All Gods but God
Transcript
So how we doing? They always give me a hard time for asking how everybody's doing. I think we've moved beyond that point, so I'm going to start asking questions like, How was your week? How are your finances? How's your mom doing? Those kind of questions.
To kind of move it on beyond just how you're doing. But last week we began our Idol series, and so we started the first week. We were looking at Exodus chapter 20, and that's actually where we'll be again tonight. And we'll be on page 40 in the Bibles we have. If anybody needs a Bible, we've got some right here. They'll hand to you if you just raise your hand so we can all be on the same page.
But what we talked about last week was that we are designed as humans, created by God, to live in existence in relationship with God. And so that all humans are designed to live in a worshipful relationship with God. And that when that relationship was broken, it wasn't that we ceased to worship. It wasn't that we ceased to have a God. It just we began to worship other things. And so something else began to have supremacy in our lives.
And so what we talked about was if we are designed to worship and by default are going to be worshiping something, why would we want it to be God? And so what we discussed was that Jesus, we looked at Romans 5, Jesus rescues and redeems while we're weak, while we're broken, while we're sinful, that he buys us for himself through his death to save us when we had no merit of our own. So that we were made his prior to any amount of value or worth or goodness that we have. And that he's the only God that does that. That all other gods base our relationship with them and our existence in the world off of how well we're doing.
And Jesus bases it only, always, forever off of himself. And so there's actually a lot of freedom and joy and life in having Jesus be our God. And so that's what we talked about last week. So we're going to be in the same passage this week and we're going to kind of turn our focus. And I think for us in our culture, we don't think about idolatry very often, if at all. And so you may think about it as kind of something that people used to do or people in other cultures do.
I know that if you walked around in New Testament Rome, in the Greco-Roman world, they had gods for everything. I'm not kidding. They had gods for like everything. They basically just went through and if it was something that people appreciated, they were like, well, let's just give it a God. Let's just assign that a name.
Let's build a temple for it. Let's have a shrine for it. Cities had gods that, so there was like the big gods that most everybody knew about. And then there were a lot of smaller gods. And so they were like, all right, well, the sun and stars and storms, that'll be a God. And we'll have a God for beauty and sex.
And that'll be a God. And we'll have a God for – they had them for different cities. They had them for different vocations would have gods. I was reading Poseidon was the God of the ocean and horses. And I just don't know how that went in the God draft, like who was representing Poseidon. It was like, all right, we'll take the ocean.
And they came back around and they were like, all right, we also – we want horses. They were like, you already got the ocean. Yeah, but there's like not a lot going on there all the time. And he only has a few people to mess with, you know, and boats and stuff. So we want horses and we want fire.
You can't have fire and horses. You've got to pick one. Horses. We want horses. So I don't know how that worked out.
I guess that made seahorses really cocky because they were like the only thing that was both, in the ocean and a horse. And so – but that's – they had gods for everything. And the truth is we think about like, well, we don't really do that. Honestly, I think they just had a little bit more social integrity to go ahead and admit what they were up to. Whereas we would be like, ah, we don't do that. But if you're going to say that we don't, as a culture, worship power and wealth, if you're going to say as a culture we don't worship beauty and sex, we're kidding ourselves.
They just said, well, we're going to do that. We're going to care that much about it. Let's go ahead and just deify it, give it a name, and have a house we can go to, make it a little bit easier. And so really we culturally still have idolatry all the time. We'd say, well, we're not – but not like them. Like we wouldn't worship some sort of inanimate object that had some kind of image engraved on it, unless of course it was like green and folded and had an old dead guy's face on it.
Then maybe. Maybe we'd work for that. We wouldn't have big statues that represented things. Like they had Baal and he had a giant bull statue that you would worship a bull that would represent fertility and wealth. And we wouldn't do that unless, of course, we're talking about bull markets and we build one in front of the New York Stock Exchange to represent wealth and power. We wouldn't practice child sacrifice unless it was to the God of choice and personal freedom.
So to act as if our culture does not have idolatry, we just don't have names for it. The truth is it's all around us all the time and as individuals, idolatry isn't just something that other people deal with. It's a human problem. John Calvin said that the human heart is an idol factory, that from the womb, from birth, we are adept, we are great at making idols. And so what we're going to shoot for tonight is we just wanted to develop a lens for seeing idolatry in our culture and idolatry, more importantly, idolatry in our own hearts and our own lives. And so we want to just get a framework for how do we even begin to investigate this?
I remember growing up in school, it was just, and I don't remember exactly what year it was, but there was a year when I went back to school and like I showed up and I was like, there are girls here. And that had never really dawned on me before. Like they'd always been there, but I'd never really noticed them. And in some ways our goal tonight is let's pull back a little bit and start to look at where idolatry crops up in our lives. They're there. Let's just get a lens to see them.
That's what we're shooting for. And that's what we're going to be in Exodus chapter 20. So I'm going to pray and we're going to hop in. God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that you are alive and you are real and you are active. We pray that through your Holy Spirit you would lead us tonight.
That this would not be just a good get together of friends and a good talk and some good singing. But that God, it would be worship. It would be a gathering of your church where you, through your Holy Spirit, instruct and teach and admonish and use your word to enact your will. So we love you and we praise you and we pray this in faith that you will work among us. In Jesus' name, amen. Exodus chapter 20.
We're starting verse 1. And God spoke all these words. So this is God talking to the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai after he's rescued them out of Egypt. God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And so we see how God rescues a nation for himself. That he makes a people for himself and he rescues them out of slavery.
And we actually, this is just a small picture of when Jesus is going to rescue the world out of slavery. So the Egyptians were, the Israelites were in slavery to the Egyptians. But the Bible tells us that ultimately as humans we're enslaved to sin, to our own desires. And that Jesus would come to earth, be the son of God, that he would live perfectly on our behalf. He would die in our place so that we might have freedom in him. That we might have life in him.
So he would be killed on our behalf. That he would shed his blood on our account. Be buried, rise again to life and live forever. And that in him we can have life. And so we just see here a small picture of what ultimately God's going to do for all of creation, all of humanity. And so it says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above. Or that is in the earth beneath. Or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am a jealous God.
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. We talked about last week that God doesn't set it up as here are my rules, follow my rules. Those who follow my rules are good. Those who follow my rules are bad. Breaking rules is bad.
He sets it up as object of worship. He says I am God and there are no other gods. And do not worship any other gods. And so we don't break rules. We don't break any of the other ten commandments until we've broken the first one. That it's only after we have taken something and put it in the place of God.
And said that at this moment you are more supreme to me. You are more real to me. You are more powerful to me than God is. And so I'm willing to turn from him because I see you as more supreme. And so the example I gave was if I was willing to lie to Anna or unwilling to confess sin to Anna or to my community group. What I'm saying is God I know that you don't like lying.
I know that you say that confession is actually good. That repentance is actually good. But approval of my community group of my wife is more important to me. Their opinion of me is more important to me than yours. And so we actually swap God out. Put something else in his place.
And that's what leads us into all other Acts of rebellion. So the first one is to actually break rule number one. Which is to place something else in supremacy. To remove God from where he is and put something else there. But he starts off.
He says you have no other gods before me. And then he. So what we did last week is we kind of turned towards God. And just said let's look at why we would want him to be God. What we're going to do this week is turn and take a look at all the other things that we can worship. So what does he say is idolatry?
What does he say we can worship? You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above. Okay. That is in the earth beneath. Alright. Or that is in the water under the earth.
Oh, okay. What he's saying is that humans are able to make an idol out of anything. The category he included is all of creation, everything. So his options are you can worship things that aren't created. Wouldn't that just be you, God? Yep, you got it.
You nailed it. The only uncreated thing is God. So he says nothing that's created are you allowed to worship. You're not allowed to make anything into a God. You're not allowed to take anything that I've made and turn it into a God. Just don't do that.
Now, notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say don't enjoy. He doesn't say don't you dare appreciate anything that's been created. He doesn't say how dare you love something that I made. He doesn't say any of those. He says don't worship.
Don't bow down to and serve. So what we often think about when we think about idolatry is we think about the pursuit of the overwhelming desire for something bad. That idolatry is us turning from God to chase after something bad. But the truth is far more often we idolize good things. That God gave us for joy and pleasure and appreciation in life. To things that he gave us to enrich life.
Things that the Bible says are good gifts from God. The reason we do that is because it's actually a lot easier for us to believe that they will bring joy and satisfaction and fulfillment. Much easier. And that's why they'll begin to drift and take a place of supremacy. So most of us aren't like pet rocks.
Pet rocks are great. And they're going to bring the ultimate joy and satisfaction and value in life. I've got to have pet rocks. Like nobody like it's like dude that's just dumb. Like you can't even make that argument. Like I just like I don't even like we're not even going to debate.
I'm not even going to like we're not even going to go scripture there. I'm just going to tell you you're stupid. You go away. Like that's how that works. But we get into a relationship.
Like I'm far more likely to believe that Anna who's my wife can bring me ultimate joy and satisfaction and validation. That she can supply everything I need in life. I'm far more likely to let my heart begin to drift there. Because it's actually a good gift that God gave for me to have a wife. And there is joy there. And there is hope there.
There is satisfaction there. But it's not ultimate joy, satisfaction and fulfillment. There's not ultimate validation there. And so far more often we'll take something good like work. God designed work. Adam had a job in the Garden of Eden.
We're not going to get to heaven and sit around all the time. We got stuff to do. I don't know what it's going to be. I know it's not going to be as bad as the stuff we're doing right now. We're not going to be as annoyed with our bosses. But he had a job prior to the fall.
So God gives work. It's actually good for us. It's designed for us. And so as we get into it, there starts to be a little bit of, no, this actually can validate me. This actually can bring me joy and satisfaction and hope and fulfillment. And we take a good thing, we turn it into a God thing, and it becomes a very bad thing.
That is how idolatry plays out most often. Taking a good thing. So like I really want to make good grades and please my parents. Like I really just want to fit into it. I want my parents to be proud of me. God actually designed it to work that way.
You should want to honor your parents. But then when it becomes an inordinate desire, we take something that's good, base our life off of it, and it begins to destroy us. So we take a good thing, make it a God thing, and it becomes a very bad thing. Okay? So he lays out, not don't enjoy, not don't appreciate, not don't have fun with.
He doesn't say, hey, hey, I made steaks, but you better not eat them. No. God designed good things. Because there's meat in heaven, just so you all know. The Bible says there's meat in heaven. It says zero things about vegetables.
There's meat in heaven. There's no death in heaven, so I don't know how that works. Like, is the meat still talking to you? I'm not sure how this works. How do I taste? Delicious.
Now stop talking and trying to eat. I don't know. Y'all, we'll figure that one out. So anyway, what he says though, you shall not make for yourself carved image or anything, likeness of anything that is in heaven above or earth below. He says don't take anything and make it into a God. And he includes all categories because the truth is we are able to take anything and make it into a God.
Okay. But what's he say? He says don't, you shall not, this is verse 5, you shall not bow down to them or serve them. Don't bow down to them or serve them. So when you bow down, you're paying homage to, you're giving honor to something.
You're bending to something. And then when you serve, the word he actually uses there is slave. So don't be a slave to. Don't let your life be guided by in service to anything other than me. We talked about last week that that's actually for our joy that he says that because he's good and he's for our good. And so when he calls us to worship him, it's not begrudging submission, but it's actually for our joy.
When I was growing up, my dad, he explained this to me later and I've seen how it played out in the rest of life as well. But he was like when y'all were kids, I made like 90% of all the decisions that faced you. I just made them for you. You got to make about 10% of the decisions. As you got a little older, maybe I bumped that back to 80%. He said you weren't like a 12-year-old trying to decide what time you were going to sleep.
I had already decided for you. 9 o'clock. My older brother will tell you that you didn't necessarily go to sleep at that time, but you were at least in a bed with the lights off. You may stare at the ceiling if you would like, but you're going to be in the bed. He was like you're not 14 trying to decide whether or not you're going to get your ears pierced. I've already decided that for you.
Your options are don't get your ear pierced or have me assault you. Those are your options. We knew our options. None of us have our ears pierced because we valued our face more than our ears. But he was like I've made decisions for you.
And the truth is as you go through life, you have things over top of you that make decisions for you. Like when you get a job, when I go to Sears, which I won't be doing much more because they don't exist anymore. At least the one I was working at. We shut that thing down. I guess my sales weren't that good. But I knew I was going to wear clothes, but I had a certain like I could wear.
I knew I was going to be wearing khakis and some form of a blue shirt. Like I could wear black pants if I really got crazy. But I had decisions made for me. When I went to college and was playing football, I was on the team. I had a lot of decisions made for me. I was like where are you going to be most of the time running and getting yelled at.
Like that decision has already been made. Like that's when we place something over us, we serve it. And it does not work for us. It begins to make decisions for us. And so when God says don't worship anything, don't place something in supremacy over your life, don't serve it, what happens is if we place money as the pinnacle of what we're chasing, we think that I can control this. But the truth is it begins to make decisions for us.
Because if you're going to serve money, certain things are going to have to happen and certain things are not going to happen. When we place health there, when we place physical beauty there, decisions already begin to be made for us. And so when God says serve me only, the decisions he makes are actually like good ones that are healthy for us and enjoyable and there's life in them. And so he says don't bow down to and don't serve or slave for anything other than me. So I want us to take a second and to begin to unpack what it looks like for us to begin to identify these things in our hearts.
And again, predominantly, as we walk through this and as you begin to pray through this and walk through this with the Holy Spirit, this most often will not be bad things. Most often will not be things that are in and of themselves. You can immediately identify and be like, that's sinful. Most often in idolatry it will be something good that we've given an inordinate amount of power to, that we've begun to place in a place of supremacy. And so there's going to be automatic pushback and automatic defense for some of these things. But what we're not saying is all of these things are automatically bad.
We're just saying they should not take the place of God in our lives. I remember Anna and I were dating in high school and she was – we were pumping gas one time. Well, she had a Explorer. I couldn't remember what it was. She had a Ford Explorer. It was really big.
And she ran it into things. And after she ran it into a ditch, she got bumped down to smaller vehicles. She's gotten smaller and smaller with her vehicle, but she has not ceased to run into things. I was – you know, so at some point we may have to expand it back up just so that if she gets in an accident, she wins. But not worried about conserving gas, more like just winning an accident.
But she took her Explorer and she was on empty and she was with her tennis team and she decided she was going to go ahead and fill it. It was the first time. She had only been driving for a little while. First time she's ever going to get a full tank of gas. She was real excited because she was going from like E light all the way full. So she fills it all the way up.
She goes to pull out of the gas station, stalls out. Her car runs over across the road, gets stuck in the middle of everything. Then she has to get the whole team to come help her and like push it into a ditch. Really, really confused as to why her car no longer works. Because the one way she knows how to work on cars, which is similar to the one way I know how to work on cars, she doesn't have gas. Yes, I don't know what the problem is.
The problem was it was diesel fuel that she filled her car up with. Now, nobody would argue that diesel fuel is a bad thing. It just doesn't work well in a car that runs on gas. As we walk through this, there's a lot of things we're not going to argue are bad. They're not going to work well in the place of God. A marriage can be a really good thing, but it makes a horrible God.
Approval and relationships with people and being loved can make a very good thing, but it makes a horrible God. Good grades, hard work, wealth, money, possessions, all good things given to us by God, but they make horrible gods. So as we walk through this, be willing to sit with the Holy Spirit and allow Him to begin to train us to look for areas in our life that we are pursuing a good thing as if it is a God thing. So these are just some questions, and they may not, not all of them are going to apply to everybody. Some things may be helpful, may not be helpful. Take the ones that are helpful, use them, begin to sit with the Holy Spirit on that throughout this week.
This is actually why it's really important that we walk through life in community, that we actually get to walk through this process together. We get to begin to discuss, hey, I started thinking about this. How am I doing here? Have you all noticed this in my life, that we actually get to walk this out in this process? And so I'm just going to start giving some questions. The first one, though, area that we, since our hearts get tied to our idols, we see, we can begin to question our motives and our attitudes and our emotions when it comes to idolatry.
And the first one we're going to look at is guilt. So again, I'm just, we're asking some questions to help us begin to have a lens to identify. What is it in your life when you think back on it you feel most guilty about? You feel most ashamed of or you feel just heavy every time you think about it. You feel as if you failed in that area. Now that does not necessarily define idolatry, but it might.
It might be that you failed a God that you worship. And so you just can't get over this mistake that you made or this choice that you made because of what it was that you were trying to live up to but never did. So sometimes when we go to identify our idols, we can look towards guilt, anger. What do you get most frustrated about? When are you most likely to go off? And this will be different for different people.
So having someone interrupt your schedule or throw your schedule out of whack, probably always frustrating. But if you lose it, it's possible that you have an inordinate amount of hope and life and joy tied up in control and being able to be in control. If someone disrespects you and you fly off the handle, it's quite possible that we've got a little bit too much wrapped up in how other people view us and how much self-worth we have. Do they not know who I am? How dare they? So what do you get most frustrated about?
A lot of times we get really angry with... If there's someone that you're really angry with, a specific person, it's possible we're really angry with them because they're blocking us or denying us access to our idol. What do you fear most? What's your biggest nightmare? What do you automatically run to defend if it's addressed? Someone in your community group is like, Hey man, I just want to talk to you a little bit about this because I kind of see this in how you handle this area of your life and you automatically...
You've got like Bible verses loaded into a pistol to shoot back at them. This is why it's okay. What do you automatically run to defend? The last one's pride. What do you feel shows, validates you as a human? What do you feel you can always kind of rest in?
Yeah, everything else is going bad, but I've got this. What do you run to when life is crazy to show you that everything's still going to work out? You get on the internet, check your bank account? Anna and I do that if we either would like to cry or have a good laugh. I mean, what do you run to? What do you try to steer conversations to?
When you're in just a normal conversation, what are you trying to hope that it gets to? I was in a science class in college. And you had your class and you had a lab and we had a lab and in that lab, a teacher would be talking about stuff and there was a dude who would start so many sentences. And I don't remember his name, but I remember his nickname. He would raise his hand and be like, now this summer when I was in space camp, we used to be like, dude, I don't think that sounds the way to everyone else the way you think it sounds. But he'd try to bring it up all the time.
It wouldn't even really apply. He'd be like, now this summer when I was in space camp and we were learning about space rocks, photosynthesis. He was like, I don't even know. Have you ever seen people do this? I've done this. You turn the conversation in a really weird way.
That was a great story about your grandmother. Want to know how many push-ups I can do? It's like, dude, I don't even know. I don't know how you got there. But what is it that you're likely to try to show to people so that they can know, hey, I just want to let you know I deserve to be on earth.
What is it that when it gets attacked or affronted or assaulted a little bit that you just can't handle it? What is it that you're so proud of? The other way this shows up is what are you most annoyed by? What are you most likely to talk bad about? Because the truth is if you don't find much pride in something, you're very unlikely to talk bad about. So I'm never going to get in an argument about LeBron James and Michael Jordan because I could care less and I have no affiliation with either of those cats.
When you say King James, I'm more likely to think about the version of the Bible than the dude who dunks on people. Okay? That's just the way I am. You want to get an argument about Clemson and Carolina football? High five. Let's do this.
Up top. Matt, up top. Get in here, buddy. I have some association with one. I care a little bit about one. And so what are you most likely to talk bad about?
Will you go off on how somebody raises their children? I can't believe that they would have kids that acted like that because my value and worth is wrapped up in how good mine are. Okay. That's to begin to frame up in our brains how do we ask questions? How do we look at what it is that we seek to validate us to find life in, to find joy in? What have we begun to shift out and put in the place of God?
Now here's what happens. We talked last week and we went to Romans 5 and we talked about how Jesus rescues us while we're weak. How he rescues us while we're his enemies. How he does not base our standing with him off of us, which is really good news. That Jesus saves us outside of any merit or worth that we could ever bring to the table. But let me tell you what happens a little bit when you start talking about idolatry.
There's a little bit of come to Jesus and he'll fix all of this. Come to Jesus and he'll make all of this good. And a lot of times what we do is we just bring our idolatry with us and we slap a Jesus fish on top of it. We just kind of spray paint a cross over top of it. I, I, um, there's a whole segment of people that went through the true love waits thing. It didn't reach Australia, so Raz was really confused about it as we were talking about things.
But true love waits didn't make it across the pond. But, uh, what that was, was there was youth groups where they'd come through and they would do basically abstinence training for youth. And, uh, it was basically, you, you, you don't need to, the Bible says, not to, to fornicate, not to have sex outside of marriage. That, that that is not the way we're designed to act. That monogamous married relationships are the best ways to, to live life. And so you would, you would get like a promise ring or whatever.
And so the ideal behind it is actually really good and healthy and fine. But there were times that it was sold as put in purity work and Jesus will bring you perfect spouse. You do the work of behaving yourself and in comes great marriage. And there is a group of people, 20 to 30, 35, that are really mad at God because they put in the purity work. Mr. Prince Charming hadn't shown up.
Mrs. Perfect hasn't shown up. Hadn't worked out. And God owes them. Truth is quite often we come to Jesus with, okay, you're right. I shouldn't serve money.
I should give my money to the church. And if you give your money to the church, if you give your money to the church, he will open up the gates of heaven and he will flood you with possessions and things and wealth and power. So we come to God and say, all right, God, I'll give you my money as long as you're going to pay me back. So, Jesus, I will worship and serve you as long as you worship and serve money. Some of us come and get involved with church because it's the best way to have a good family. Jesus, I will be here.
I will serve and I will work. But my children better not rebel. And the truth is, God does bless. And it is a great way to raise a family that knows and loves the gospel. And it is a great way to have a good marriage. But God does not promise us all those things.
And Jesus is not interested in serving our idols. So the truth is, there are Christian versions of all of those things we just talked about. Guilt? What is it that we still think Jesus is unable to save us from? What is it that we still think he's mad at us about? What is it that you think Jesus can't forgive you of?
Because the truth is, Jesus says he forgives and he redeems and he takes away all our sin. And it's never based off of us. And if we look at God and say that my sin, I know you forgive, I know you redeem, but there's no way you can forgive this. What we're actually saying is, Jesus, I didn't fail you. I failed something more important than you. If he's unable to forgive it, we're taking it as if there is a higher court.
Anger? What are you mad at Jesus about? What are you frustrated with God about? What hasn't he given you that he was supposed to? What hasn't he blessed you with that you thought he was going to by now? That doesn't mean you don't wrestle with God.
That doesn't mean you don't pray about things. But if there's a constant source of frustration and anger when it comes to God, it's possible that he's just not giving you your idol. Fear? Fear? What are you afraid God will ask you to do? What are you afraid he'll take away from you?
What are you hoping we don't talk about in the Idol series? Gotcha. What have you already been thinking? Well, I just kind of hope we don't cover that. And if we do, he's got a couple of verses here. And maybe I just won't be a part of my community group that week.
And pride. Oh, this is a good one. And I don't want to talk about it because I'm like all of these categories. What do you bring to God that you think somehow shows value and worth of why you are worth rescuing? See, we know that we're supposed to come to God with empty hands to receive grace. Far too often we're like, yeah, my hands are empty except for this really awesome thing I did.
It shows up in a couple of different ways. There's truth idolatry. Which is where we think we have the better truth when it comes to Christian truth. So we're the group that's got it together. We know the right things. We know how to study this.
We've got good hermeneutics. We get into a debate with an Arminian. We can crush them. Those Calvinists are morons. Whatever. We know where to go.
We know what version of baptism is the best. I would argue that we do. But I set them on this category. And what happens is you begin to take pride in having the best version of truth. We're the Christians who have it together. We begin to gain this air of superiority.
And the truth is we're not in Christ because we were redeemed when we were broken and weak and enemies. We're in Christ because we know the good stuff. There's gift idolatry. I really put in a lot of great work for Jesus. There are nights he goes to sleep just glad I'm on his team. That's what we begin to think.
That there's somehow because he uses us or because there's work being done. That we somehow have the good gifts. And that we're not rescued and redeemed because we're broken and weak. But we're rescued and redeemed because we can do good things. And then there's morality idolatry. I obey really well.
I am so obedient. You tell me a rule. I'll tell you how I haven't broken it. And we begin to think that we, our place in Christ is not based off of our weakness. Not based off of the fact that we were enemies and he rescued us. But based off of the fact that we can behave very, very well.
And God's disappointed in those who can't. Those who fall short. Those who are constantly gathering with my community group and confessing sin. They need to get it together. Those who gather in my community group and they confess the same thing. Two weeks in a row.
Three weeks in a row. Seriously bro? You can't get it together yet? You know Jesus loves me because I've got it together right? Don't think. Because we're a part of church family.
And because we say that Jesus is God. That this hasn't creeped in. That idolatry doesn't creep up in our hearts consistently. And so here's the truth. We'll come to Jesus with all kinds of things that we want him to serve and work for. And we'll get really frustrated when he doesn't.
But he says, I am God. And there are no gods before me. And Jesus is not interested in serving our idols. He'll have no part of it. And so the truth is, some of us are very frustrated with Jesus for not giving us something that we really want. That we know that if we just had this, we'd be happy.
Why is he punishing me? I've been really good. If I could just have this, I'd have joy. I'd have life. I was just hanging out with my brother and his seven-month-old daughter. And the way she interacts with the world, she's really cute.
She looks just like my brother did when he was that age. And he was a really cute baby. I'm just hoping that at some point, her face doesn't keep looking like his. Because that's not going to be a good look. But the way she interacts with the world is, ooh, what's this?
That's what she does. Like, I really want this. Let me put it in my mouth. That's how she interacts with the world. Anything. Electrical cord.
Shard of glass. This is shiny. Let me stick it in my throat. There are times when he's sitting with her, when they're doing something. She's crawling around playing. And she picks up something.
And he didn't even know it was there in the carpet or whatever. They have to dive and, like, wrestle things out of her hand. Because the only thing she wants to do is really just stuff it in her mouth. And she'll cry and fight and fuss because he just stole joy from her. She was about to discover how amazing needles were in one's mouth. And he took it away.
And there are some of us fighting and fussing and yelling at Jesus because he refuses to give us something that will ultimately destroy us. Jesus is willing to let you be unhappy for your joy. And he's not interested in serving your idols and giving you things that are going to destroy you. And the truth is the Bible would tell us that that is actually part of God's wrath. For him to let us have the things that we want that will destroy us. And it's his grace on us when he identifies our idols and when he blocks us from things that we would be able to tell ourselves and lie to ourselves that I will find joy and significance and value and validation and hope and life in this.
And the truth is if we walk through life always wealthy, always healthy, always being approved of, always in power, always having what it was that we thought would give us life and we never realize that it can't, it is God's wrath on us because we will die and realize that we were in rebellion against a holy God and we will face the God that we never realized we needed. All of our gods will fail us and it's God's grace on us when he keeps us from them. When Jesus demands that I am God alone and there are no other gods before me, it's for our joy, it's for our life, it's for our hope, and he is not interested in serving our idols. Let's read it.
And some of us have found this out. Some of us have gotten the thing we thought would bring us hope and joy and life. And we said, ah, it didn't. My heart lied to me. When Jesus died on the cross, he proved once and for all that he is good and that he is for our good. He shed his own blood, gave his own life so that we might actually have one.
He is good and he is for our good and he is to be trusted with everything. And so the Bible says, the prophet Ezekiel says that God is going to give us a new heart through his spirit. And so here's what I want us to do. As we walk this out in church family, as we gather with our community groups this week, I want us to begin to question our heart and begin to ask the Holy Spirit to show in us areas that we have been chasing after something where we have been deceiving ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit to begin to renew our heart and give us a new heart so that we might actually chase after the things of God.
So that we might actually chase after things that bring joy and life and real fulfillment and real value and real satisfaction and quit chasing after cheap substitutes. The band is going to come back up and play. And I just want us to take some time to question our hearts. Don't trust your heart. Trust the Holy Spirit that gives you a new heart. And here's the thing.
Some of us will begin to be faced with areas that we have begun to trust and love and pursue something else and will feel guilty or ashamed of it. Don't. Be excited that God in his grace revealed to you something that was ultimately going to destroy you. Be excited that he loves you enough to step into your process and pursue you. That he is good and that he's for our good. And that he wants life and joy for us.
So as we wrestle with our idolatry, as we gather with our community groups to walk this out in normal life, be very excited that God has you in the place he has you. And that he loves you in his grace enough to pursue you through it. Jesus, we thank you that you are gracious. That you are good and that you are for our good. I pray, God, that you would wreck us with your grace. That for those of us who have come to you claiming faith but really pursuing something else.
Being willing to serve you as long as you serve our other God. I pray that you would reveal that to us. I pray, God, as we've pursued other things, good things, good gifts that you gave us that we've tried to turn into God things. I pray, God, that you would begin to reveal that, lay that bare through your Holy Spirit. Draw us closer to you where real life and real joy is found. We praise you for your grace.
We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.