Psalm 8 provides for us the poetic version of God’s creation of humans. It starts and finishes with these words: “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” In other words, it is about worshiping God. Then, in the heart of the psalm, verses 5-6, it says of humans: “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet….” Humans have been created to reflect the glory and honor of God, as worshipers of Him. This is what we are hard wired to do.
Yet, Romans 1:22-23 surfaces the reality that the hard wiring for worship within sinful and broken humans leads us to worship anything and everything but the true God: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
We should not be surprised, then, that the first three of the Ten Commandments deal with worshiping the true God rightly in all we do. In Exodus 20:3-7 contains these commandments:
You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
The New City Catechism, question and answer nine, summarizes these three commandments, and displays that they begin with worship of God, the very essence of His will: “What does God require in the first, second, and third commandments? Answer: First, that we know and trust God as the only true and living God. Second, that we avoid all idolatry and do not worship God improperly. Third, that we treat God’s name with fear and reverence, honoring also his Word and works.”
Here is what we learn about the worship of God from these commandments that are designed to turn those hard wired for worship to worship the true God.
The first commandment (Exodus 20:3) reveals that at the heart of the will of God is that we not view anything or anyone as more important than God, thus making them our god. This means that we are convinced that God and God alone can save us, direct us in life, and help us find purpose and meaning. The true biblical God, then, always remains our focus of worship, salvation, happiness, and growth.
The second commandment (Exodus 20:4-6) reveals that if we are to worship God rightly, we must not belittle Him by representing Him with images that can do nothing but misrepresent and disparage Him. We must refuse to use idols, images, or icons to worship God!
The third commandment addresses our heart and our words. The way we think about God and the way we talk about God, we must honor and reverence Him. We do not use His names, titles, attributes, Word, or works as words of cursing, anger, frustration. Nor, do we take the name and words describing God on our tongue in such a way that we merely go through the motions of worship without meaning it.
As one who has been a Christian and sought to be faithful to God and these first three commandments for 53 years, I can tell you how hard it is to be fully faithful to them. This moves me to look to Jesus Christ alone “who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).
I also have seen through the decades what an absolute joy it is to worship the true God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), to make much of Him, and to honor Him. I pray we all will know the joy of these first three commandments.
Tom
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