Timeless X: Ten Commandments Week 1

SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE
Based on a sermon preached by Mike Johnson, 9/13/26

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, WEEK ONE
YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME

Leader note:
Read Exodus 5:1-2, Exodus 19:16-25, and Exodus 20:1-3 in your own Bible. Have extra Bibles available. Bring index cards and pens. Write the three words Acknowledge, Ask, Believe on a whiteboard or a sheet of paper where everyone can see them. Protect the last fifteen minutes so the exercise and prayer are not rushed. One caution for the leader: when the group starts naming what they depend on, the room may get quiet and honest. Do not rush to fill the silence and do not let anyone fix anyone. This is a diagnosis conversation, not a performance review.

Opening prayer
Pray aloud or in your own words: Father, you are the I AM. You were not created, you are not sustained by anything outside yourself, and you depend on nothing. Everything that exists, including us, exists because you are. We come in tonight leaning hard on all kinds of things that are not you, some of them good gifts from your hand that we have quietly turned into gods. Show us what we are depending on besides you. Do not let us leave this room with only good intentions. Change what we believe and change what we desire, because we cannot do that for ourselves. Holy Spirit, be the one who works in us tonight. In Jesus' name, amen.

Scripture readings (Use four readers)

Reader one, Exodus 5:1-2. Pharaoh's question: who is the LORD that I should obey his voice? That question is the setup for everything that follows.

Reader two, Exodus 19:21-25 and Exodus 20:1-3. Notice the order. God identifies himself first, I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and only then gives the command. The command rests on his character and his rescue, not on raw authority.

Reader three, Philippians 2:13. God is working in you, giving you both the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

Reader four, 1 John 4:4. Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
Have these ready if the discussion goes there: Exodus 3:13-15 for the name I AM, Jeremiah 2:13 on broken cisterns, Psalm 20:7 on chariots and horses, Colossians 1:16-17 on all things holding together in Christ.

(Teaching frame the leader should give in about two minutes)
There is a word for what God says about himself. Aseity (A-see-it-y). It means God simply is. He depends on nothing outside himself for his existence. Nothing created him. Nothing sustains him. He depends on nothing, and everything depends on him. A. W. Tozer put it this way in The Attributes of God: God is the original existence, and because God is, everything else that is, is.
Now hold that next to Egypt. Egypt was extremely clear about what it depended on. The Nile. Animals. Health. Crops. The sun. Pharaoh. So the God who depends on nothing walks into a culture that depends entirely on created things but not on the Creator himself. And God's question to Egypt, and to us, is this: why are you depending on things when those things depend on me?
Then came the answer. The Nile failed. The land failed. The gods failed. Pharaoh failed. Egypt failed. God did not fail. And when God begins the commandments with I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, he is saying remember what I did and remember who I am. In the end all those things failed, but I did not.

Discussion topic 1: I AM Who I AM

Questions:
Pharaoh asked who is the LORD that I should obey his voice. Where do you hear that question in the culture around you, and where do you hear a quieter version of it in your own heart?
God depends on nothing and everything depends on him. What difference does that actually make on a Tuesday afternoon when you are stressed?
God introduces himself as rescuer before he gives a single command. Why does that order matter? How does it change the tone of the command itself?
Be honest: do you more often relate to God as the self-existent one who holds everything, or as one more resource you consult when your other supports are shaking?

Discussion topic 2: What you depend on will fail you
Everything Egypt trusted collapsed. Read the list from the sermon out loud and let it sit: money, health, marriage, work, reputation, control.

Questions:
Have any of these ever let you down? Tell one story, briefly.
Why are we so willing to keep placing the weight of our lives on created things that have already shown us they cannot carry it?
The sermon put it this way: God's gifts make wonderful gifts, but they make terrible gods. What is one gift in your life right now that is good, that God gave you, and that you have started asking to do a job it was never designed to do?
How can you tell the difference between enjoying a gift and depending on a gift? What are the warning signs in your own life, in your mood, your sleep, your temper, your prayers?
Consider this claim together: abundant life is found only in living in dependence on the one who created us. Does your life currently look like that claim is true?

Discussion topic 3: Why willpower does not work
We usually respond to conviction with resolve. I depend too much on people's approval, so I am going to stop worrying about what other people think. I depend too much on money for my security, so I am going to trust God to provide from now on. The problem is that you cannot simply command your heart to stop wanting what it wants. You need God to change what your heart desires. That is exactly what Philippians 2:13 promises. God works in you to give you both the desire and the power.

Questions:
Name a resolution you have made about one of these areas that did not last. What happened?
What is the difference between trying harder and asking God to change what you want? Which one have you actually been doing?
If God is the one who produces the desire, what is your part? What does cooperating with him look like practically this week?
Read 1 John 4:4 again. Where do you need to believe that God in you is greater than the grip this thing has on your heart?

Follow-up exercise
Walk through the three words together, then hand out index cards.

Acknowledge. Each person writes privately: God, I can see that I am depending on this, and I have started believing that I cannot be okay unless this is okay. Fill in the blank with one specific thing.

Ask. Write or pray: Holy Spirit, I cannot change this in myself. Would you change me? Renew my mind. Change what I believe. Change what I desire. Help me see this thing for what it is. Maybe it is a wonderful gift from you, but it was never meant to replace you.

Believe. Write 1 John 4:4 on the back of the card in your own handwriting.
Then commit to the daily prayer for the next seven days: God, show me what I am depending on besides you, and begin to change that desire within me. Pray it in the car, at your desk, before meetings, at bedtime.

Expect this to take time. When you fail, and you will, pray this instead of giving up: Holy Spirit, I did it again. I put too much weight on this. I am acknowledging it. I am asking you to change me. I believe you are greater than this thing that has such a grip on my heart.
Pair up before you leave. Exchange numbers. Text your partner one sentence midweek naming what God showed you. Bring the cards back next week and report, including where it was hard.

Closing prayer
Pray aloud, or have two or three people pray: I AM, you are the God who depends on nothing and holds everything. Thank you that when you said you shall have no other gods before me, you were not keeping something good from us. You were keeping us from putting the weight of our lives on something that cannot carry it. Forgive us for handing your gifts a job that only you can do. Show us daily what we are leaning on besides you, and change those desires from the inside out. Make us people who can say with our whole hearts that I AM that I AM is all that we need. Amen.