Adam and Eve and the snake, we learn about our inclination to disobedience and the ways our sins breaks trust in our relationship with God and with each other.  The story of “The Fall” is to show us the nature of human sinfulness.  The story of Scripture and particularly the 10 commandments are about how God tries to help us restore those relationships. It matters to God whether or not we have a relationship with God, and it matters to God that we have good relationships with each other.  So, in starting fresh with the Israelites, after freeing them from Egypt, God sets out the rules of the game, so to speak. The first 4 commandments are the things we can do to foster a healthy, loving and trusting relationship with God and the last 6 are about the things we can do to foster a loving, trusting, healthy relationship with the people in our lives.  Simply stated, God wants good things for us, and God knows we need rules to know how to attain those good things. 

But in hearing the rules, some of us have a big hang up.  All the rules tell us are the things we can’t do.  Don’t do this and don’t do that.  Don’t have any other God’s before me. Don’t use my name in vain. Don’t murder. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t covet. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.  It can be hard to imagine that the commandments are about what God DOES want for us when all we hear is what God DOESN’T want us to do.  So we’re going to try and see, and hear, and understand the commandments for what God DOES want for us and from us. 

Commandment #1 say: thou shalt have no other gods before me.  Said another way, “God shall have all of you.”  Why?  Because God wants your complete buy in. God wants you to show up and participate and give the best of what you have.  God doesn’t want your left-overs. God doesn’t want to be your last thought. God wants what’s first.  Now, that might sound greedy on God’s part, but think about it. God knows you. God knows your talents, your abilities, your fears, your worries, and your failures. God knows what you are capable of before you do. AND God wants what’s best for you.  And when you show up and give God the best of who you are and what you have to offer, then God has the opportunity to help you live into that potential….the one you were created for, the one you are called to, the one God imagined for you.  Who better to help you become your best, than the one who made you?!

There are a lot of coaches out there. A lot of people who are happy to tell you what to do and who to be.  They have techniques. They have strategy. They have philosophy. Many of them even “get” it. But none of them will know you like God does. None of them will see your full potential like God does.  They may be good coaches, but they only have specialties.  One might be special teams. One might be offense. One might be defense. One might be focused on just your position.  But none of them are THE coach.  None of them are God. And while they might play the game well, or coach the game well. No one will know and understand the game quite like the one who created it and has spent His entire existence coaching it.  If you want to play well, you go to the experts.  If you want to throw like Troy Aikman or Payton Manning, then you go to the best quarter back coach. If you want to catch like Michael Irvin, Jerry Rice, or Randy Moss, then you go to the receivers coach.  You don’t ask the line coach to teach you to be the best quarterback. That’s not his job.  And if you want BIG picture, for the overall game, not just for one game, or one season, but for a lifetime, then you go to the best of the best, you go to the top coach. So, if it’s not just the game of football, but it’s life, then you go to THE life coach…the one who sees the big picture, who understands all the ins and outs of life, then you go to God.  To put it in sports terms, the first commandment is God saying, I should be your head coach, and your general manager. I should be the one you go to when you need to understand what’s going on, or what you should do.  Choose me.  Let God be your coach, first, last, and always, you won’t ever find anyone better. 

Commandment #2: “You must not make for yourselves an idol that looks like anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the water below the land. ⁵ You must not worship or serve any idol, because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” Said another way, “You should enjoy the majesty of God.” 

Admittedly, most of us don’t worship or create idols…not physical ones anyway. So this commandment often becomes one of those that feels incredibly outdated and irrelevant.  But it’s about more than the rule; it’s about more than physical idols that stand in the place of God. Instead, the second commandment is about allowing for the mystery and awesomeness of God.  When we create idols, we set parameters for God. If we create a statue of God, in whatever form, then we are saying, that’s who God is….whatever is captured in that statue.  And maybe God is some of what’s captured in that statue, but ultimately, no statue, no figure, no image, could fully encapsulate who God is.  Even if we think about it in terms of words, titles, and characteristics, we’ll still fall short.  Say we say God is compassionate. Say we label God that way.  That’s the idol. Compassionate.  It’s great to be compassionate, but that doesn’t tell us anything about God as majestic, or just, or jealous, or merciful.  Idols set limits on God.  They box God in. And God is so much more than limitations.  God is beyond our imagination. God is greater than any word, or image, or combination of them could ever encompass. 

Think about it this way.  If what you want in a quarter-back is 80% accuracy and you have that, and that’s what you highlight and that’s what you focus on, that becomes the idol. 80% accuracy becomes the characteristic that trumps all others.  But say your quarterback has a bad attitude, what do you do?  You look for a new quarterback with 80% accuracy, and maybe a good attitude.  So you find that one, and you’re satisfied as long as he has 80% accuracy and a good attitude. But say he’s injured, what do you do?  Go look for another one.  Maybe you want 80% accuracy, good attitude, team player, and a leader.  You can make the list as long as you want, but ultimately, we all know that every player can be replaced.  But God is bigger than a list of characteristics.  And no one can replace God.

When we limit God to just one or two, or even 5 or 10 things, and don’t see how much greater God is, then it can be easy to allow for replacements. If we say, God is compassionate and that becomes our idol. That becomes the only way we want to see or understand God, not only have we blocked out all of the other things God is, but, we’ve made compassion the greatest thing. If God is compassionate, then compassion is the most important thing, and anyone who is compassionate, could become our coach.  If we allow for God to be bigger, maybe adding in God as just and majestic, then we might eventually look for someone or something that is also compassionate, just, and majestic, to stand in place of God when we’re busy, or distracted, or mad at God.  While we can acknowledge that no one could BE God, we could be comfortable finding the one who is compassionate, just, and majestic.  But if we add in that God is comforter, teacher, friend, and peace-giver, the bill is harder to fill.  And if we add to that Savior, Redeemer, companion, creator, immanent and transcendent, then we know, forever and always, that there are no substitutes.  No one can take God’s place, because God is above all others and different from others. God cannot be simplified. God cannot be replaced.

To appreciate the awesomeness and majesty of God is to recognize that God, as a whole, is beyond our full comprehension and cannot be replaced by any other. We understand parts of God through Scripture, and more of God through Christ, and finally through the Holy Spirit.  But we are still limited.  We won’t quite get it all.  That’s the mystery of God.  And that’s why idols fall short. No idol can capture the fullness of God.  And no substitute could replace God.