Deuteronomy 4:44-5:7
The First Commandment

I. The Single, Simple Principle
1. Andy Stanley, pastor of a mega-church, said, “You shall not obey the Ten Commandments.”
2. A lot of Christians fuzzily think that, “Christ is the end of the law” (Romans 10:14) means that it’s over.
3. People have, at their core, a single, simple principle, a commitment, even if they are inconsistent.
4. Some are committed to hedonism, or money, or ego (pride), or family.
5. Familism is the central Chinese faith that the other three religions revolve around.
6. But many people are inconsistent. They’re really about family but they’ll spare time for religion.
7. Deep down, what is the bed-rock of your heart? The first commandment is the foundation.
II. Who Is It For?
A. Is it For Everyone or Israel?
1. These are expressions of God’s will on how to live. But here the audience is a specific group: Israel.
2. But in Galatians 6, etc, in the New Testament we see that Christians are the true “Israel of God.”
B. Covenant
1. There were parts of a covenant, like treaties that a Great King would make with a small nation.
a. a pre-amble (introducing the parties), the stipulations, witnesses, blessings and curses.
b. In 4:13, the Ten Commandments are the stipulations (the requirements) of the covenant.
c. The preamble. Who is the One making the covenant and who are the people it is for? (5:6)
2. The new covenant we are in is the fulfillment — not the cancellation — of the Sinai covenant.
3. Jesus said that whoever “relaxes” the commandments will be least in the kingdom (Mt. 5:20).
C. Is it For Everyone or No One?
1. They’re first made for us, if we worship Him with reverence; if we’re in a covenant with Him.
2. The elaborate reintroduction (4:44-5:5), recapitulating how Deuteronomy began back in 1:1-5.
3. If you’re not God’s, then keeping them might give you a better life but won’t keep you out of hell.
4. There are no laws you can obey to please God and earn something from Him.
5. Keeping the other commands, without the first commitment, just makes you an inconsistent sinner.
6. If you “unhitch” the law from the gospel, you have no way of seeing that you need the gospel.
7. “We have this law to see therein that we have not been free of sin.”
8. The commandments show us not that we are potentially righteous but that we are presently sinners.
III. What Does It Tell Us To Do?
1. The commands show us how to please Him. God’s true people desperately want to obey Him.
2. Obedience to God’s commands is the way we live for God, out of love, as saved people.
3. God led them out of slavery and into worship. If you are saved, He’s done the same with you.
4. Our exodus is an exchange of masters, the false for the true. The true master tells us to serve no other.
IV. How Is It Obeyed?
1. “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your god.” (Martin Luther)
2. It could be sports or exercise or food or money or romance or family.
3. The Lord Jesus meant what He said that if anyone was to follow Him he must “hate” his own family.
4. If you can’t do that, then you can’t be in covenant with Him. You might as well not try to obey any.
5. The Chinese called Christianity the “ancestor-denying” because the supremacy of the family is broken.
6. If the first day of Chinese New Year falls on a Sunday, Christians first go to church.
7. The one with the solid foundation does not love his family or wife or husband less. He loves God more.
8. If you are a believer, they are for you. If you’re not a believer, they show you that.
V. Invitation: If you really want Him to be the Lord your God, then, offer your life to Him now, your whole life, to be in a committed relationship with Him, a covenant. If He’s the god you want, then follow Him out of bondage to sin now, for worship.