Deep Idols and Functional Saviors
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. Excited to be with y'all this morning. Grab your Bibles and go to John chapter 4. We're in the second week of our Soul Care series.
We're going to spend four weeks looking at this idea. Last week we talked through, Spencer talked through, that the primary kind of core of who you are and how you approach life has to do with your view of God and your view of self. That's kind of the center of life and identity. And that our view of God affects our view of self. It's the primary thing that affects our view of self. Who you understand God to be, your understanding of Him or your lack of understanding affects who you are.
And so this view of God and view of self. And then he said there's complex kind of layers around that that we have to kind of understand to know our stories and to walk through this so that we can see who we really are and who God really is so that we might heal, so that we might repent, so that we might walk with Him. We talked a little bit about trying to figure out who you are and your story, and it's not self-discovery for the purpose of self-exaltation, which is what the U.S. is pumping out for you. Figure out who you are and then celebrate that and run with that and that only you can really know you.
It's this understanding our stories in light of who God is so that we might exalt Him and that we might be healed and we might be made right. And so we're going to look at that today, that we're looking kind of at that core element of who God is and how we relate to Him in worship. So we looked at kind of the stuff that gets in the way last week and the stuff that you have to think through. And hopefully as you've been thinking through that, we'll be able to look together today at who we are, who He is, and how we worship. And some of how our worship can go astray and how that affects us. We'll be looking at the concept of idolatry, which is worshiping something other than God.
But we're going to begin in John chapter 4. We're going to see this interpersonal relationship, this interaction between Jesus and this Samaritan woman. And we're going to see how He comes to this one individual person and kind of gets to the core heart level issues. And hopefully it'll help us to do the same. So let's pray, and then we'll start in John 4 together.
God, we pray that we would rightly and fully worship You so that we might be healed, that we might be satisfied, that we might be filled up. Thank You for Your grace. We pray that You'd help us to see this well this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. So we're going to read this story and talk through it a bit together.
It says, Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees, and that's kind of a ruling class of religious elites that were not His fans, when they had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus Himself did not baptize but only His disciples, He left Judea and departed again for Galilee, and He had to pass through Samaria. Okay, so Judea is down here. Galilee is up here. That's kind of His home base. Samaria was in the middle. A lot of times Jewish people would go over to the Jordan River and up so they didn't have to go through Samaria.
He goes straight through Samaria. So He had to pass through Samaria, verse 5. So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as He was from His journey, because He's fully God and fully man, so He got tired, was sitting beside the well.
It was about the sixth hour. That's noon, middle of the day. It's hot. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to Him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? Whoa. That's an awkward response to that. Let's keep reading. It says, for Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. So Jesus says, give me a drink.
And she says, why are you talking to me? There's some tension here. The Jewish people didn't like the Samaritans. And so the Samaritans jumped right up and didn't like them back. It's like my sons. He started it and he started it.
And well, I did this because he did that. That's kind of what they were doing. What had happened was when the Jewish people had been taken into captivity, they had left some of the Jewish people there. There was a remnant that stayed in the land and they intermarried. And then when the Jewish people got out of captivity and came back, they weren't a big fan of this intermarriage. There was fist fights and beard pullings and all kinds of stuff.
You can read about it in Ezra and Nehemiah if you'd like. But they basically ran off that group of people and then they kind of grew next to each other and didn't like each other. If you're familiar with Harry Potter, the Jewish people thought the Samaritans were mudbloods. If you're not familiar with Harry Potter, the Jewish people were racist. That's really what they had going for. But the Samaritans were racist back.
And that's what's happening here. That in general, Jewish people didn't have any dealings with Samaritans. So when Jesus asked this question, it's so blatantly obvious that this is odd that she just says, what? A little bit of not a fan of you sitting on my well, but why are you talking to me? Now, I just want to point this out. I don't have much time.
It's not the main point of things. She says, how are you being a Jew? He was obviously Jewish. We know his birth lineage. We have that. He's a line of David all the way down.
But he also looked Jewish. So the next time you hear people arguing about we don't really know what he was and he might have been white or whatever. No, he was Jewish. He was very obviously Jewish. And that's fine. But that's in here.
So just don't do that and help other people when they do. Say, hey, open your Bible. Let's go. And then you get to talk about this next part, which is way better. You can walk through and say, it gets better from here. So anyway, Jesus answered her.
This is verse 10. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. This conversation was off to a rocky start. It gets a little weirder. I mean, Jesus can say stuff like this all he wants and he means it and it's true. But if you just met someone and they said this to you, you'd be a little bit like her because she's going to basically respond with what?
So he says, if you don't know, if you knew the gift of God and you knew who I was, you'd ask me and I'd give you living water. I'd give you flowing water, not well water, but water that lasts forever. Water that continually is refreshed. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father, Jacob?
He gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and his livestock. It's hard to tell how genuine her response is, how coded with she thinks maybe he's messing with her or looking down on her because she says, do you think you're better than Jacob? Like she's, he's our father too, you know, us Samaritans also. And so she just kind of responds with what, what are you talking about? You don't even have a bucket. Where is this coming from?
Verse 13, Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water, the well will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Okay. Jesus is not talking about actual water. That's clear to us.
We know that Jesus talks about spiritual things, but he's not. He's not talking about actual water. That's why she was like, well, where's your bucket? And he just keeps on going. He's not talking about actual water. He's talking about some sort of spiritual water, some sort of eternal life, some sort of spiritual life that he would give those who would come to him.
And we understand this because we know the rest of the story that Jesus goes to the cross, that he dies, that he rises again, and that he offers salvation and hope and eternal life to all who would believe in him. And so he's basically saying, I'm the Christ. If you knew that, you would ask me for life. I'm thirsty right now in small part and need some water to sustain short-term life. But if you really knew who I was, you'd ask me for water and I'd give you eternal life.
So that's what he's setting up. That's the idea he's getting at. He can't just be talking about water because we still all have to drink water, even though we're Christians. For those of us who are Christians, you still have to drink water. You still have to get one of those little big jugs and then it says, get started and then like way to go and I'm proud of you or whatever. And you carry that half a gallon around with you everywhere.
So everybody knows you're super hydrated. We're proud of you. We're proud of you. As proud of your water bottle is of you, we're proud of you too. We still have to do that. So he's not talking about that.
He's talking about spiritual water, but let's see what happens. 15. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Okay, so if you're talking to someone and you're trying to help them see that they need Jesus, this is the moment you want. She says, okay, I'll bite. Give me that water then.
It feels like there's a little bit of a joke. That'd be great. Then I won't have to come back here with my bucket every day. Like some idiot who, you know, lives in this town and has to use this well. I'd love your super water that keeps me never thirsty again. That's what you want because then you go, well, I'm glad you, I'm glad you said that.
And then you get to explain it fully. Like that's the moment he's at. You're building a relationship with your neighbor. You're talking about stuff. You say, well, you know, as a Christian, I believe this. And they go, wait a second.
And then you're like, okay, here we are. I can help them see who Christ is. So he says, verse 16, Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. Not the response I was expecting. And then the woman answered, I have no husband. This has been one of the roughest conversations.
If you were just, you know, in a coffee shop and you were listening to this, you feel uncomfortable. Like it's fair to assume given the lady's age, and we find out a little bit more that helps us fill that in later. But given the lady's age and in this culture, you basically lived at your father's house. Then you got married. Pretty much all women were married. It was, it was, if someone was unmarried at the age she was, it's not like our culture where there was a way to be single and to live fully.
They didn't really have that set up in their culture. So immediately when she says, I have no husband, this is a sad story. We don't know how it's sad. We don't know how she got to this place. But we know that given the age she is, when she answers, I have no husband, it's a sad story.
Now, I do this in conversations. I ask questions and make things awkward. Hey, how's your, how's your boyfriend doing? We broke up. Oh, okay. Well, he was probably the worst anyway.
Hey, how's your dog? He's dead. All right, I'm going to go over here. Sorry, I brought that up. I do that, but Jesus doesn't do that. This isn't an accident.
His response is going to make that very evident in just a second. He did this on purpose. So we have to ask why, but let's see how he responds. He says this. She says, I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband.
For you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. Okay. So he asked this question on purpose to press on this on purpose. And he did it right when she said, okay, I'll take some of that water you have. He's not talking about real water.
He's talking about worship. He's talking about what you run to to quench your thirst. And so when she says, I'll take that water, he says, let's talk about the real well you've been running to this whole time. Oh. Oh, she's run to this well over and over and over again. He says, the thing that you keep coming back to is not this water well in the center of town.
The thing that you keep coming back to. And that's why he says, go get your husband. She says, I don't have a husband. He says, you're right, you don't. You've had five. The one you have now is not your husband.
That's very uncomfortable, but extremely helpful that Jesus jumps right to the heart level issue. That stands in the way of her actually getting the living water that he has. And we know it's the heart level issue because she says this in verse 20. She says, or 29. Come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?
She immediately responds, I see that you're a prophet. Then she runs into town and says, he told me all that I ever did. So in her reckoning, that's her whole life story. It wasn't just a parlor trick to help her see that he knew things she didn't know. He tapped right into the core heart level. She said, he knows me.
He turned me inside out. Now, I have a feeling. We see Jesus do this in other times as well. It's not the only lady he does this to. He does the same thing to the rich young ruler. Ask a few questions, talk to the rich young ruler, and then he strikes on the exact thing that the rich young ruler has so dug his claws into to give him life and joy and hope and satisfaction.
The rich young ruler doesn't let it go. It seems like this lady does. But I have a feeling that all of us could play this out. We could meet Jesus at a well. We could have this conversation, and he could jump right to the thing, the thing, that you've run to over and over and over and over again and convinced yourself, if I can just have this, I'll be happy. If I can just have this, I'll be full.
Jump right to the heart level issues of worship for us. And this is the central issue of relating to the Lord, is this idea of worship, that we would have him in his right place, and that from him we would derive all that is good, all that is right, that our affection would be for him. This is in Exodus chapter 20, when God gives the Ten Commandments. The first two commandments are, you'll have no other God but me, and then he says, and you'll make no graven images. He doubles down on it. Not only am I the only God, but also you're not going to use anything to represent me.
You're not going to bow down to anything, up in heaven, down on earth, in the water, nothing. It's me and only me. And he says in that, that he's a jealous God. He's jealous for our affection. He's not jealous of us. He's jealous over us, that we're meant to have our hearts only beat fast, only love and cherish him above all else.
I've given this example before, but I think it captures this idea really well. That if I saw my wife, and she was talking to a strikingly handsome young man, and he was making jokes, and she was laughing, and he reached over and touched her elbow, I'd be having problems. I would be jealous, not of her. I wouldn't think, why doesn't that young lad touch my elbow? I'd be jealous over her, because I want her affections for me. I want her to think my jokes are funny, and your jokes are dumb.
I want her to viscerally react, if anyone touches her elbow. I want, like that's what I want. I want affection for me. And so God says, that you're meant to worship and love him, and him alone, and that he's jealous over you, that nothing else can clutter this up. And that we consistently clutter this up. We pick something else that we love, and cherish, and desire more than him.
We pick something else that we convince ourselves, if I could just have that, then I'd be happy. Then I'd be full. Then I'd be complete. So Martin Luther, is a German reformer, and he wrote a large catechism, and in his large catechism, he says this, when he's talking about the Ten Commandments, but he's also talking about idolatry. He says, a God means, that from which we are to expect all good, and to which we are to take refuge in all distress. He says, you want to start defining what a God is?
What do you expect to get good from? What's going to bless your life? What's going to give you hope? And then, he says, okay, what do you run to in distress? What's going to protect you? What's going to keep you safe?
He says this, so that to have a God, is nothing else, than to trust, and to believe him, from the heart. That, now I say, upon which you set your heart, so what you set your heart on, and put your trust in, is properly your God. So he says, we're able to take something, and begin to trust in it, begin to hope in it, begin to set our hearts on it, begin to trust, that it'll protect us, that it'll keep us safe, that it'll give us good, and that when we do that, we're idolaters. We're breaking the first two commandments. So Jesus is having this conversation, with this woman at the well, and he's talking about this idea, of thirst and worship.
And so Jeremiah 3, 11 to 13 says this, this is where Jeremiah's talking, about the same idea, and he's correcting the people of Israel. He says, has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory, for that which does not profit. Be appalled, oh heavens at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people, have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. That's what Jesus says he'd offer, living water, continual, forever, refreshing, satisfying life.
They've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that hold no water. A cistern is the worst way to get water, in an arid place. It's essentially, an above ground pool, or an in ground pool, that catches water, and you drink out of it. You catch rain water, you drink out of it. And you only do that, if you have no other way for water. So if you live next to a flowing river, or a spring of water, and then you drink out of a cistern, and a broken cistern at that, you're dumb.
And it doesn't work well. And that's what Jeremiah says the people of Israel are doing. And that's what Jesus is saying to this lady. Hey, can I talk to you about your broken cistern? Can I talk to you about the thing that you run back to over and over and over again, convincing yourself that this time it'll fill you up? Can you all imagine, before her first wedding, excitement, fear, hope, my life is beginning.
This is what, this will set me up, this is how, and just trying to figure out what that was gonna look like, and then, as it fell apart, we don't know how. And then going into the second one, this one will be better. Now I'll be okay again. And then going into the third one, and then going into the fourth one, going into the fifth one, how much was she continuing to hope? How much was she doubtful? How much was she wrestling with herself?
How much was she saying, this will be the right one? Till finally, when Jesus talks to her, she's had five husbands, and the guy she's with now, and her husband. It's gotten worse, and she's still going back. It's a broken cistern. That's why when she says, okay, give me this water, he says, okay, we gotta talk about where you've been getting water. That's, that's us.
That our primary issues, are worship issues, before they're anything else. That we've convinced ourselves, that something else will fill us up, make us happy, give us joy. So what I'm gonna do for the next little bit, is just try to help you identify, if you have somewhere, that you've begun to believe, that something's better than Jesus. And the reason I wanna help you do that, is because you're wrong. I don't know if you saw our colorful blue slide, Jesus is better than everything else. We want Jesus for you.
He wants Jesus for you. He's jealous for your affection, not just because he loves you, but because that's what's best for you. I have two sons. If one of them says, you're not my daddy, I'm not gonna hug you. You know what I do? Pick them up, and hug them.
Say, I am your daddy. When you get bigger, this will be harder. But you do love me, because the reality is, their life is better, if they have a good relationship with me. I love them, I desire them, but it's also good for them, and God in his goodness, wants what's best for you, which is him, because he's the best. And it would be silly, for him to point you to anything else, other to himself, and not only silly, but wrong, and harmful, for God to look at you, and go, you know what's really good? Money.
Because he'd be selling you short, on what's best, which is himself. So he wants himself for you, he actually is better, that's why Jesus says, if you knew who you were talking to, you'd ask me. So I want to help us, try to identify, give us some tools for this, some questions to ask, some things to look for, so that we can see, if we're doing this, because the reality is, even if you've placed your faith in Jesus, you can still functionally, run after other things. There are times, where Christians are very upset, and they're like, well Jesus is letting me down, and the reality is, you hadn't been running to him, for your joy, and your hope, and satisfaction.
You've been running, to something else, and hopefully, God in his grace, will let that fail miserably, so that you'll go somewhere, where you can actually, get some water. Let's talk a second, about the idea, of a functional savior. That you look at something, and say to it, you're going to make me whole. You're going to give me life. That this is the thing, that will get me to heaven. That's what a savior does.
A savior fixes your problems, gets you to heaven, so you look at a functional savior, it's something that promises, to fix you. I had a friend, who was a co-worker, and he was doing online dating, and every time, he would start interacting, and just chatting, some via text, or whatever, with some girl, he would get so excited, disproportionately excited. And it wasn't just, that it was nice for him, to have someone, he might go on a date with, it was what that person represent. They were going to save him. They were going to fix his life, and then, a week later, when they had quit talking, he would be despondent, he was broken, disproportionately broken.
It's like, you didn't even know this person, a week ago. But it was because they represented, they were a functional savior. They were making God level promises, and the reality is, there are things around you, in your life, that are making God level promises, to you. I'll fix you. I'll give you a future. I'll give you life.
I'll give you an identity. I'll give you hope. I'll give you joy. I'll give you satisfaction. If you could just have me, you'd be full. I'm never going to fail you.
I'm never going to give you up. I'm never going to let you down. I'm never going to run around, and desert you. But there's things that tell us nonsense, and we believe it. That we're willing to believe these lies, and so we trust them. And the reality is, usually these are pretty good things.
Relationships. Your children, you say, if my kids just turn out all right, I'll be okay. Then I'll know I'm okay. Then I'll know I'm fine. If I can just have a relationship, if I can just have someone who loves me, if I can just have a marriage, if I can just get out of this marriage and get to another one, if I can, my job, if I can just be paid enough, if I can just have a good enough Job. We just pick things that consistently, we tell ourselves, if I can have that, then I'll be okay.
Then I'll be complete. Then I'll be full. And it's a lie, because they can't provide it. That's a functional savior. The next thing I want to talk to you about is deep idols. Because functional saviors often just work to get you the thing you really want.
But you may have a functional savior and it's actually just showing you what you truly desire, what you're pursuing. So this is just the best tool you have at hand to get you there. I'm going to explain this and help you see this. We got this concept from Tim Keller. He's a pastor in New York. It's a concept.
It's not from the scriptures. It's just to help you. He says there's four deep idols. You could say there's six. You could say there's three. Fine.
The concept is helpful. So I'm going to show you these are the four that he lays out. He says comfort, control, approval, and power. So let me give you an example. And sometimes you have to work from one to the other. So you might say, I just love money.
That's my functional savior. That's good. We're on the right track. But the reality is you don't love money. You love what money offers you. You love what money promises you.
Nobody just loves money. None of you have Monopoly money in your pocket because it doesn't promise you anything. It does when you're playing Monopoly. So you care immensely about it for seven hours until someone flips over the table and ruins Christmas at grandma's. But all of us, when someone says, would you like a million dollars?
The answer is yes, please. Sounds great. But the reasons why we would want that are very, very different. So we're just going to run through this, try to help you understand how you could use money to chase after the thing you really want because money is just a really easy one to give examples. So comfort.
You believe the primary goal in life and what makes life good is being at ease, not having things bother you, being comfortable. Well, money is excellent for this, you guys. If you have enough money, things don't bother you. They don't get to you. You don't have to stress about stuff. You can have a nice couch and a big TV.
You can pay people to deliver you your food, cook it for you, bring it to you. You get rich enough, I think they'll cut it up and stick it in your mouth. But none of us are at that level. But maybe your primary amount of money goes to KFC and McDonald's and a couch and Netflix and that's the good life. It's just living comfortably. So your money just goes to that.
And if you got more money, that's where you'd want it to go. Control. Money's a good way to have control. You get enough money, you can help get political candidates in, you can help get things passed through, you can be in control of your circumstances, you can get arrested, it's not that big a deal. Most of us aren't there, but if you have enough, some of you, you just, a certain amount of money in the bank account lets me know I'm okay. I don't have to worry about the future.
You can get a flat tire. I saw somebody who was paying for, I was doing the premarital counseling, they're not a part of our church, they live somewhere else, but I was doing their premarital counseling and the mother-in-law, the mother of the bride, sorry, it would be mother-in-law to me, but that just depends on who you are. The mother of the bride was paying for most of the wedding, but because she was paying for most of the wedding, she was dictating how everything played out in the wedding. And then this carried on into newlywed life because she was helped a lot. She paid for a car, she paid for this.
Eventually, this couple had to say, look, we don't want your money because we don't want you to be in charge of our relationship. And we want to have a good relationship with you. And this is messing it all up. But the money all had strings attached. It's just a good way to be in control. Approval.
Get the nicest car. Nicest shoes. Nicest clothes. You can be the person who orders cheese dip for the table. That's a good way to get people to smile at you. You can be the person who covers costs for other people.
You can be the grandma who gives the best gifts. That's all generosity in some ways, but in other ways, it's just I want people to love me and this is one of the best ways I've found. Money lets me do that. It gives me approval. Power. I read recently that there was a billionaire who was building a house and he paid $16,000 in parking tickets.
Some of you are very glad. You don't think he pays enough taxes. That goes to the city. You're welcome. No? No?
All right. Paid $16,000 in parking tickets because he could park wherever he wanted. $16,000 isn't that much to him. I can't pay $16,000 in parking tickets. If I was going to get $16,000 in parking tickets, I wouldn't because I would park somewhere else. But he did that because it's just, it's a good way to be powerful.
You can be in charge of, in some ways, of who gets elected, of what gets pushed through. You can, you can, I mean, this shows up in other ways that you can try to be, have exert power. You could try to be the person who gave the most money to your local church and that way you get to help make decisions. I don't know if it worked. Give it a shot. Some of you don't have that kind of money, but you're arguing about where you're going to eat lunch and you say, I tell you what, come to the place I want to come.
I'll pay for you. It's $10 and power. But see, you can use money to get this. You could use other things. This is where it gets really scary. Some of you immediately are like, okay, I know, I know what my, my functional savior is.
This is the thing I've gone to over and over again. This is the thing I've run to over and over again to tell me I'll be okay. And some of you go, I don't know if I have one. But the reality is you can swap out functional saviors to chase after the thing you really want. That's where it gets scary. Let's say, somebody's going through high school, they really love power.
Best way in high school to have power is to lift weights and be good at sports. So they do that. They get to college and they're not as good at sports anymore because the other people are gooder at them. And so they realize the best way to get power is not to lift weights and to do sports. In the first couple years of college, they think the best way to be in power and have powerful positions is to chase girls and drink. Then they get to the back half of their college career and they think, this won't last very much longer.
So they start really studying. Mom's super happy they've turned their life around. Start really studying, working really hard, go get a good job. Maybe at some point they find religion. Because one of the best ways to be powerful is to be the only person who has the right answers to things. Now if you watch their life, we'd say, hey, they've gotten better.
The reality is they've been worshiping at the same altar their entire life. They've just found different things to get them there. This is the Pharisees. This is why Jesus had so much trouble with them. They consistently were very well-behaved people and their hearts were far from Him because what they loved was not the Lord but something else. This is one of the reasons why we consistently talk about heart level issues because the reality is you can be in a community group with someone who's walking blatantly into obvious sin and their heart is chasing after Jesus.
They keep failing. They keep repenting. And you sit over there with a heart that is stone cold towards Christ very well-behaved. And what you primarily love is how well-behaved you are and how people look up to you and you do not love Jesus. And that's terrifying. So we need to understand what are our functional saviors?
What are the things that we'd be chasing after? We need to be able to have some questions that help us see this. I'm going to give you a few questions as we finish this up. What is making God-level promises to you? What's telling you it will give you the good life? What's promising you a hope and a future and joy in life?
What do you turn to when you're stressed or scared? What do you run to when everything's hard and difficult to make yourself feel okay again or to feel safe? What do you believe the thing that you that's giving you God-level promises what do you believe it's going to provide for you? What do you hope it will give you? What do you if some of you say well this is the thing I'm chasing after it's like well what do you want it to give you? What do you think it's going to provide?
Some of you say this is the thing that I want it's like well what are you using to get there? What are you willing to sin to have? What are you willing to sin to keep? It's one of the best ways to discover what it is you really worship because when Jesus says don't do this and the thing you worship says in order to have me you're going to have to do that and you do it you love that thing more than Jesus and that's part of the reason why sin is such a problem it's not just that it's rules that you broke it's that every time it betrays the fact that you love something more than Jesus he does not have your affection and so if you consistently sin to have something or to keep something you have declared that it is your God and you are willing to serve it now Jesus says if you knew who he was you'd ask him and he'd fill you up he'd satisfy you let me tell you something we have longings and cravings and desires and empty spots in our souls look up quit running from thing to thing on earth quit getting your face down in a broken cistern over and over again that will not help you run to Jesus and tell him you promised to satisfy me satisfy me not in him I mean not in something else but in him not saying you said you'd satisfy me so give me the relationship I want I need you Jesus because you're big to serve my idol that's not how it works I need you Jesus because you're big to destroy my idol and fill me up with you that's the hope that we'd see what we worship so that we could worship something better Matt's gonna come up we're gonna sit for a moment and consider this I would beg you to ask the Holy Spirit to help you see this to see for a second just as the Holy Spirit through the power of Christ was sitting there and he was able to point right to the thing that they had run to over and over again that you might have this same thing happen in your soul and that you would not run from it as soon as the Holy Spirit starts pressing on those things one of our favorite things to do is to just shut that down and get away because we don't want to have to go through the pain it takes to be set free from something but I will promise you that Jesus is better so let's take a moment and to consider what is it that's making God's eyes promises to me what is it I believe it'll provide for me what am I willing to send to have and by God's grace may we go to him and say I need you I need you more than I need this I need you to forgive me I need you to give me a hope I need you to give me satisfaction I need you to forgive me and to fill me up let's pray God we ask right now that your Holy Spirit would be at work in this room for freedom and for life Lord that your Holy Spirit be at work to help us to see our sin and our false idols that are mute and deaf and helpless to save us and helpless to satisfy us and helpless to fix us and Lord we pray that by the power of your Spirit through the work of Christ that you would redeem and that you would forgive and that you would move to lead people to satisfaction and to salvation in you the fountain of living water in Jesus name Amen Amen Amen Amen