The First Commandment is First for a Reason

Sunday Pastor Phil preached a sermon and I scolded him.  I told him he just stole my thunder.  I was preparing a post which I was calling
"Sermons the Devil Hates".

 

I got this thread from Todd Beery in a Monday night teaching.  I thought it was really good.

 

So in honor of both of these Godly men here is the teaching:

 

The devil doesn't much mind if you preach on why revival isn't happening in the church.  He doesn't mind if you preach on sin. It reinforces his condemnation program.  He doesn't mind if you teach on avoiding sexual sin, against homosexuality, against coveting your neighbors wife or stuff, against lying, against almost anything regarding commandments 4-10. 

 

It's ok with the devil if you want to preach against Liberalism.  I certainly do that a great deal.  The devil likes it when you tell people they are going to hell and that they need to come to the altar for the umpteenth time. 

 

Honestly he really doesn't mind so much if we preach on why we need to love our neighbor and give to the poor.  I mean, who does either of those things enough?  Guilt is the devils favorite tool.

 

That means the devil is all smiles in most churches most of the time. 

 

The only time he frowns and the sermon he opposes most of all is when we preach on keeping the first commandment first.  The reason is, a person can keep all of the commandments perfectly from 2-10 and go straight to hell.  I have known such people.  Good people, give to the poor, don't swear, take care of their parents, don't have graven images, don't kill, don't lie and couldn't care less what their neighbors have.  Good moral lost souls.

 

They are passive towards God.  They love their neighbor but don't love God with all their heart, mind, soul, being.  They are godless humanitarians headed for hell.

 

I know that seems harsh, but without the first commandment first all the others are meaningless.  A young rich ruler came to Jesus and asked what he must do to be saved.  Jesus rehearsed the "commandments".  The young rich ruler said, "That's me, I've done all that".  Then Jesus put an acid test in his way.  "Sell everything and follow me".  Nope.  I can follow 2-10 but not 1. 

 

Most of us in the church are like that today.  That's not  condemnation.  But not understanding the power of making the first commandment first in our lives has caused the church to become a powerless house of good works.  The nature of passionate intimacy can only happen if we first love God with everything that is in us.

 

Intimacy, embarrassing intimacy, passionate intimacy, integral intimacy will empower the weakest Christian to wonderful places in God.  Intimacy will cause us to touch a deeper place in God that will allow us to go higher.  As a nurseryman I know that a tree with shallow roots can't go very high before it blows over from some wind or another.  To go higher you have to go deeper. 

 

We put the responsibility on our worship leaders to take us higher and yet without people willing to go deeper that task is made triply difficult, perhaps impossible.  You can't go any higher than you have gone deeper. 

 

As a Jesus addict for a long time I can tell you that the holy addiction is worse / better than any drug you could take.  I find myself at a new place in Jesus and it only makes me want to go deeper.  I'm never satisfied.  I'm always seeking more.  I want to get a deeper depth so I can get a higher high.  Not experientially always, but spiritually.  I am spiritually most satisfied and unsatisfied at the same time.  This is the deep calling unto deep place I live my life.  The more I get the more I want and the more I want the more I get and so it goes.  He draws me to him deeper and deeper and it's so wonderful.

 

Oh, there have been times where I have drifted away and sought comfort in worldly things that used to satisfy.  Now when I do those things or indulge in those things I feel cheated.  The old high isn't there anymore.  It causes a dissatisfaction that can only be satisfied by a touch from God. 

 

That is how the first commandment manifests in my life.  It is not enough to just say "I Love you Lord and I lift my voice".   It is another thing to be so passionate that nothing less than his touch will keep me alive.  

 

I remember well when I met my wife and fell head over heels in love.  Seeing her, hearing her voice, her touch, her kiss was all I thought about.  I would do almost anything to get to her.  I was in love.  I was addicted. 

 

I still am.  But I now see how that same passion for intimacy I have for my wife manifests itself in my passion for Jesus. 

 

I would do anything for my wife.  I will do anything for Jesus.  Anything.  Lovers of God are better givers, workers, worshippers, pastors, worship leaders, prophets.  Better Christians in every way. We try to cajole them into being better Christians as Preachers.  But without love we end up with congregations of clanging cymbals without love.

 

We read 1 Corinthians 13 and assume it's about horizontal love for one another.  While that's an OK interpretation, it's really more about the first commandment.  It's saying that even if I gave everything I had to the poor, my body burned at the stake and I did it without love (first commandment first) it's all for naught.  2-10 obedience without #1.  1 Corinthians 13 is more about the vertical first commandment love than about the humanistic love.  If we get the vertical right, the horizontal will follow.  It must.

 

Here's what really irritates the devil.  God looks at the intentions of our heart, and even though we fail, as we get up and press on he counts it as righteousness.  The books of Romans and Hebrews has references to this.  How our intentions, or first failing steps, our set coutentince is reckoned to us as righteousness.  There is a passage in the book of Zechariah 4:10 where Zerrubable takes out a plumbline and holds it up to begin the building of the temple.  God in that one verse of prophecy rejoices over that intention as if the temple were already complete because in the spirit it is.  As the temple of the Holy Ghost when we hold up a plumb line in holding our heart of intimacy toward God he rejoices in the same way.  The intention of our heart is to God counted as if it were already done.  We can't ever really get there this side of the veil.  But turning from coldness toward intimacy holds a plumbline up that moves the heart of God.

 

That's keeping the first commandment first.  The intention.  We fail, but we press on. Of all the things we could or do preach on, the devil will oppose that single sermon more than almost anything we could say.  He doesn't want us to know that in this area we will never arrive but the process, the journey is accounted unto us as righteousness.  There is no guilt associated with that he can accuse us of as long as we continue to seek to go deeper with a holy dissatisfaction.

 

So, brothers Phil and Todd, keep preaching on the first commandment.  Everything else (2-10) will flow out of that if we get that one right.

 

Besides it irritates the Devil so much.  And that's just fine with me.