Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Hey New Life Gillette Church, we are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting? Yes.newlife gillette.com Here is this week's teaching.
[00:00:25] Can we just give the Lord some praise? I feel like the Lord has been with us this morning. Amen.
[00:00:32] Starting a series today called Stone that is through the Ten Commandments. If you got a Bible with you, Exodus chapter 20 is where we're going to be. If you don't know how to find your way around the Bible, don't worry about it. It's right at the beginning. Just open to the first page. Flip to the right a little bit. It's the second book in there. We're going to be in Exodus chapter 20 and we're going through the Ten Commandments.
[00:00:54] We're calling this series Stone, partially because if you ever saw the old Charlton Heston movie the Ten Commandments, it was part the of written in stone on stone tablets. But also because these commitments are the ethical foundation that we live on as followers of Jesus. If you want to know what's the building blocks that cause us to determine what's right and wrong, how we treat one another, how we treat God, this is the foundation that's written in stone for the rest of time.
[00:01:24] So we still follow these commandments in as modern Christians, even though the rest of the laws for Israel don't apply to us. The Ten Commandments are written in stone for all of time. So we're going to be walking through them today.
[00:01:41] So Exodus chapter 20. Before we jump in, I want to say good morning to everybody joining us online on Church 307, to our friends over at the prison, at the jail. And if you're watching right now and you have a prayer request, you have something that you need prayer for, would you just go to nextsteps.church307.com and let us know. We want to be praying for you as well.
[00:02:00] Exodus chapter 20. We're going to start reading in verse one. Here's what it says.
[00:02:05] And God spoke all these words.
[00:02:08] I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
[00:02:14] You shall have no other gods before me.
[00:02:18] Let's pray.
[00:02:21] Jesus, it's your word. We spent a lot of time in your presence this morning. We're not complaining about that. This is your word that we're opening now.
[00:02:28] None of my opinions, God, if my opinions are in the sermon, show them to us. So we should we could throw them away. We don't need my opinions.
[00:02:36] We need your word. So if there's anything that's faithful to your word, plant it in our hearts.
[00:02:42] We're here for you, Jesus. Amen.
[00:02:45] We're going to try something here at the beginning of the sermon. I've asked the tech team to compile some theme songs. Some famous theme songs. Yeah, I know.
[00:02:56] What I want you to do is, if you know what the theme song is, I just want you to shout it out as loud as you can as soon as you know. All right? This is not raising hands. This is not class. I want you to shout it out as loud as you possibly can. All right? You got it?
[00:03:11] Not convincing. That was not loud. Do you got it?
[00:03:16] There we go. All right. Hit the first one, John.
[00:03:23] We should just let it play for a little bit, shouldn't we? We just listen to.
[00:03:27] Yeah, All right. You guys got it? It's Star Wars. Yeah. I grew up. I'm a child of the 90s. I watched the prequels. Does anyone else have a soft spot for the worst movies in the franchise?
[00:03:44] I know Jar Jar Binks was a horrible character, but I still love him. Every time Obi Wan kills Darth Maul, I just like yes for Qui Gon. Do it for Qui Gon. I love it.
[00:03:55] So cards on the table. All of these theme songs are from Star Wars. This isn't a whole bunch of. This is all Star Wars. Is there any real fan, like, deep cut fans of Star wars here? Anybody willing to admit it? All right. There's no shame in being a nerd. Yes. I love it. That's what I want to hear. All right, so the rest of these are theme songs from the series, from the movies, from the canon universe of Star Wars. And they all indicate something.
[00:04:19] They indicate a character or a theme or something that's happening within the movie or within the show. Show. So here's the next one.
[00:04:36] What was it?
[00:04:39] What?
[00:04:43] Wow. I heard a whole bunch of stuff. It's Darth Vader. It's Darth Vader. Yeah, it's Darth Vader. It's actually. Does anyone know what this song is called?
[00:04:51] The Imperial Death March. It's so positive and uplifting. The Imperial Death March. One of my friends who's a pastor, this is his ringtone for his wife.
[00:05:01] That's not advice. That's just information. That's not advice. Don't do that.
[00:05:05] Just information.
[00:05:07] Yeah. So throughout the series, when Vader comes into the screen, they play this. But also, if you pay attention, There are some times when the Dark side of the Force is being used. When someone who's in the line of Darth Vader appears the that, they start playing it. Sometimes they slow it down a little bit, they lower the volume, but they play that melody because they're trying to clue you in on something they want you to see. Before you know, before they tell you what's happening, they want you to know what to be looking for. Now we got one more. And this one is a deep cut. If anyone gets this one, I'm going to be super impressed. Go ahead and play it, John.
[00:05:54] You guys aren't loud enough.
[00:05:58] All right, who's got it?
[00:06:00] What?
[00:06:03] No.
[00:06:03] Yes, but no.
[00:06:08] Sort of, but yes. What's the theme that it represents? It happens all the time in Star Wars.
[00:06:17] No, here's what it is. Here's what it is. That's the Force theme. That's what they play when something's happening in the Force. That's what they play to tell you this person's Force sensitive, that something significant in the storyline that's going to affect the future with the Force happens. When you find out Luke's going to be a Jedi, guess what you hear in the background. It's the theme for the Force. And when you hear that, what the makers of the movies and shows are trying to do is they're trying to tell you this scene isn't just about this scene.
[00:06:48] This scene is about a theme that plays throughout the movies. When Padme dies, something significant is happening in the Force. Why? Because she gave birth to Anne, to Luke and Leia. Spoiler alert. If you don't know it by now, though, what in the world are you doing?
[00:07:05] The Force. Right? It's telling you. Now, if you study Scripture, which if you're a committed follower of Jesus, I hope you do. I hope you study this book. If, even if you're not. If you're not a follower of Jesus and you're just curious, I hope you study the Bible. I think you're going to be fascinated by what you find, even if you don't yet believe that it's the word of God. If you want to study the Bible, one of the most important things you can realize, you can notice is that the Bible is thematic.
[00:07:36] The Bible is full of themes.
[00:07:39] The authors are using themes. They're using repeating storylines and repeating narratives to tell you what to look for in the story, to tell you that this scene is about more than this scene. It's about what's coming after. It's connected to what came before. And if you can learn to pay attention to the themes in the Bible, then you can see what we would call the metanarrative, the narrative that's moving in and out of books and in and out of authors and tying each story together.
[00:08:09] Now this is important.
[00:08:11] One of the most consistent themes in Scripture is marriage.
[00:08:18] One of the most common themes all throughout the Bible. Think about it. The Bible begins with a married couple. God creates Adam and Eve and says that the two will become one flesh. He says, this is why a father and mother, or a father a son, will leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and the two will become one flesh. It's a theme. And then it continues as couples populate the story, couples and families populate the story of Genesis. And then when you get to the prophets and you find over and over again that God compares himself to a husband and his people, Israel and us, now his wife, his bride. And he actually compares sin like cheating in a marriage, that's what he calls it, that he's been a faithful husband, but we his people have been an un faithful spouse and he loves us in spite of it. There's a famous analogy in the book of Hosea in the Old Testament where God tells the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute. And he says, I want you to marry this woman because it will be a picture of what my love to my people is like. So Hosea marries this prostitute. He rescues her, he gives her completely new life, rescues her from her old ways. But what happens? She returns back voluntarily to the life that she had before she goes back to prostitution.
[00:09:39] So Hosea, or God tells Hosea, go to her and buy her back, pay the price for her sin to restore her to relationship with you.
[00:09:52] Now hopefully that makes you think of someone else in the Bible that's pretty important. Jesus, who paid the price for our sin when we left, when we go back into our old ways, he paid the price for our sins so that we could be restored to relationship with him.
[00:10:08] And over and over again in the New Testament, Jesus is compared to a bridegroom who is preparing a place, who's restoring, who's paying the price for his bride. In fact, the entire Bible ends in the book of Revelation with a wedding reception called the wedding Supper of the Lamb. The Bible starts with a marriage and ends with a marriage. It's a theme that goes all throughout the Bible. And every time we see marriage highlighted in the story of scripture, it clues us in that this isn't just about these two People, this isn't just about a wedding. This is telling us something about God's faithfulness to the church, God's faithfulness to his people, and God's redemption story all throughout Scripture and all throughout history.
[00:10:57] Now, at this point, you might have a very rational question. You might be saying, cj, that's great. That's fun trivia. This isn't about a marriage, though. This is about the Ten Commandments. Not sure why this is relevant. I'm glad you asked.
[00:11:10] If you look at this chapter, if you look at chapter 20, you don't see a wedding in it. But if you dial the story way back, here's what you find. God began what culminated in this moment with a guy named Abraham back in early mid Genesis. And he did something with Abraham. He made a promise to Abraham. He said, I will make your descendants numerous and they will be my people and I will be their God. In other words, God engaged himself with something to Abraham in some way. And he says, actually, I've got a special place for you. I've got a promised land. That's where I will dwell with you. Now, in the ancient world, in many cases, if a young man would go marry, if he'd be engaged to a woman, he would go and he would make the commitment. Then he'd go home and he would prepare a place. He'd prepare a room in his home for her. He'd build onto his family's home because she would now join his family line. So he'd create a space for them to live together. So God tells Abraham, he engages himself to Abraham and his people and says, I'm preparing a place for you and I'm going to lead you to the promised land.
[00:12:18] Which not too long after this story ends, God is leading the people of Israel into that land that he promised them.
[00:12:25] Now, if you go back to chapter 19, we're in chapter 20 today. If you go back to chapter 19, what you find is that the engagement that started a long time ago. Now we're generations later, but there's a lot of pomp and circumstance to this moment. The people of Israel come to a mountain, Mount Sinai. Sinai is not a big mountain, not a towering mountain. You can't see the top of it's elevated, though. It's kind of like a stage, like something people would gather on when a congregation was formed and the people gather round, they have to prepare themselves. They have to get ready for this event. They have to cleanse and purify themselves before the making of this covenant.
[00:13:04] And there's thunder and lightning and smoke on the mountain so that, you know, this is sacred and the presence of God is there. And then what happens? Moses goes out in front of the congregation as representative of the people, and God meets Moses on the mountain. And they see the presence of God descend on the mountain, maybe for the first time. God has been truly close in this way. The presence of God has been close to a person since Genesis 3, when sin broke the relationship. God comes down and meets Moses on top of the mountain. And then what do they do?
[00:13:37] There's ten Commandments, or what we might say vows.
[00:13:42] They make commitments of what the boundary and the expectation of this relationship that they're going to be in is.
[00:13:49] The Exodus 20 is a ceremony.
[00:13:53] It's meant to make us think of a wedding ceremony. Marriage is all over. This story in Hebrew, they don't actually call. In the original language, they don't call the Ten Commandments. Commandments. We named them that because we infer. We assume that they are commandments because of the way they're phrased in Hebrew. They are called the 10 words, the 10 things you say, the 10 commitments that you make, the foundation for the covenant and the relationship that you have.
[00:14:25] So today we're focusing on this first commandment.
[00:14:29] You shall have no other gods before me. Now, in order for us to see how this looks within the marriage analogy of Genesis or of Exodus chapter 20, I've got some volunteers. Ryan and Emily are engaged. They're going to come up here, help me welcome them. They make their way up here.
[00:14:49] Now, don't worry. You did not get tricked into coming to a wedding. You don't have to feel bad that you didn't buy them anything. And I'm not gonna pretend and sign some documents and trick them into being actually married. They're getting married later. They're engaged. They're gonna come up here and just kind of stand the way you would stand in a wedding. So, Emily, I'm gonna have you stand right here, just inside on the stage, skirt. And Ryan, I'm gonna have you stand right here.
[00:15:12] Take like a half a step closer together. Act like you like each other. That's perfect. Right there. All right, now just stand there and stare into each other's eyes or whatever for a little bit.
[00:15:21] When we think you shall have no other gods before me, our natural reaction. Because when we think of the Ten Commandments, we think of, you know, the Charlton Heston movie, and we think of courthouses and school rooms and political debates and things like that. We think priority, we Think what God is saying naturally. This is a natural way to think about it. Is he saying, have no other gods ahead of me?
[00:15:46] I should be your highest priority in your worship? I should be your highest priority in your life. Out of all the other things, things that you worship, out of all the other things that you're loyal to, I should be number one. That's what we imagine, that what God's saying is, I'm first. Everything else comes after that. But when we imagine the marriage ceremony that Exodus chapter 20 is, that kind of falls apart because. Let me ask you a question, Emily.
[00:16:10] When you guys get married in the fall, are you asking Ryan to make you his favorite wife?
[00:16:16] No. No is the right answer. Yeah, no is the right. There would be a problem. Right. And, Ryan, when you guys get marri.
[00:16:25] You're not saying to Emily, I know you've got a lot of romantic partners. I would just like to be the first one you call on the weekends. No.
[00:16:33] Right? No, of course not. You're not saying, I know you got a lot of men in your life. I would just like to be on your favorites list in your phone. That's not what you're saying, right? What you're saying is I want to be the only one.
[00:16:45] Right? You're not saying, I want to be first. You're not saying, I want to be highest. You're saying, I want to be only.
[00:16:53] Only me.
[00:16:54] Only you. Right? You're saying that there should be no other. Should we just go ahead and sign some documents and just get this over with? I'm just. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Then you guys would have to go to their registry and buy something before you leave, and that'd be weird.
[00:17:08] What you're saying is there will be no other man in your life like him.
[00:17:14] None that compare.
[00:17:16] There will be no other women in your life that are like her. That relationship is sacred. Right?
[00:17:23] Now, when we look at the word before in Hebrew, it should probably more consistently, English and Hebrew can be weird. It should probably be translated something like this before should equal in my space, almost every other time that Hebrew word is translated in the Old Testament, it means on the ground.
[00:17:45] You know when someone's a close talker and you're like, oh, you had garlic.
[00:17:48] That space in right before you.
[00:17:55] God is saying, you shall have no other gods in my space.
[00:18:00] Now, when you get married, if twere a wedding ceremony, at some point, I would tell you to do something like take hands, join hands. Right now, in this ceremony, the best man would be. And the maid of honor and the brides and maids would be a step back. Right. I'd be back here if I were the best man in this wedding. Hopefully we can all agree that it would be weird if the best man was like, guys, I'm so excited for you. I just. I don't want to miss anything. So I'm going to stand right here for this whole thing. Right. I do. I do, too. Right?
[00:18:28] That would be inappropriate.
[00:18:31] Right? Please say yes.
[00:18:33] All right. Nobody's rude in a wedding here.
[00:18:38] The physical space in a wedding ceremony is a metaphor for the spiritual, relational, and physical space of a marriage, of a commitment. When you stand up and you've got friends and family around you, you're saying, yeah, these people are important to me, but they are not like this relationship.
[00:19:01] Yeah, these people matter to me, but this relationship is different.
[00:19:05] They are not in my life the way this person is. That's why in many marriage ceremonies, someone, the family gives away the bride to the groom. And that's why Genesis chapter two says that a husband will leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife. Because there is now no relationship that holds the same space in your life like a husband and a wife. You help me thank them.
[00:19:35] You guys could take a seat.
[00:19:43] What God is saying is that there will be no one in my space.
[00:19:50] There will be no thing in the space that I take. As human beings, collectively, as a community and individually as individual Christians, we all have a space in our life that is for worship. It's a space in our life that will be absorbed by something. It's the result of being created in the image of an omnipotent, all powerful being who deserves all glory and all honor. Whether you know it or not, whether you want to or not, something is getting glory. Something is filling a God space in your life. It could be a relationship. It could be the esteem of others. It could be social media. It could be drugs and alcohol. It could be sex. It could be all kinds. It could be your bank account, your retirement account. It could be your politics. There are all kinds of things that fit that want into that God space in our life. And every single one of us has that, whether we know it or not, whether we acknowledge or not. I just want to tell you, if you're sitting here thinking, CJ I don't worship anything, you're wrong. There is something that is being pointed to. There is something that is being celebrated. There is something that everyone else can see in your life. You might not see It. But they can. I promise. Go ask them.
[00:21:03] God doesn't share space.
[00:21:07] God doesn't share space. Just like no husband or wife should have to share space with anything else.
[00:21:18] No husband or wife should ever. Let me say that again. No marriage, no spouse should ever have to share that space space with another person with another thing. Right? If. If you're married to your spouse only as long as the career works, then your career is in the wrong spot.
[00:21:40] If you're married to your spouse for as long as you have enough money, your money's in the wrong spot. All right? If you're married to your spouse until the kids get out of the house, the kids are in the wrong spot.
[00:21:53] All right? If you're married to your spouse as long as your mother improves, your mom's in the wrong spot, your spouse does not deserve to share that space with anyone, with anything else. The commitment you make is sacred and unlike any other commitment. Only one thing fits in that space.
[00:22:19] The Creator. The almighty Creator of the universe isn't going to compete for that space in our lives.
[00:22:31] Leaves us to this question.
[00:22:33] What is occupying God's? You can go back to the last slide. What is occupying God's space in your life?
[00:22:47] What's in his space? The space only he can hold?
[00:22:51] Are you looking at God and saying, God, as long as I can get married someday, I'll follow you. If that's the case, then your relationship status is in God's space.
[00:23:01] Are you looking at your future and you're saying, God, I've got a lot of plans. If you can help me get those plans, I'll be loyal to you? Guess what? Your plans are in God's space.
[00:23:11] You're. You're worshiping your plans and God. There's only room for one.
[00:23:16] There's only one room for one thing in that.
[00:23:20] Are. Are you worshiping God? Are you going to trust him for as long as he gives you physical health?
[00:23:25] Look, I know this is heavy, but that means your. Your physical health is now in God's space. God is the healer. We absolutely should. We did earlier. We should pray for healing. We should pray for those things he loves to heal. But if he doesn't, he's still God and he still doesn't share space.
[00:23:41] What is in God's space?
[00:23:45] Sometimes our spouse can wind up in God's space. We wind up worshiping our spouse instead of worshiping God and letting God teach us to love our spouse if we're single. Sometimes our career, our fun, our friends, the party, the dream, the pleasure gets Into God's space.
[00:24:08] What is occupying God's space in your life? Now, you might have another very reasonable question that I would be asking and have been asking as I've been writing this sermon, have been thinking.
[00:24:20] And you might be thinking, okay, how you might be thinking, all right, if these are the eternal ethic of God's kingdom, if these are the things that we. That are written in stone, and this is 1 out of 10, I am 0 for 1.
[00:24:37] Whoops.
[00:24:40] Because that's the thing. As humans, we have constantly. We have things that compete for that space, Right? There are all kinds of things. I deal with it. I find myself often looking at God and saying, God, you have to give me this thing.
[00:24:52] God, you have to lead me this direction. God, you have to give me that God. If you don't. If you don't bless this part of my life, then I'm not even sure if you're real. I'm not even sure if you love me. Right? Putting those things back into God's space, dividing the loyalty and commitment, crowding the space that only God can take. We're always tempted to do that. Why? Because we were created to worship something, and we're going to worship something. So there are all of these other things, other gods.
[00:25:22] We don't give them names and we don't go to temples to worship them, but they fight for that space, and none of us do it perfectly.
[00:25:34] We have a tendency, when we look at the first Commandment, this is where we think it starts. We think it starts in verse three. You shall have no other gods before me.
[00:25:43] As I was studying for this, one of the things I realized is that a lot of scholars, especially Jewish scholars who have been studying the Ten Commandments for generations and generations, when they look at the Ten Commandments, they believe that the first commandment actually starts in verse two.
[00:26:00] These are the first words of the commandment.
[00:26:03] I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
[00:26:10] You shall have no other gods before me.
[00:26:17] In other words, the only one who could command complete loyalty didn't.
[00:26:27] This is crazy. He's the omnipotent creator of the universe. He could snap his fingers and we would all disappear.
[00:26:34] He can do anything and deserves everything. He could have begun his commandments with, I created you with a word, give me all the praise and glory I deserve. But that's not what he did, is it?
[00:26:48] What he said was, I'm the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. What he says is, why should I be the only one in this space. Because I have been faithful to you for generations. If you go back and look at the story that goes from Abraham, from the engagement to the wedding on Sinai, what you find is that it's full of faithfulness on God's part and unfaithfulness on ours. If you read a couple chapters later, what you find is that Moses walks down off this mountain and he finds that the people have already created an idol, a golden calf to worship someone else during the wedding. That's like cheating with a bridesmaid at the reception. It's bad and they already did it. But God built his covenant. He builds the covenant on his faithfulness. The covenant is built on God's faithfulness, not ours. He didn't say, as long as you keep me in this space, I will be loyal to you. No, what he said was, I have always been loyal to you, so now be loyal to me. I have never let you go. So keep me in front of everything else. Keep me in the sacred space. I am the faithful one. It is not built on my faithfulness. If it was, I would fail time and time and time again. That's the thing. God doesn't compete for space in our life. He will let us drift to other gods, but he continually forgives us. He never stops. And his faithfulness, because the covenant is not built on his expectations of us, the covenant is built on his faithfulness to us.
[00:28:20] And if you don't see this yet, this is why the theme is so important. This is why the theme of God's faithfulness is important. Because God says, I'm the one who brought you out of the land of slavery. I'm the one who brought you out of Egypt. And today, now In Gillette, in 2026, Jesus says, I'm the one who brought you out of the land of sin.
[00:28:39] I'm the one who died on the cross so that you could be set free. I'm the one who has been faithful when you were never faithful. I am the one who has been there when you couldn't be there. It's built on my faithfulness, not on yours. And it's when I see his faithfulness to me that I finally have the freedom to keep him, to try to keep him in the sacred space.
[00:29:05] To not have divided loyalties, competing worship.
[00:29:11] It only comes when I first realize I am loved unconditionally.
[00:29:18] Unconditionally.
[00:29:21] Jesus knew every sin you would commit.
[00:29:26] Listen.
[00:29:28] Jesus knew every time you would sin after you promised him you would stop.
[00:29:33] He knew every time he knew every time that you would promise to be faithful and then betray him again before he died. He knew it and he still died.
[00:29:48] It's always been about his faithfulness, not ours. And it's his faithfulness that gives us the ability to be faithful.
[00:29:55] Now my timer is telling me I'm going over, but we're just gonna go.
[00:30:02] We often see these analogies in scripture where the sermon isn't about marriage, but marriage becomes a foundational aspect of the sermon because it helps us understand scripture.
[00:30:14] And what we see here is marriage being used as an analogy for something that applies to everyone. Single, married, divorced, widowed, any stage of your life. God uses the analogy of marriage to talk to us about these loyalties that we have. But. But we shouldn't miss the implications of marriage. And look, this is a soapbox. It's a soapbox. I'm tempted almost every Sunday to climb on. And I'm finally climbing on it again.
[00:30:38] If you want your marriage to be healthy, listen, if you want a marriage that works, you build it on your faithfulness to them, not your expectations of them.
[00:30:51] I'm going to say it again. If you want a marriage that works, you build it on your faithfulness to them, not your expectations of them.
[00:31:02] All right? They will not live up to your expectations, I promise. Here's the surprise. You didn't live up to theirs.
[00:31:08] You didn't age great either. Big surprise.
[00:31:11] You're not as fun as you used to be either.
[00:31:14] You're not the same person you were when you were 25 and you got married. Thank God.
[00:31:21] A healthy marriage isn't built on your expectations. It can't ever be because they'll never fulfill them. You never fulfilled God's.
[00:31:29] Now look biblically. God gives us space to end a marriage for divorce in cases of an affair or abuse. Because in those instances, that person steps out of the covenant and destroys the covenant of marriage. God gives us space to end a marriage in those instances. Outside of those instances, build your marriage on your faithfulness to them, not on their expectations. If you want it to work, if you want the type of marriage that your kids at your 50 year anniversary say, man, mom and dad taught me about Jesus. They showed me love. Then build a marriage on your faithfulness to the other person. Because guess what? Guess what? When you unconditionally love them no matter what, and your faithfulness is the foundation of the marriage, that's going to unlock their ability to return that.
[00:32:16] Now, it's not a hack. We don't get to hack marriage like that. You have to actually have unconditional love. Build your marriage on your faithfulness to them, not on your expectations of them.
[00:32:31] And if you have failed at that, then call them, text them, go on a date, go to lunch today, look them in the eyes and say, I am done using my expectations of you as the basis for our relationship.
[00:32:44] My faithfulness to you is everything we have moving forward. My faithfulness to you is the foundation.
[00:32:53] Because God's faithfulness to us is the foundation.
[00:32:58] God's faithfulness to us. Single, married, widowed, divorced. God's faithfulness to you is the foundation of the covenant.
[00:33:06] Failed him time and time and time again. God's faithfulness to you is the foundation of the covenant. No matter how many times you failed, he didn't. And he is committed to be faithful to you. Not to the idea of you, not to the person you used to be and not to the person you will be. God is faithful to you, and that is the foundation of the covenant. So I want to ask you the question one more time. What is occupying God's space in your life?
[00:33:34] What are you holding in the same space as the perfect, loving, compassionate, merciful God who went to the cross?
[00:33:47] You shall have no other gods in his space.
[00:33:52] Let's pray.
[00:33:55] God, I thank you that you did not build your covenant and your love on our ability to live up to your expectations because we couldn't do it.
[00:34:06] I thank you that you built it on you, on your love and your love alone.
[00:34:11] God, may we see that.
[00:34:13] May your love for us be the thing that draws us back to you over and over and over again.
[00:34:18] Would you show us clearly how much you love us, that we would run from every other lover, every other idol, and straight to you because you deserve it.
[00:34:34] We love you, Jesus.
[00:34:36] Amen.
