Putting the Lord First in Life
We’ve been working with this little working definition of “Christian-ish” – having a half-hearted faith, wearing the label of Christianity without truly following Jesus.
I want to ask a question. You can shout out the answer if you think you know it. As Christians, in this place or in any place – it’s not geographically specific – what should come first in your life?
Yes. Jesus. God. The Lord. Absolutely.
That’s the textbook answer, isn’t it? “What comes first in our lives?” “Well, the Lord comes first. Jesus, God comes first. He is first and foremost in our lives.” That’s the answer we’d all give.
But how many of you know – if I asked for a show of hands, which I won’t – that while that might be our textbook answer, it’s not necessarily always our lived answer? Is that fair?
It’s not always our lived answer because lots of things are competing for and demanding our attention. Do we all live in the real world here this morning? Lots of things are competing to be the most important thing in our lives: our family, our job, our friends, the bills, our hobbies – all the component parts of our lives are competing to be the main thing.
And what we actually find, if you stop to think about it, is that at any given moment in your life there could be a different thing that is the priority at that moment. Your priorities can be different when you’re at work than when you’re at home. Does that make sense?
So we forget about our “textbook answer,” and we don’t live it out. We might say “God first,” but we may actually live “God second, or third, or fourth.”
If we’re not careful, we can find ourselves living out a faith that puts God second, and that really reflects a divided heart – where God is first in our words, but not in our lives.
Putting God First for Our Good
And so that’s where we’re going this morning.
I want to ask and answer three questions. We’ll see if we get all the answers. The first is this: Why does God command us to put Him first? I should say “command,” actually. “Demand” sounds slightly harsher, doesn’t it? Do you think “command” sounds softer than “demand”? It depends on the context. It’s not a theological point, so don’t put too much weight on that.
So, first: Why does God command us to put Him first?
Number two: Why does putting something else first lead to our destruction? We’re going deep here.
And then number three: How do we avoid putting other things before the Lord?
Everyone ready to go on this journey this morning?
All right, just turn to the person next to you and do this [fans hands]. It’s going to cool them down a bit. It’s also going to have the effect of sprinkling them with a light mist of the sweat from your fingertips. That’s pretty grim, isn’t it?
The Call to Exclusive Devotion
God is pretty clear and consistent about a specific idea throughout scripture.
We’re going to read Exodus 20:3. It says this: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall have no other gods before me.”
This command is the first of the Ten Commandments, and it’s given to the Israelite people as they are freed from slavery in Egypt. They cross through the Red Sea as God parts the waters, they go out, they’re freed from slavery under Pharaoh, and they’re just starting out on their new journey with God.
They have this newfound freedom, and they can now choose to do whatever they want to do. So God gives them a list of guidelines or rules—we call them the Ten Commandments. And the first thing that God says, the first rule, is: “You shall have no other gods before me.”
There are three things we can learn just from this one command.
The first is that the Israelite people can, in fact, put other gods before the Lord. That is a real possibility.
The second is that, by the very fact God gives this command, we can infer that they are actually inclined to put other gods before the Lord. There’s a natural tendency in them to do this.
And the third is that it is possible in the first place for “other gods” to be put before the Lord. In other words, there really are things that can take that place in people’s hearts.
All of these ideas are evident from this single command. And this command about putting the Lord first, about putting no one else before him, continues throughout scripture.
In the New Testament, in 1 John 5, we read: “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. Keep yourselves from idols.”
Now, when we think about idols, the first thing I think about is that classic movie scene—has anyone seen the film with the giant boulder and the whip? You know, Indiana Jones. There’s that scene with the statue on the plinth, and the boulder comes rolling after him. That’s what I picture every time I hear the word “idol”: a little statue on a pedestal.
This is often the kind of thing we think about when we hear the word “idol,” isn’t it? Gold statues, shrines, candles, strange ceremonies. And we might say, “Well, we don’t do any of that. That’s not really a danger for us. We’re pretty safe from that.”
But what we need to realize is that idolatry isn’t just about bowing down to golden statues. Idolatry is actually putting anything before the Lord.
We’ll explore what it means to put something “before the Lord” in due course. But first we need to acknowledge that we can do this—that it is a real possibility for us to put something before the Lord. And we need to acknowledge that we shouldn’t.
Is that a good place to start?
The Jealous God and Our Idols
You and I are quite similar to the Israelites who had just been freed from captivity. In Jesus, we are enjoying a newfound freedom, are we not? We can do whatever we like, just as the Israelites could. We can put things before the Lord, and in fact we are inclined to put things before the Lord.
Last week we spoke in depth about our human nature—our heart’s inclination toward that which is evil. Do you remember that? There is an inclination in the human heart to resist God. And yet God insists on being first. God insists on being first.
So we ask the question: why does God insist on being first? There is an answer to this that you may not like. It’s this: God is a jealous God. God is a jealous God.
We don’t love that image, do we? Jealousy. We don’t love the idea of jealousy, especially not the idea of God being jealous. Because jealousy doesn’t seem to be a virtuous ideal, does it? When we think of jealousy, we think of jealous friends, jealous neighbours, jealous kids—whatever it might be—and it feels a bit grubby, doesn’t it? I’m sure you’ve experienced jealousy, as I have, and it’s not ideal, is it? So we conclude, “Jealousy is suboptimal.”
And yet we read in Scripture, Exodus 34:14: “Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” Earlier, in Exodus 20:5: “You shall not bow down to idols or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” Deuteronomy 4:24: “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
God repeatedly describes himself as jealous. We need to understand this, because as soon as we hear it, we tend to think of a negative, petty human emotion—something born out of insecurity, lack, or envy. Is that accurate? That’s how you and I experience jealousy.
We might get jealous of a neighbour’s car, a friend’s job, or whatever it may be. And if we’re honest, we know that’s not a good thing. It’s a petty insecurity, isn’t it? So the question in our minds is this: how can God, the Lord Most High, possibly feel this very human condition? How can he possibly have this very human emotion? How can the One who holds the entire world in his hand possibly be jealous?
Let’s zoom in again on that Scripture. Exodus 34:14 says: “The Lord, Yahweh—whose name is Jealous—is a jealous God.” It’s not only that God is jealous, but that jealousy is baked into the very nature and being of who he is. He’s not ashamed of it. He’s not excusing it. In fact, he’s exemplifying it and drawing attention to it.
I think that’s pretty incredible, and it’s something we need to acknowledge.
The Righteous Jealousy of God
The Hebrew for “jealous” is this word qanna. Someone say qanna. There you go. Good job, darling. The Hebrew is qanna, and it means “jealous.” We’re going to explore what that means and where it comes from, but I want to draw attention first to the idea that it is actually a name of God.
Sally listed some of the names of God during worship. We read these names in Scripture, and they’re the names that we call out and run to: Jehovah Rapha, the Lord is my healer. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides. Jehovah Tsur, the Lord is my rock. But there’s another one: Jehovah Qanna—the Lord is jealous for me. For you. The Lord is jealous.
So we need to understand the big difference between the Lord’s jealousy and my jealousy. I’ll just speak for me, but maybe I’m speaking for you as well. My jealousy is rooted in insecurity. If my phone is not as new as my neighbour’s phone, then I get jealous. Why? Because I’m worried they’ll think I’m not as good as them. My jealousy says, “I am afraid of not having what I want.”
His jealousy, though, is rooted in love—a love that expresses itself in a fierce, covenantal protectiveness. The Lord’s jealousy says, “I refuse to surrender those whom I love to something that will destroy them.” My jealousy leads me to destruction. His jealousy leads Him to the cross.
“The Lord is jealous.” Qanna. God’s jealousy describes a righteous, consuming, covenant‑keeping passion that relentlessly pursues and protects His relationship with His people. This is the jealousy of the Lord. It’s not sinful, because jealousy in itself is not necessarily sinful. The envious side of it is sinful—the coveting of other people’s stuff or situation. But God’s righteous jealousy is actually a trait for us to emulate.
Did you know that in 2 Corinthians 11:2, Paul writes, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy”? It’s not a petty, human jealousy that’s self‑serving. It’s a jealousy born out of a refusal to surrender those whom we love to something that will destroy them.
So we begin to understand something of the Lord’s jealousy this morning.
Ordering Our Lives Around God
It’s a bit of a side tangent in many respects, but it helps us to answer this first question: why does God command us to put Him first?
God doesn’t want us to put anything else before Him – that’s called idolatry – because He is a righteously jealous God. Why is He righteously jealous? He’s righteously jealous for us because of His protective, covenantal nature over us; His love over us, to steer us away from that which is destructive for us.
Are we happy with this, Church, this morning? I know it’s warm. I’m so proud of you for being here. Unless this is your first time in this place, you’ll likely have been in this room before. You know how hot it gets, because you’ve done it before, and yet you still came. We should have a round of applause for that.
I believe we’ve answered the first question about why God commands us to put Him first. And so, if we accept the Lord’s goal, which is to avoid destruction for us, and we accept the Lord’s motive, that He is driven by His love and His covenantal promise of protection over us, then there are two more parts to investigate:
Why does putting something else before the Lord lead to our destruction?
And how do we avoid putting other things before the Lord?
Good. All right, part two. Let’s go.
We’re still laying the groundwork for us to determine why putting God first is so important. Because saying, “Well, because God says so,” actually should be enough. That should be enough for us. God says, “Put Me first,” and if God says it, we do it. That’s how it should work, and actually that is how it does work for most of us, isn’t it? But I also think it’s good for us to understand, “Why does God say so? Why does God say so?”
The reason idolatry destroys us is because we first need to acknowledge that human beings are a worshipping people. We are worshipping creatures. We organize our lives around something that is ultimate. Whether we are Christian or not, or worshippers in a different religion or not, ultimately we position and organize our lives around a hierarchy of values, the top of which becomes our functional god.
Again, whether we know Jesus, whether we’re Christian or whether we are not, we all have a hierarchy of values, even if we haven’t thought about the order that it goes in. Many things make up our hierarchy of values. You can think of some yourself right now: we’ve got our spouse, our children, our job, our responsibilities, our hobbies, our desires. All these things that make up parts of our lives make up part of our hierarchy of values, because they are things that we value. Does that make sense?
These things actually play a part in defining aspects of our lives. They define our identity, or parts of our identity. They define what we do. They define what we prioritize. They define where we spend our money. And none of that is bad. None of that is bad at all—unless there’s something that is objectively bad in that hierarchy of values. I won’t give an example; you can use your imagination.
In our hierarchy of values, whatever is at the top becomes our ultimate driver. It will define our primary identity, our actions—what we do, what we tend towards serving. And the interesting thing is that it can change seasonally, and it can change depending on the situation or circumstance that we’re in.
When we’re at work, our primary driver at the top of our hierarchy of values perhaps becomes our job. We want to do a good job. We don’t want to lose our job—certainly in this climate, that would be a nightmare—so that becomes the main thing. But perhaps when we’re at home, the thing that goes to the top of the list is our family, maybe, or our friends. When I’m alone, perhaps it’s me. I’m at the top of my hierarchy of values.
We need to know that whatever sits at the top of our hierarchy of values becomes our functional god, because it functions as my god. I give worth and worship to it to the extent that it influences my identity and behavior. Does that make sense, Church?
You might say, “Well, okay, Dom, what’s the problem? I don’t see a problem with that. How does that lead to destruction?” Fair question that you asked. It was a joke, because you didn’t ask it—but it was a joke. Is it too warm to laugh? It’s warm up here as well.
How does that lead to destruction? The problem, Church, is actually who God is.
If God is the source of all that is good… if God is the source of love—the Scripture tells us that God is love… if God is the One who created you and knows everything about you and desires so much for your goodness, as the Scripture says… if all of that is true, then having anything other than God at the top of our hierarchy of values means that we have something other than the source of goodness, the source of love, the source of truth at the top of our hierarchy of values. That “something else” becomes our functional god and defines everything in our lives.
Ordering Our Loves Under God
See, my wife is incredible. You probably agree—you should agree. I agree more than you do. My wife is incredible, but she is not the ultimate source of goodness and truth and love. She is not God.
I think our marriage is pretty great as well. Don’t ask—just take my word for it. I think our marriage is pretty great, but it is not the ultimate source of goodness and love and truth. It is not God.
If anything other than God sits at the top of my hierarchy of value, then that hierarchy is not leading me towards goodness and love in their truest sense. And my life becomes imbalanced. My life becomes imbalanced because I’m constantly trying to figure out who or what is at the top in any given moment, in any situation or circumstance, changing it at will.
That means my priorities, my identity, my actions, even my behaviors, all shift depending on where I find myself. And that is going to lead me down a path of destruction.
Ordering Our Lives Around God
So why does putting something else first lead to our destruction? Because ultimately it doesn’t lead to what is truly good for us.
I want to address question three: how do we avoid putting other things before the Lord? I want to highlight again what idolatry looks like, because this whole area, this whole principle, is about idolatry.
You and I, we don’t worship other gods. We don’t bow down to statues. For the most part, we don’t have to worry about being influenced by pagan religions. So what is idolatry in the Western world in the 2020s? Because we can still be subject to it if we’re not intentional about it.
I’d define it like this: idolatry is having something in your heart that is taking the place of God, ultimately giving worth, worship, or reverence to something or someone that determines your identity and your priorities.
The default, when we’re determining a hierarchy of values and therefore our “functional god,” is that we allow our situation and circumstances to define, first, what we do. How we respond in situations and circumstances determines what we do. Then what we do begins to define who we are, how we do things, how we value things, and then, ultimately, it begins to define who or what our functional god is. We actually end up in a model where our situation – where we find ourselves – ends up defining who our god is.
Some of you have seen this before, because I think this is unbelievably important to who we are as people. This forms a big part of my continuous thinking, if you like. I spend a lot of time reflecting on this and really trying to be intentional about it.
Once our functional god is defined – and we need to know this is usually unconscious, it’s not happening at a conscious level – it then flows back down. Our functional god reinforces who we are, reinforces what we do and how we do it, and then it speaks into our situation and circumstances. So our situation defines who we are, and then our functional god, which has been shaped by that, continues to shape everything else.
So the first thing I would encourage you to do is to switch from being unconscious about who is at the top of your hierarchy of values to being conscious about it. What is happening in your life that is defining what you do, who you are, and what is at the top? What is competing to be at the top of your hierarchy of values? Perhaps money, perhaps your job, perhaps family, perhaps yourself. These aren’t bad things, but they’re not God.
Being aware is the first step. Most people don’t even know that they have, and are operating within, a model of a hierarchy of values, constantly switching and changing who the functional god at the top is. Most people don’t even think about that; they’re just cracking on, doing their best. But it’s worth being intentional about this.
Now God comes along and He flips the default, the unconscious norm. He says, “Forget that first bit. Start here: I am God. Have no other god before Me.” Not only as a functional god, but as actual God, because He is God. He is the One who flung the stars into the sky. He is the One who knows every hair on your head. Let there be no one before Him. Let the rest of your life be defined by that. This is what God is saying.
I want to make a case – and perhaps in a room of Christians I shouldn’t need to, but I think it helps us to be conscious and intentional about this – why is God best placed to be at the top? Is that a fair question? Why is God best placed to be at the top?
It really comes down to having a maintained and consistent identity, drive, and purpose. He speaks value and instruction and balance into every other area. As we read the Scriptures, we find that God has influence and direction for every part of our lives.
In your marriage, you need to know that you’re not just a spouse. Your marriage or your spouse is not your functional god. You are a godly spouse, ordained by Him to walk alongside another one of His precious creations and to take care of them – and the same the other way around.
In your job, you need to know that you’re not just a worker bee trying to make the best spreadsheet you can, or lay the best tarmac, or whatever else. You are a godly worker, honoring the position you hold, acknowledging that the Lord values work, that it is good for us to work, and that we should honor our employer even if they don’t deserve it. This is what we’re called to do. God defines how we work.
With your money, you’re not just trying to accumulate as much wealth as possible, or even just survive if that’s your situation. You are a godly steward, recognizing the power of money, the value of it, and where and how it should be used most effectively for His kingdom.
In your interactions in everyday life, you aren’t just a guy or a girl. You are an ambassador of the kingdom of heaven on earth, walking with a confidence given by Him who made you, using your life to point to Him.
Having God at the top of your hierarchy of values creates a consistency through your life. It creates a consistency that says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if working for the Lord.” God isn’t just another part of your life; God defines every single aspect of it – but only if He’s at the top.
We’re going to pray and call the band up. I love thinking through and studying these ideas and principles, because Scripture has so much wealth for us in terms of wisdom, in terms of steering our lives for our betterment. I genuinely believe – and know, because I’ve experienced it – that when we align our lives with Scripture, we will be better for it.
Receiving Jesus as Savior and Lord
Now we have to be really careful. And I have to be really careful in particular, because I am so adamant that we will not be a church that preaches a self‑help gospel, where it’s all about making your life better and what have you. Because it’s not. Yes, your life is better with Christ, but the Bible is not a self‑help book. We can’t just absorb its principles, live by them, and then expect we’ll simply be happier in life.
Our first and foremost purpose here is to be a people who point to Jesus, to be ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven on earth, to go and preach the gospel, to make disciples of all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That’s the commission that we were given, church. That’s the commission that we were given.
Now, along the way, as we prioritize this commission, this Great Commission, Scripture does steer us into ways of betterment for our lives. And I don’t think there’s anything better, when it comes to the practicalities and the outworking of how you organize your life, than for there to be a consistency that removes a power dynamic between different gods, different idols at different times in different places. A consistency that removes an ever‑changing primary identity depending on where you are and what you find yourself doing. That removes ambiguity, that removes inconsistency, that removes the inclination toward the path to destruction. It removes all of that and replaces it with this: God is God. God is not only the God of the universe, but he’s the God of you.
There are many Christians going around with Jesus as their Saviour, but not as their King. I want us to be a church—well, it doesn’t really matter what I want, frankly, actually—but the Lord wants us to be a church, a people who acknowledge Jesus as Saviour, yes, but also Jesus as Lord over your life, at the top, so that there will be no one before him.
So we’re going to pray. I’d like to invite you to stand. And I forgot to ask the band—can we not do the “Waymaker” song, but the other one that we did, “A Thousand Hallelujahs”? Yes, let’s do that one.
We’re going to pray, and we’re going to take a bit of time to acknowledge our own hearts, to do a bit of a deep dive. We can’t do all of that on a Sunday morning, but we can at least start the process: to ask the Lord to reveal to us, through his Holy Spirit, what it is that we have put at the top at different times. Because we all have. I’m not going to believe anyone in this room who tells me that God is at the top of their life all the time. I don’t believe it.
So I’m going to ask—or rather, we are going to ask—the Lord to reveal to us the things that we are susceptible to putting at the top, to putting above him. And like I say, they’re not bad things. I’m not talking this morning about addictions. I’m not talking this morning about sins. We talked about that last week; we’ll talk about it again, don’t worry. I’m talking about the things that are actually good. They’re good things. But they’re not God. They’re not God.
Committing to a God-First Life
We’re just going to take some time to think and to pray, to ask, “Lord, search me.” Then we’re going to pray together.
I want to pray for those of us who want to make a commitment this morning—a commitment to putting God first in our lives.
For some of us, the idea of God being first, of God defining everything in life, is new. Perhaps it’s been a case of, “Well, I believe in God and that’s enough. That’s just one part of my life, along with everything else I’ve got going on.” And so the idea of God actually being at the top, defining every aspect of our lives, maybe that’s new.
For others of us, it’s not new. That is the way we’re trying to live, that’s what we’re aiming for—but we stumble and we fall, because we’re human.
So if you’re in this place this morning and you’re in either one of those situations—if you want to make a first-time commitment or a recommitment to putting God in His rightful place in your life—I’d love to invite you to raise your hand, and we’re going to pray.
Thank you, Jesus.
Lord, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for what you’ve done. We thank you that you are the one who flung the stars into the sky. You are the one who created us, who knitted us together in our mothers’ wombs. You are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. You are the one who holds the entire world in Your hands, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. You are King of kings and Lord of lords.
We thank you, Lord, for our salvation, that you went to the cross so that we might be spared from the effects of our sin.
And Lord, this morning, for those of us in this place, we raise our hands in surrender to you and we say: Lord, we acknowledge that you are the King of kings and the Lord of lords. We ask for your help, Holy Spirit—that you would help us to be consistent in making you the Lord of our lives, over every situation, over every other value that we hold, over every aspect and part of our lives.
Lord, we ask that you would help us to define everything by you, by who we are in you.
Help us, Lord.
Amen. Amen.
