A Note from Michael Gossett
Many Gods?
In 2014, a group of atheists sponsored what they called the “Ten Non-Commandments Contest.” The competition offered $10,000 to anyone who could rewrite the Ten Commandments for a modern, secular age. Among the 2,800 submissions, one “commandment” stood out as the most celebrated: There is no one right way to live.
That single statement captures the spirit and the mantra of our age. Moral relativism is not a belief system on the fringe, but rather it has become the assumed posture of our day. The very notion of absolute truth is treated as antiquated or archaic, and the idea that God has spoken authoritatively about right and wrong is seen as oppressive. Every person is encouraged to construct their own code of ethics, to live by their truth, and to determine what is right in their own eyes.
Yet this is precisely the kind of chaos that the Ten Commandments confront. The Decalogue, as it is often called, is not a relic of an ancient moral code as many may think. The Ten Commandments are the revelation of a holy God who defines the better way to live. These ten words, spoken by God Himself from the fire and smoke of Mount Sinai, are not meant to enslave humanity under an iron fist, but to liberate people into a joyful relationship with the Lord Himself.
The Law and the Gospel
When we look to Exodus 20, we must resist the temptation to separate the Law of God from the grace of God. Many assume that the Old Testament is about law and the New Testament is about grace, as if the Lord changed who He was in the middle of history. The story of redemption in Exodus makes it abundantly clear that grace precedes law.
Before the Ten Commandments are ever given, God delivers His people from Egyptian bondage. He redeems them by blood and by power. The sequence is on purpose. God first saves, then He gives the law. This divine order is theologically significant. It tells us that obedience is never the means of salvation but instead the result of it. God did not give the commandments in order to rescue them. He rescued them so that they might live as His covenant people.
Exodus 19 and 20 function as the constitution for the redeemed. God is forming a new nation and establishing the boundaries for freedom. Far from being a set of arbitrary restrictions, the Ten Commandments teach us how to live in freedom. They do not take away liberty, they give an understanding of what true liberty is. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12).
The Purpose of God Established
The first words of Exodus 20 are not addressed to a committee for management or deciphering. They are not up for debate. The text begins with divine authority: “Then God spoke all these words.” In a world obsessed with self-determination, those six words reorient the moral universe. God speaks, and His speech establishes purpose, order, and truth.
This moment at Sinai is a cosmic contrast to the Garden of Eden. In Eden, the serpent questioned God’s Word: “Did God really say?” The deception was not a denial of God’s existence but an undermining of His authority. Humanity’s rebellion was not born from atheism but from autonomy, which is the belief that we can define good and evil for ourselves.
That same deception is still at work in our modern age. The cultural mantra that “there is no one right way to live” is nothing new. It is simply the old lie of the garden repackaged with better glitter. The Ten Commandments reassert the unchanging truth that only God has the right to define what is good.
Proverbs 19:21 reminds us, “Many plans are in a person’s heart, but the Lord’s decree will prevail.” Human plans rise and fall, but the purpose of the Lord stands forever. The Ten Commandments begin, therefore, with the voice of God establishing His purpose for His people. They remind us that life is not a moral democracy but a divine monarchy.
The Person of God Unrivaled
After establishing His purpose, God declares His person: “I am the Lord your God.” These words reveal more than divine authorship; they unveil divine relationship. The Lord identifies Himself with His covenant name, Yahweh, the I AM who is self-existent, eternal, and unchanging.
This same God had descended upon Mount Sinai in thunder and fire. The people trembled at His holiness. They were forbidden from even touching the mountain, for His presence was too pure for sinful flesh to approach. This is the God who speaks. His greatness is unsearchable, His holiness unapproachable, and His authority unrivaled.
Psalm 145:3 declares, “The Lord is great and is highly praised; His greatness is unsearchable.” The One who spoke creation into existence now speaks His moral will to His covenant people. Yet within the majesty of His holiness, there is tenderness. Notice the possessive pronoun: your God. The infinite, transcendent Creator binds Himself to finite, redeemed sinners. The law, therefore, is not given for transactional compliance but for relational communion. God is not merely legislating behavior; He is shaping a people for Himself and to Himself.
The Presence of God Exclusive
God continues, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.” Before giving a single command, He reminds His people of their redemption. This statement anchors the law in grace. Israel’s obedience is not the price of their deliverance, but is the proper response to it.
This is why the first commandment follows immediately: “You shall have no other gods besides me.” God’s exclusive claim on His people flows from His exclusive act of redemption. The one who delivers us from bondage has the right to define the terms of our freedom.
To misunderstand this commandment is to miss its relational depth. God is not demanding to be first among many; He is declaring that there are no rivals at all. This is not the voice of a jealous boyfriend seeking prominence among competitors. Instead, it is the voice of the Creator of all things asserting the reality of His uniqueness. There is no other God.
Some have misinterpreted this as a call to priority, as if God simply desires to be the first name on our list of loyalties. But the commandment is not about sequence, but about supremacy. God will not share His glory or His throne with another. The relationship between God and His people is covenantal, exclusive, and total.
This exclusivity is not rooted in insecurity but in love. God knows that idolatry always leads back to slavery. Every false god promises freedom but delivers bondage. The gods of money, power, comfort, and success all enslave the heart that serves them. The first commandment is God’s merciful protection against every counterfeit that seeks to destroy us.
Joshua reminded the people of this truth at Shechem: “Now fear the Lord and worship Him in sincerity and truth. Get rid of the gods your fathers worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and worship the Lord” (Joshua 24:14). The exclusivity of God’s presence demands the expulsion of every rival affection. Jesus would later echo the same principle: “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24).
The Priority of God Revealed
We often read the commandments as a list of restrictions, a divine “do not” designed to suppress human joy. Yet the commands of God are life-giving. They are not the bars of a prison cell but the boundaries of a garden. God’s “no” always guards a greater “yes.”
When God says, “You shall have no other gods,” He is not limiting your life; He is preserving your soul. He is saying, “Do not wander into the fields of death when the pasture of life is before you.” Like a shepherd leading His sheep to green pastures, God directs His people toward what will nourish them.
Consider the first commandment again. It is not the cold decree of a distant deity but the loving discipline of a Redeemer. The Lord who brought Israel out of Egypt knew how prone their hearts would be to return to Egypt spiritually. The human heart is quick to build altars to false gods, whether in the form of golden calves or modern idols of self. Yet the prohibition of idolatry is simultaneously an invitation to intimacy. God is saying, “You are mine, and I am yours.”
When we view the commandments through the lens of grace, their purpose becomes clear. They are not designed to make us holy by our effort but to show us our need for the One who is holy. The law reveals the boundaries of obedience and exposes the bankruptcy of self-righteousness. It teaches us that we need a Savior.
John Bunyan once wrote, “The man who does not know the nature of the law cannot know the nature of sin, and he who does not know the nature of sin cannot know the nature of the Savior.” The law reveals our deficiency; grace reveals our deliverer. The Ten Commandments show us that we cannot climb the mountain of righteousness, which is why Christ descended to us.
Christ and the Law Fulfilled
In Luke 24:44, after His resurrection, Jesus said to His disciples, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” The Ten Commandments, like every portion of the Old Testament, find their ultimate meaning in Christ.
Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. In His perfect obedience, He accomplished what we could never achieve. He alone loved the Lord His God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength. He alone worshiped without rival. Every moment of Christ’s life displayed the first commandment embodied in human flesh.
Where Israel failed, Christ triumphed. Where Adam believed the lie of a better way, Christ remained loyal to the Father’s will, even unto death. On the cross, the only sinless man bore the curse of lawbreakers. He took upon Himself the punishment for every disloyal heart and every rival god that we have entertained. In His resurrection, He broke the power of sin and opened the way for true freedom.
Paul tells us in Romans 8:3-4 that God condemned sin in the flesh of Christ “so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” The Spirit now empowers believers to live according to the divine standard, not as slaves to law but as sons in love.
To follow Christ, therefore, is to live under a better loyalty. It is to surrender every rival allegiance and to find freedom in submission to the King who died for us. The gospel does not relax the demands of the law; it satisfies them in Christ. And through Him, we now delight in obedience rather than resist it.
A Better Loyalty
When Jesus called His disciples, He demanded exclusive allegiance. He said, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). The call to “hate” in this passage is not an endorsement of hostility but a call to comparative loyalty. Christ must not simply come first; He must be everything.
This is the heartbeat of the first commandment. To have no other gods is to give Christ unrivaled devotion. The Lord who brought Israel out of Egypt has brought us out of the far deeper bondage of sin. The idols of our age promise autonomy but produce anxiety. They offer freedom but yield futility. Only Christ brings peace. Only Christ satisfies. Only Christ saves.
Our culture insists that “there is no one right way to live.” The gospel answers, “There is one way, and His name is Jesus.” The Ten Commandments point to Him as the true and better way, the One who fulfilled the law so that lawbreakers might become children of grace.
To live with a better loyalty, then, is to order your life under the lordship of Christ. It is to refuse every competing affection and to surrender every false savior. It is to say with the Apostle Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
The first commandment does not imprison us; it invites us. It calls us into the exclusive, freeing, covenantal love of the living God. The One who brought Israel out of Egypt now calls His church to live as those who have been delivered by the blood of the Lamb.
Let the world chase its self-made commandments and worship its many gods. The redeemed have found a better loyalty. Our God has spoken, our Savior has fulfilled, and our hearts belong to Him alone.
The Journeys of Moses 2026
Can you imagine being in the land where the TEN COMMANDMENTS were given? To see Mt. Sinai as we were just discussing? To stand where Moses once stood and experience the power of God in the very places where He revealed Himself to His people? You are invited to go with me on a spiritual journey and trip of a lifetime, October 19-29, 2026.
This trip is designed not just for travelers, but for believers who want to grow in their understanding of Scripture and experience God’s Word in the land where the story of redemption began to unfold.
Experience the Story of God’s Deliverance
- Stand before the Pyramids of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
- Walk through Old Cairo, visiting the site believed to be where baby Moses was drawn from the Nile.
- Sail along the Nile River and visit Luxor, Edfu, and the Valley of the Kings, where ancient rulers were laid to rest.
- Journey through the wilderness to Mount Sinai, where Moses encountered the living God and received the Ten Commandments.
- Visit St. Catherine’s Monastery, one of Christianity’s oldest places of worship, nestled at the base of Sinai.
Each stop along the way will be paired with biblical teaching and moments of reflection, connecting history to faith and Scripture to life.
This is far more than a tour; it is a journey of discipleship and renewal. As we open God’s Word together in the very places where it happened, you’ll see how the faith of Moses, the power of God, and the covenant promises of Scripture all come to life in vivid color.
We’ll worship by the Nile, study at the foot of Sinai, and reflect on how God’s unchanging faithfulness continues to guide His people today. You will return home with more than photos; you’ll return with a deeper understanding of God’s Word and a stronger faith to live it out.
Limited spots are available, so please sign up quickly to reserve your spot! REGISTER HERE!
This Sunday at Green Acres
What happens when Jesus steps into enemy territory?
In Luke 8:26-39, Jesus crosses the sea into a place no one expected Him to go—and meets a man no one believed could be saved. One moment, he’s chained, tormented, and hopeless. Then next, he’s sitting at the feet of Jesus, completely free, restored, and sent to tell others about God’s mercy.
This Sunday, join us as I preach a message titled “Sent in Missions.”
We’ll discover how the power of Christ not only transforms broken lives but also sends every believer into the world with a purpose. The gospel never has an “ending” point in the disciples of Jesus, but continues to flow through us in the darkest corners of the earth.
If you’ve ever wondered whether God can use your story, or if you’ve struggled to see how your life fits into His global mission, this message is for you.
Come experience the hope, freedom, and calling that Jesus gives to all who follow Him.
Come and see what happens when mercy moves.
You are loved and prayed for!
Michael Gossett