Idols of the Heart
Who do you worship?
What if you are deeply sincere about your faith and yet completely wrong about what you’re worshiping?
From the very beginning, God sets himself apart from every other so-called god. While ancient cultures were filled with competing deities, the God of Israel makes a bold claim: he alone is God over all people for all times and places. If that’s true, then his commands aren’t situational or cultural—they’re universally binding.
That’s a claim that can feel uncomfortable, even offensive, but it forces us to wrestle with a deeper question: where do our moral standards actually come from?
In this discerning episode of our new series, 10 Keys to the Universe, Lynn and Shay take a look at the first and second commandments and what it looks like to live them out in today’s world. It turns out that idolatry isn’t just an ancient problem. It shows up in the things we rely on for meaning, security, and identity. Whether it’s approval, control, or success, these “functional gods” promise a lot but leave us empty.
Together, the first and second commandments confront the question of who we worship and how—and ultimately point us back to a God who cannot be reduced, replaced, or replicated. Take some time to listen or read along and consider: who or what is at the center of your life?
Highlights from this Episode
In our new series, we’re going to be walking through the Ten Commandments and making the case that these ancient words are relevant to your life today. As our series title implies, the commandments really are “keys to the universe”. They’re not arbitrary rules or cultural opinions. God intended them to be for our well-being and flourishing, and you’re going to be blessed if you follow them.
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “What would the world actually look like if everyone kept the Ten Commandments?” We may gripe and complain about rules and laws and regulations but think about what an amazing place the world would be if these 10 rules were obeyed.
You wouldn’t need locks on your door. You wouldn’t need fraud protection or defense budgets or contracts or courts or prisons. The entire architecture of social distrust that we’ve built and spend trillions of dollars maintaining exists largely because these 10 rules are being constantly broken everywhere.
Studying the Ten Commandments is important because the biblical definition of freedom is not ‘doing whatever you want’. Too often the commandments are seen as constraints, as if God’s ways will keep us in servitude and from realizing our dreams and reaching our potential. We forget that God means to give us abundant life.
Obeying the commandments is not how we get God to love us and accept us. We obey because he loves and accepts us. That’s the order in the Old Testament too. In Exodus 19, God identifies the Israelites as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, set apart by his grace. Then in Exodus 20, he gives them the commandments. As Christians, we too are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and we too must look different and have rules the world doesn’t understand.
Love, Law, and Worship
People may say that the commandments are outdated because they were given in the Old Testament, but that when Jesus came, he was about love and compassion and grace. But all of the commandments, except for the Sabbath, are repeated in the New Testament as well, summarized by Jesus’ command to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus’ statement accomplished a few things. First, he simplified the law by summarizing it into two basic principles. Then he unified the law because he said that all of the commandments are designed to establish relational love and human flourishing. Last, he deepened the meaning of the law because he moved it from external behavior to matters of the heart.
There are two words that will anchor us throughout this entire series. The first word is worship, which is to honor, adore, give reverence to, or give yourself over to something. We are created to worship, but the fundamental question of your life is, “Who or what will you worship?”
The second word is idol. Biblically, an idol is any person, thing, desire, or idea, whether it’s tangible or intangible, that receives the devotion, trust, awe, and ultimate allegiance that belongs to God. An idol, by definition, is the object of disordered worship. Since humans are inescapably worshiping creatures, the first two commandments are foundational in helping us worship correctly.
Worshipping God Alone
The first commandment says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” What are the implications of this commandment and how can you keep it in today’s world?
First of all, God is saying it’s possible to be a sincere worshiper yet still worship the wrong God. That’s the reason for the very first commandment. God is not interested in being one god among many. Lots of ancient cultures had impressive-sounding gods and goddesses. What set the Israelites apart from the other nations was that their God, Yahweh, demanded to be worshiped alone as the only God, the God of all gods.
Second, if there’s one God and he’s supreme over all places, people, territories, and tribes, then the rest of the commandments aren’t just for some people in some times and places, depending on their circumstances. The other commandments are true for everyone, everywhere.
This exclusive claim of Christianity can feel offensive. As Jesus himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one gets to God except through me.” When God rallied the Israelites and told them that he was the one true God, it was just as radical then as it seems to be today. And the other nations weren’t happy about it.
Think about the reason behind this. A truly authoritative moral law cannot exist without a divine moral lawgiver. Someone outside of time and space must speak into this world to tell us how to live. If our moral obligations are to have any force or binding obligation behind them, they must rest on something more than just majority opinion or our own personal sense of right or wrong. In fact, there aren’t even categories like “right” or “wrong” without an independent law-giver.
Exclusive Love and Worship
How do we keep the first commandment? First, we choose to love God exclusively. The first commandment is predicated on what the Lord did for the Israelites in Egypt. He saved them. He rescued them. He delivered them. He has a claim over them. When God says, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” in Exodus 22, he is reminding them of the plagues and the Red Sea.
In other words, he’s saying to them, “Why would you trust any other so-called God?” Idolatry or worship of another God is in some sense like adultery. Like bringing another person into a marriage. That never seems to work out!
In addition, don’t misunderstand the phrase, ‘no other gods before me’. God is not saying that there are a bunch of gods out there and we should pick him. He’s saying there are no other gods besides me.
The second way to follow the first commandment is to be aware of those idols or those false gods that we worship. The late Tim Keller made a list of idols of the heart when he taught through the book of Romans. As they’re defined, examine your own heart for any of these:
Approval idolatry: Life only has meaning if I’m loved and respected by a certain person or group.
Comfort idolatry: Life only has meaning if I have a certain socioeconomic level or quality of life.
Control idolatry: Life only has meaning if I can have mastery over my life in a particular area.
Work idolatry: Life only has meaning if I’m highly productive or successful or at least seen that way.
Individual person idolatry: Life only has meaning if this one person in my life is happy with me.
Ideology idolatry: Life only has meaning if my political party or social cause is gaining influence or power.
In and of themselves, these can all be good things, but when idolized they make terrible gods. They always let you down. You can get the money, win the election, achieve the promotion, and it still doesn’t satisfy. That’s because these false gods are dangerous; when pursued at all costs they lead to the denigration of human life. We think we’re in control when we build an idol, but how could anything we create with our hands or minds be more powerful than we are?
Isaiah 44 paints this picture so vividly: a man cuts down a tree, uses half to warm himself by the fire, and turns the other half into a god and bows to it, saying, “Deliver me.” It’s absurd. It’s not alive, not breathing, completely powerless. Yet we do this all the time when we worship idols of success, happiness, love, and even ourselves. The result is anxiety, anger, unhappiness, and broken relationships. Idols always over-promise and under-deliver.
Yet we do this all the time when we worship idols of success, happiness, love, and even ourselves. The result is anxiety, anger, unhappiness, and broken relationships. Idols always over-promise and under-deliver.
A God Beyond Images and Statues
The second commandment says, “Do not make a carved image or any likeness of anything in creation and bow down to it.” The first commandment tells us who to worship; the second tells us how. So while the first prohibits worshiping other gods, the second prohibits worshiping the one true God in a way that misrepresents who he is. To think of God as having a physical form like something in his creation is to diminish and demean him.
And yet we see how quickly God’s people fell into this. Every other nation had physical representations of their gods, so the Israelites wanted to be like them. Moses goes up the mountain, and when he’s gone too long, they gather their gold and form a golden calf—not necessarily thinking it was God, but that it represented him. And God is furious, because it reduces him to something created. Moses makes them burn it, grind it down, mix it with water, and drink it. They had to taste the bitterness of their idolatry. It’s a clear picture: idol worship always leads to bitterness. It never satisfies.
The ancient world made gods out of everything, but God’s people were meant to be different. “In the beginning, God created.” He is separate from his creation. He can’t be captured in an image or form. And yet, over and over, whether it’s the golden calf, the ark treated like a good luck charm, or the temple itself, we see people trying to approach God on their own terms.
Worship Without Images or Idols
Faith comes from hearing and reading the word of God, not seeing physical representations. The one exception would be the Lord’s Supper. Jesus commanded us to do it in remembrance of his sacrifice. But the bread and wine are representations. They are not special on their own, and they do not become the body and blood of Christ. We don’t venerate or worship the elements.
Keeping the second commandment today means guarding against images of God both external and imagined. Remember, God is a jealous God, so we must avoid infusing any created things with divine eminence and spiritual efficacy. We shouldn’t focus on icons or images during prayer, let alone kissing or kneeling before an image or a statue. If we bow or pray to the image or relic or icon, or think that we need it to be closer to God, that’s a violation of the second commandment.
The Ultimate Question
The first two commandments are really asking one question and it’s the most important question that you will ever answer. Who will you worship and how will you worship? We encourage you to use these diagnostic questions to examine your own heart. It’s the starting point for aligning your heart with God’s commands.