The Golden Calf (Exodus 32)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Well good morning my name is Chet I'm one of the pastors here grab a Bible and go to Exodus chapter 32. if you don't have a Bible with you there should be a blue one in the under the seat in front of you if you don't own a Bible take this one with you we want you to own a Bible we are working our way through the book of Exodus and we have gotten through where God has had a covenant ceremony.
And then Moses goes up into the cloud on the mountain and God has been giving him instructions and we're told that he's been there for about 40 days and so what we've been looking at the past several weeks are the instructions that God gave him for the Tabernacle for the Altar for the Priestly garments and the whole point of all the things that God has been giving the people of Israel and these instructions that he's been given to Moses is that Moses would go back down the mountain they would create these things build them together.
So that God can dwell among them so that he can have a place among them and that he can be their God and they can be his people that they're going to be set apart over and against all the peoples of the world to belong to him and they're going to have a tabernacle where his presence dwells now we said a while back that he's remaking some of what was lost in the Garden of Eden it's not perfect he's not going to just dwell with them the way that.
God dwelled with Adam and Eve but he's working back to he's going to have a people in his place that he dwells among that his presence is there and it's it's not the same but he's restoring some of this and so that's where we are I'm going to pray and we're going to get into the text together Lord we pray that you would help us to see your glory in this passage we pray that you would help us to see our sin and the.
Lord through your spirit we would run to Christ and we ask this in Jesus name amen so we're going to read Exodus 32 together today and so I want you to start in Exodus 31 you're welcome Exodus 31 verse 18. this is how Exodus 31 is ending and it says and he that's God gave to Moses when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai the two tablets of the testimony tablets of stone written with the Finger of God.
God has finished speaking with Moses and he gives him the tablets of the testimony and he's saying okay now go go do all that I've commanded you go down the mountain and let's get this thing started that's where we are chapter 32. when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain oh no no no no no he's not delayed he's coming that's that's the tension we should immediately feel when we read this no he's got the tablets and he's coming he's not he's you're wrong he's on his way it's a big mountain he's been up there he had a lot to get.
But he's coming it says but when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain the people gathered themselves together to Aaron now Aaron is Moses his brother and Aaron has been left in charge Aaron and her we don't see her in the story but we do see Aaron gathered to Aaron Aaron's going to be the high priest Aaron doesn't know that but Moses is going to come down and say hey we're about to make you some beautiful glorious garments and you're going to be high priest they gather themselves to Aaron and said to him up make us gods who shall go before us as.
For this Moses the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt we do not know what has become of him that's about as bad as it gets they're like hey Moses walked up into that cloud but he ain't come back we don't know what happened to him and so here's our suggestion now hear us out because it's going to be the dumbest suggestion you've ever heard up make us Gods who can go before us now if you'll remember back not 40 days ago.
For them or just that 40 days ago for them they had a covenant ceremony where Moses read The Ten Commandments and they practiced it they said everything you say everything you command us we will do and then the next day they had a government Covenant ceremony that is sacrifice he read it again and they say everything you command us we will do okay first commandment you will have no other gods before me second commandment do not make any Idols up make us some gods Moses has delayed we would like to aggressively break the.
First two Commandments this is a rejection of God a rejection of his Commandments is this is baffling so Aaron said to them take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives your sons and your daughters and bring them to me what we wanted Aaron to say was no shut up you're not allowed to talk for like three weeks go back into the camp but that's not what he says he says I'm gonna need some gold now these were slaves do you know how they all have gold.
God blessed them with it when he brought them out of Egypt he helped them plunder the Egyptians so they take what God has blessed them with they give it to Aaron verse 3. so all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron and he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf okay so that word calf when we hear it we think baby.
But it really means in the first one to three years so it in its prime it doesn't make it much better but it's some sort of a ox and that's what it's going to be called later in the in the Book of Psalms it's an ox and it's a healthy one the young healthy one that's what he makes and they said these are your Gods o Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt when Aaron saw this he built an altar before it and Aaron made a proclamation and said tomorrow shall be a feast to the.
Lord now you need to notice something interesting happen in this passage verse 4 these are your Gods o Israel now that God's there is the word Elohim and it's a plural word for God gods it is at times used to talk about God the one true God they call him Elohim which is a plural word and so it can be translated God or Gods but 90 something percent of the time and primarily in the book of Exodus in Genesis when they refer to.
God as Elohim all the verbs and sentence structure around it are singular so it's singular verbs singular singular singular and then God's plural Elohim which can be taken as God's but it's used to refer to God here they use the word Elohim which doesn't give us much Clarity but the Senate structure around it is plural so this is a pretty good Fair translation some of your Bible translations might translate it differently but this is a fair translation that what they are saying is here are your Gods this is representative of your God's plural.
And so it then Aaron though tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord capital L O R D we've already talked about this that's the Divine name for God Yahweh or Jehovah depending on how you you insert vowels and so he says you know it's the Lord so it seems as if they're saying let's break Commandments one and two and Aaron's trying to sue him down to just breaking the second one so he's calling it the Lord but he's made a calf What's Happening Here is that they've said this is who we're going to worship this is what's going to go before us Calvin says this is John Calvin who's one of the reformers he.
Says this is monstrous Madness mixed with stupidity and he points out the Cloud's still there like God's presence is still what are y'all what are y'all doing this is this is insanity this is the nation of Israel's fall if Adam and Eve fell in the garden and brought sin into the world as God's restoring this the nation of Israel collectively comes together to do the same thing that they reject the primary thing that God has taught them and so where we.
See Adam and Eve in the garden and then they fall into sin and everything falls apart we see God renewing restoring this relationship building it back fixing it rescuing them he's going to dwell among the people and they immediately undo it and if you are not a Christian and I know that even some Christians struggle with this concept but if you're not a Christian what you can often think is God has rules I'm supposed to follow the rules and he's mad at me.
For not following the rules and you can think that it seems wildly unfair and we'll say things like how could God send good people to hell how can I know somebody who they're just nice they're a good person and I just don't see how God could send them to hell but what you've got to wrap your head around is this is the primary sin is a rejection of God and a worship of something else this rejection of God and a worship of something else that.
God has designed the world that he might relate to us as creatures that we might love him and know him and and he might endear himself to us and that we might belong to him and that we might be his people and there would be joy and Delight in that that he is the greatest above all things and what we do is we pick something else to worship and love it says verse 6. and they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings this is the same thing they did in the Covenant ceremony with him 40 days ago and the people sat down to eat and drink and Rose.
Up to play that word carries um debaucherous sexual connotations and that Paul even refers to don't commit sexual immoral immorality like they did so this becomes a wild party they are off the rails this is what Psalm 106 says about this is we're to understand this idea of worshiping something else Psalm says this they made a calf in Horeb and worshiped a metal image they exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass but that's that's the primary sin is that we exchange the glory of.
God for some created thing some lesser thing that we swap him out for something else that's what Paul says in Romans that we exchange the glory of the Eternal God for images resembling beasts and calling things that we exchange the glory of God for a creature rather than the Creator and so this is idolatry this is the worship of something else this is the placing your hope in something else and so I want to trace out a few of the things that go into this.
First they say to him up make us Gods who will go before us if we're going to worship something else we usually we're going to pick something that we're going to base our whole life around this is going to go before us this is going to give us purpose this is going to give us Direction so that if you are worshiping something other than God you've picked a thing that wakes you up in the morning that gives you a reason to live that gives you guidance.
For how you're going to spend your days it goes before you it's the thing that helps you know Who You Are it's the thing that you look at and you say if I just have this then I'll be happy then I'll be fulfilled and then everything will be right that's idolatry that's the thing we picked that we're going to spend our time and devote ourselves to the other thing that if you'll look at this if you'll notice is that we often take something that.
God has given us so they took the gold that God had given them we have to take a good thing that God gave us and make it an ultimate thing y'all know the cake is delicious right but if you only eat cake you die I'm pretty sure it's not good for you I don't know if anybody's ever tested it it's meant to be in the spot that cake is supposed to be in a delicious good gift but not an ultimate thing and that's how everything works where.
God gives you health or he gives you physical ability or he makes you attractive or he makes you intelligent or he gives you a good job or whatever He blesses you with a thing and it's meant to stay in the spot for that in the food pyramid of your life it's meant to be there where it takes up that amount of space and it's a good gift it's a blessing but it's not meant to shift into an ultimate thing but the problem is we take good gifts that.
God gives us and we make them ultimate things most of the time when we pick an idolatrous something it's not a bad thing it's usually a blessing that we just make into an ultimate thing a God-level thing like children they become what you worship and serve and build your life around they become what makes you say I know I'm okay if or Romance becomes what you worship and serve and build your life around I know I'm okay if this goes before me this sets my day this helps me know who I am or work or attractiveness or physical health or whatever we pick something that's usually a good thing that.
God has given us and we place it in an ultimate spot and therefore it gets out of order and it's wrong the other thing I think we should notice from this passage about Idols is that they take work they don't move themselves they don't build themselves they take our effort our work to accomplish that he had to craft this into a calf and so whatever your idol is it's usually something that you're saying I'm building my life around this this helps me know who I am it's usually a good thing and it's usually something that you're putting in a lot of work.
For takes a lot of energy and time so if you want to try to discern where is that in my life look for those three things and you'll find most likely something that you have built an idol out of and this is the fundamental sin this is the sin and so they commit the sin which is a rejection of God a worship of something else they undo his whole plan which is he's they're going to belong to him and he's going to be among them and they're just like we're going to move on.
Now Christians we're in danger of doing this too we're in danger of taking a good thing and making it an ultimate thing but we're also in danger of doing what Aaron seems to be doing remaking God where he says it's the Lord we're remaking Jesus into something else I want to point something out to you about that I love about this Psalm Passage they exchange the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass foreign I love how much shade is thrown in those three words an ox like a like an ox like one that eats grass and you immediately go yes.
So dumb and it is but you know why they picked an ox because everyone around them picked an ox that's why they picked an ox because an ox to them represented cultivation you need an ox to get crops so represented strength it represented uh being fertile both in uh cultivation and in your Fields but also in your house and everybody had an ox and so what we're in danger of is going that's so dumb but I don't think we can say that's.
So dumb I would never do that I think what we have to say is that's so dumb I'd pick something that more suits my taste I would pick something way better than a calf and we see this you'll talk to people who have just rebranded Jesus and the more you talk to them more you understand what they're talking about it's like hi that Jesus just sounds a lot like a capitalist he doesn't have a lot to say about loving the poor he doesn't have a lot to say about how the love of money is dangerous he just he's kind of you've twisted this up like.
If you've ever seen a picture of Jesus holding an AR-15 it's like you've rebranded him to something that you like so that you'll talk to somebody and they'll have like you're like that Jesus just sounds a lot like a Republican or you talk to somebody and you'll be a part of a Church and you're just like that Jesus man he sounds a whole lot like he's bought into the idea that God just wants me to be happy and that doesn't mean the rejection of sin and the embracing of him is our ultimate Delight it means the pursuit of whatever I want or you talk to him and talk to someone and it's like ah you.
Really think Jesus won't tell you who you're allowed to love you don't think he's going to come in and say this is bad for you this is wrong for you that he's going to just co-sign anything you have to say because you sound a lot more like the sexual Revolution you sound a lot more like things I'm reading on the internet you sound a lot more like what's popular right now than you then you line up with this and this happens where he gets re-branded.
And so we've changed it we've crafted him into something that fits with us better that actually we change him so that we don't have to change and then we say it's a feast to the Lord and it's wrong that he's been reshaped and sometimes we do this intentionally and sometimes we do it unintentionally due to our sin but this is what it says here I want you to understand that it's not just the times that we're doing that but it's every time we sin that we're practicing some form of idolatry.
Because it says they forgot God their savior who had done great things in Egypt and you know that every time we sin in some small form we're practicing that we're forgetting our God is doing great things for us we're forgetting that Jesus is our ultimate Delight I'll give you an example I know I'm not trying to brag I am a pastor but I know I'm not supposed to lie I know that I learned it in seminary I didn't get an mdiv.
But I did learn this don't lie but I know I'm not supposed to lie but you all know there are times where I catch myself lying sometimes I don't even catch myself I just think about it later and in that moment I didn't want to please Jesus I wanted something else I wanted to please another person I wanted them to think highly of me I wanted them to not think lowly of me I won't even fight him for highly I was just fighting.
For neutral I wanted to not have to leave my house and help them there's a lot of things we might lie for and what you might lie about and what I might lie about might be different but the reality is in that moment we want something more than we want Jesus we forgotten how good he is and we do this with all of our sin we do this when we gossip we want something more than we want Jesus we do this.
When we should help someone we make excuses we do this when we should be generous and we aren't we do this when we commit sexual sin we just want something more than we want Jesus in that moment and that's idolatry we're telling ourselves this will make me happy this will fill me up this will give me joy this will give me the light and it'll do it better than Jesus Does I know I'm not supposed to have sex but I really want a boyfriend.
And so whatever you're willing to sin to have is ultimately something that you value more than God and so I don't think we can read this passage and go what fools without acknowledging I think I'm at the base of the mountain I'm not up there with Moses I don't think I'm the one up there doing what's right I think I'm the one down there pulling my earrings out verse 7. and the Lord said to Moses go down for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves they have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them they have made.
For themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said these are your Gods o Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt this would be like on your honeymoon watching your wedding video and seeing your spouse kissing someone in the wedding party in the video I mean just as as cataclysmically awful as you can possibly imagine the the derailing heartbreaking nature of this he's got him he's rescued them they're going to be his people he's going to dwell among them and they say we don't know where Moses went it's been too long and it's an utter rejection of all of that and the.
Lord said to Moses I have seen this people and behold it is a stiff-necked people now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you he says leave me alone I'm going to destroy them and we'll restart with you 11. but Moses implored the Lord his God and said O Lord why does your wrath burn hot against your your people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand did you.
Notice that God said you were people who you brought out of Egypt and then Moses says no you're people who you brought out of Egypt God says they're not mine anymore Moses says no they are they're your people why should the Egyptians say with the evil intent did he bring them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the Earth turn from your burning anger and relent from This Disaster against your people remember Abraham Isaac and Israel your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them I will multiply your Offspring as the stars of heaven and all this land that I have promised.
I will give to your offspring and they shall inherit it forever Moses says no remember your promises remember who you are remember that they belong to you remember be you that's what he's saying and the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people now you can tie yourself in a theological knot in this passage trying to understand how does a sovereign God who's planned all of this have a moment where he relents but he relents of something he spoke about doing and in the way he spoke about this in some ways he invited Moses to be an intermediary.
But this text is written so that we would see how much the people of Israel need an intermediary they don't know it but they needed Moses on the mountain pleading on their behalf they needed someone to stand in between them and God because they they need someone to stand in between them and God because of their sin and we're supposed to see God relenting out of his own goodness and out of his own choice and will to include Moses and how this works.
But we're also meant to see Moses who whined and came up with weird excuses about why he should not have to go in the first place who now stands with God and says please remember your promises and be good to them and God relents from what he had spoken about doing verse 15 then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand tablets that were written on both sides on the front and on the back they were written the tablets were the work of.
God and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets now the text just zoomed us beautifully in on how wonderful these tablets are and it did that on purpose verse 17. when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted so Joshua was midway Moses went up been talking to God Joshua's just been hanging out in the middle because he's waiting for Moses he's been camping out above the camp but below the cloud and Moses comes down to him he sees Moses he hears the noise down there and Joshua who leads in military things says this there is a noise of war in the camp.
Verse 18 but he said it is not the sound of shouting for victory or the sound of Cry of defeat but the sound of singing that I hear how bad do you sing that it sounds like War but it also means that we're not supposed to picture them holding hands and chanting in unison but a debaucherous chaotic celebration he says no that's a party and as soon as they came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing Moses anger burned hot and he threw the tablets out of his hand and broke them at the foot of the mountain that's why I zoomed in and told us how wonderful they were and it's this.
Picture of how wonderful everything was about to be and how shattered everything is now he was about to be exactly his God wants with them he's restoring it he's building them back into his people he's going to dwell among them and it's ruined I know a story of a lady who's felt like her husband was not holding up his marriage covenant and when he came home she had her China out and she was just breaking their wedding China while she was talking to him he said what are you doing she said I'm caring about our covenant as much as you do that's what this is he took the calf they had made.
So he just marches in 80 something year old Moses he's hot took the calf they have made and burned it with fire grounded to powder scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it all this stuff's still going on snatches it down Burns it I don't know how long he has the weight before burning it to grind it but he turns it not into a calf but he's not done it's not like he melted it was like next step no he grinds that into powder.
And then he stands there throwing it in the water it's like here you go y'all gonna drink that gold lip fools it doesn't say that part but I'll just he made the people of Israel drink it verse 21 Moses said to Aaron what did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them and Aaron said let not the anger of my Lord burn hot you know the people that they are set on evil which to be fair they haven't been the greatest they followed them around complaining and whining and surrounding them multiple times and tried to fight like they haven't been this isn't been the easiest group of people.
To lead but it's not because these people are worse than other people it's because these people are people and if we wandered around the desert together we'd also do some of this mess he says you know the people that they're set on evil in verse 23 4 they said to me make us Gods who shall go before us as for this Moses the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt we do not know what has become of him.
So I said to them let any who have gold take it off so they gave it to me and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf I feel like that's kind of how his story had to go it had to start breaking down to the end y'all know he was quoting word for word what they said to him like he Nails it they said to me make us Gods who shall go before us ask for this Moses though they brought you up they said the man who brought us out of Egypt we don't know what happened to him.
So I said to them let me have your gold and then I took the gold and then there was I know remember there was a fire through I threw the gold in the fire I don't think I did anything else I think then it was a magic calf you ever talked to a kid in the middle of them being called in something that's what this sounds like to me what happened well he pushed me and then I don't like what comes after end.
Then give me a second how do I say I punched him in the face that's that's what that's where we're at this is pitiful out came this calf no response from Moses I think we're to assume he stares at Aaron like you've got to be kidding me 25 and when Moses saw that the people had broken loose for Aaron had let them break loose the division of their enemies if you were tempted to think Aaron didn't have a choice this passage says no Aaron could have led no Aaron could have had a backbone and I want to take just a.
Second there are a lot of people in this this room that lead things but I want to take just a second to speak to men culturally right now you're told a lot that you're the problem and that men are bad that's not true bad men are bad passive men are bad and you need to be real careful the times that you say it's them when it was really ah you should have led verse 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said who is on the Lord's Side come to me and I think he has to say this a bunch he's calling people to himself all the sons of Levi gathered around.
Him that's his tribe Moses and Aaron of the Trap of Levi Levi shows up he said to them thus says the Lord God of Israel put your sword on your side each of you and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor stop this find the people who are doing it and stop it and so they do verse 28 the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses and that day about 3 000 men of the people fell and Moses said.
Today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord each one at the cost of his son and of his brother so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day faithfulness to God is often costly but it's worth it prior to this it does seem like it was in God's intent that the tribe of Levi would be as a tribe levitical priests but it's not mentioned and it seems like in this moment is where God seals it that it's not just going to be the sons of Aaron.
But it's going to be the whole tribe of Levi that's going to get to carry the being ordained set apart for his service seems like it we're slurdy so it settles down it goes from off the rails to a lot of death the amount of excitement this is a quiet and awkward and sad and the next day Moses said to the people you have sinned a great sin and now I will go up to the Lord perhaps I can make atonement.
For your sin so Moses returned to the Lord he walks up this mountain takes a while and he said alas this people has sinned a great sin they have made for themselves gods of gold but now if you will forgive them but if not Please block me out of your book that you have written and if you don't love Moses yet you should love him now because when he said maybe I can make atonement he meant maybe he'll take me instead maybe I can swap places with y'all you have sinned a great sin it's not that they've killed all the Sinners it's no collectively we've still.
So catechism cataclysmically failed and broken this Covenant judgment is on us but maybe maybe he'll let me swap out so he says if you'll forgive them forgive him but if you won't that can't happen can you take me instead 33. but the Lord said to Moses Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book God says no but now go lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you behold my angel shall go before you nevertheless in the day.
When I visit I will visit their sin upon them we're going to come back to 33 and 34. I want to finish the chapter 3 35. then the Lord sent a plague on the people because they made the calf the one that Aaron made because they made the calf the one that Aaron made so if we were unsure earlier as to whether or not Moses believed Aaron's story he does not but look at 33 and 34. the Lord said to Moses whoever sinned against me I will blot out of my book.
So who's that that's all of them but now go lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you behold my angel shall go before you nevertheless and the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them now 32-34 are meant to be read together and this gets clearer because at first you read this and go oh okay good good right like crisis averted but no this isn't good at all because what he says is go I'll send my angel the day I show up everyone pays.
For their sin and in 33 he's going to say I'm not coming because there's no way for me to come and not kill everybody safest thing not the best thing but the safest thing for them is that I'm not a part of this anymore I'll get you to the promised land but the whole plan of me belonging to you and you belonging to me is done and this is where I think we've got a wrap our head around idolatry and sin sometimes we say things like.
Well it's just not that big a deal I don't know why he cares that much I don't know why he can't just get over it and I want you to know that the Covenant he made with them and the Covenant that he desires for us is that we would belong to him and he would belong to us this is why the Bible talks about it as adultery and it's like you saying I don't know what she's so been out of shape about I know that they're married.
But why can't he just have a girlfriend it's like that it's because that's the whole point of marriage is that you won't have a girlfriend that was what you committed to and that's the whole design here is that we would belong solely to him and they would belong solely to him and he would belong to them and there would be delight and joy in this and he says I can't come because your sin stands in the way and I want you to know this the thing you want most in the world is that.
God would visit you and that you would belong to him the thing you crave and desire is that you would be able to Delight in him because he is wonderful that's the thing you want most but the thing you can't have and that you should fear is that God would show up and you would be in your sin what he's wanting is for him to belong to them but if he was up and their sin is there so the thing I most want is to get to belong to.
God and the thing I most fear is that he'd show up and I'd be in my sin and what we needed and what they needed was for God to say yes to Moses can you take me and forgive their sin and God says no because Moses is a sinner he doesn't even get to go into the Promised Land but what we needed was God to say yes so that we can have him visit us we can belong to him but not be in our sin we need somebody to go up the mountain.
God to say yes you can atone for their sin and that's what Jesus Does Jesus does what Moses can't do because Jesus is God who becomes a man and he's a man so he can stand on our side and he can stand in our place and he can live a perfect life but he's God so that he can live sinlessly and he can actually atone and so where Moses fails Jesus succeeds Moses walks up the mountain and says can you take me instead.
God says no and mo Jesus walks up the mountain and says can you take me and said instead and God says yes and that's what Peter comes and he proclaims in Acts 3 says this repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out that if we run to Jesus and ask for forgiveness he forgives because he's able to and those are your options be in your sin and be blotted out or have Jesus blot your sin out because there is a day.
When God visits and when he does he will visit the sin upon the people they'll pay for it but if you've trusted in Jesus your sin has been paid for there is no sin to visit upon you y'all this is the tension throughout the whole Bible that's what's going to be carried out throughout the rest of Exodus and moving forward is how is God going to have a people that belong to him how is he going to fix this problem because they're all sinful how will he ever bridge this Gap and the answer is.
Jesus Jesus is the one who unties this so that we can have God and not have our sin because Jesus can blot our sin out and if you don't love Jesus you should love him now you should see that he walks up the mountain and says can you take me instead and God says yes and Jesus dies so that you won't be in your sin so that you can have what you ultimately desire which is God and all the delight and all the life that comes with them let's pray.
Lord we're we're sinners and we're so thankful for Jesus that he blots out our sin that we have hope in you and you alone and so Lord may we trust in you may we worship you may we Delight in you may we run from our idolatry to you in Jesus name amen the band's going to come back up and I want you to know your hope is not that you will not be an idolater your hope is that Jesus walks up the mountain and pays.
For idolaters that's what Moses walked up there to do can I pay the debt of their idolatry and Jesus walks up and doesn't say they're all perfectly worshiping they're all perfectly loving they're all perfectly their hearts set on me he he goes up and says can I pay the debt of idolaters that's our hope and that's what we're going to sing about and rejoicing right now is that our hope is Jesus and only Jesus and nothing else.
The Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4-6)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Psalm 115: God > Idols
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Transcript
Good morning. See, I clean up well, you guys. All right, so before we get started, it's an exciting day when we get to baptize anyone, and especially our kids. I just want to plug two resources. Some of the things we do in family discipleship, in our road mapping curriculum, which you can find online, is we plug books that we think are helpful. I have one right here.
This is the whole story for the whole family. It's a year of Jesus-centered devotions. This one's really helpful because it has really easy-to-do devotions, actually has some fun activities to go along with it. So if you've got kids from three to about nine, ten years old, this is a great book. I actually have two free copies of this, so if you want one, come talk to me, and I'll give it to you. And then we also have, out there at our spiritual formation bookshelf, the New City Catechism.
This is 52 questions and answers that help guide the process of just helping our kids know who Jesus is and what the gospel is. So I would encourage you, if you would like to go grab those, those are free. We've got plenty of those. So we have been in the Psalms this summer. We have one more Psalm next week, and then we're going to be in the book of Jude, which is four weeks, and then we'll be in the book of Exodus. So we're in Psalm 115 today, which is on page 293, and your blue Bibles that are around you.
If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. That is our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible that you can read. But we'll be in Psalm 115 today. So my wife and I both like disaster movies, okay?
So day after tomorrow type stuff, it gets even better, the cheesier it gets. So like, you know, geostorm, computer, controlling the weather, that kind of stuff is really fun for us. I also personally like satire. When satire is done well, I like it. And finally, the two genres melded together last year for a movie that came out on Netflix called Don't Look Up. So caveats, it's got some language in it, and I always do my research when it's rated or ahead of time, because it's got some sketch stuff at the end, which I just cut off and never watched.
But I wanted to see how they took satire and combined this with one of my wife's and I's favorite genres. And the whole premise is, is that an asteroid is barreling down towards the earth. And in typical asteroid style movies, you would expect they'd come together, they'd figure it out, and they'd save the day. Bruce Willis would go up there, and they'd blow this thing up. But this movie asked the question, what if that didn't happen?
What if we weren't good at this? What if our dysfunctional society right now just couldn't handle this? And it plays on a bunch of different themes. But one of the things that I found to be incredibly telling is it asked the question, what if we're too disinterested? What if we don't care? What if we're willing to ignore reality, and just because we like, you know, social media and the movie, they're too busy, you know, scrolling on their phones to care?
What if there's too many things to entertain ourselves with, too many things to focus on? And that aspect of satire, I truly appreciate it. Because you could easily apply that to our faith. Like a few weeks ago, we were in Psalm 19, and Psalm 19 has two big ideas, that creation declares the glory of God. That it points to a creator, and it declares his glory. And then later on in the Psalm, it talks about the scriptures.
How the scriptures give us this specific picture of who God is. That it tells us beautiful truths. And when you combine the two, you see we have a God who definitely made this universe. And the scriptures tell us who this God is. And we, as especially Southern Christians, can listen to that sermon, can read that text and go, yes, amen. We can say we believe in God.
The majority of Southerners would even say they believe in Jesus. But the reality is, is we live like that's not true. We're going to see in the Psalm, it says, our God is in the heavens. And we live like that's not a reality. Because we're so easily enamored. So easily in love with created things.
That our attention and our focus and our affection, and ultimately our worship, is on lesser created things. Ignoring the reality of our creator God. To our own demise. That is what this Psalm is going to look at today. It's going to speak directly to us. Calling us out for falling in love with lesser created things.
And not beholding our creator God for who he is. So we're going to see that picture and how that applies to us. So let me pray for us and then we'll jump in. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would open our hearts to receive your word. That we would be challenged. That we would see you as glorious.
And you'd help us walk this out in faith and belief and repentance and obedience. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so. Psalm 115 is in a series of Psalms. A series of five Psalms called the Hallelujah Psalms.
Okay? So thematically they all have the same kind of Hallelujah is in its most base form is praise Yahweh. So it's praise the Lord. So that's what's showing up in these Psalms. And at the very last one in this section, Psalm 115, is a Psalm that they would have actually sang together at Passover meal. So at the Passover meal, they would have sat down and had good food and good wine.
And they'd come together and then they'd sing this joyous, challenging Psalm. Starting in verse 1. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. For the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. So it's this joyous beginning.
Not to us, O Lord. No, no, no. Not to us, but to your name give glory. Why? Because of, for the sake of, your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Because you are steadfast in your love towards us, O God, when we don't deserve it.
Because you are faithful towards us, O God, when we are faithless. Not to us, O Lord, but to you be the glory. And that is joyously sung against the backdrop of those who taught them. So we pick up in verse 2. Why should the nations say, where is their God? So, that is, the nations is the Gentiles.
So at this point in redemption history, the Gentiles are outside the covenant of God. This is non-Jewish people. These are the surrounding nations around the Jewish people. They don't worship the God of Israel. They don't believe and they're taunting and they're saying, where is your God? And this is where the psalmist starts to get a little snarky.
See, this Psalm has some don't look up type of vibes to it. It's very satirical. It's very snarky. It's very sarcastic. And this is when the psalmist begins to answer that taunt and fire back in verse 3. Our God is in the heavens.
He does all that He pleases. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. He is not like your false gods, O nations. He's not a God that is tangible and created so that you can see. No, no, no.
Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. We don't have to do a song and dance to get His attention. And He doesn't step to our desires. That's not how our God works. He will not be coerced.
He will not be cornered. He will not be convinced. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. He is not like your gods. And then He goes on to dial up the snark even more.
And He starts to criticize and belittle and make fun of their false idols. Verse 4 and following. Their idols are silver and gold. The work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak. Eyes but do not see.
Ears but do not hear. Noses but do not smell. They have hands but do not feel. Feet but do not walk. And they do not make a sound in their throat. He is belittling them.
He is comedically belittling their false gods. He says your gods are precious. They are adorable. Look at His little mouth and His little nose. It has got little hands and little feet. I bet you put that beside your bed table at night.
That is adorable. He is absolutely stomping on false idols. He says no, no, no. Your God is not like our God. Our God is in the heavens. You have these false gods.
And it is an absurd picture. This is what Elijah picks up in 1 Kings 18. Belittling the false gods. In 1 Kings 18, he has a showdown with the prophets of Baal. Baal is one of the most prominent false gods in the Old Testament. And at this point, the prophets of Baal have pretty much taken over Israel.
And Elijah goes, all right, let's go. Let's go to Mount Carmel. Let's have a little showdown. We are going to set up an altar. Put a sacrifice on there. We are going to see which God is real.
We are going to figure out which God is going to come. Come and light this sacrifice on fire. And then in 1 Kings 18, it says in verse 26 and following, And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it, and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. So the prophets of Baal are calling out, Baal, answer us, answer us. But there was no voice.
No one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made. They started doing their little dance, going around the altar, limping around. And one of my favorite verses in the Bible. Verse 27, And at noon, Elijah mocked them, saying, Cry aloud, for he is a God. Maybe he can't hear you.
You should cry louder. Got to get his attention. He says, Cry aloud, for he is a God. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, which is a cleaned up way of saying, using the bathroom. Is your God, is he going to the bathroom? Where is he?
The mocking is on point. He says, Or is he on a journey? Or perhaps he is asleep, and must be awakened. Is he taking a nap? Go get him. Surely, and this, this does not sit well with them, and they get angrier.
And verse 28, it says, And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after the custom, after their custom was swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation. But there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. Why?
Because Baal isn't real. He's not the one true God. And then Elijah goes on to, say, step aside. They put water all over the altar. Calls down fire from heaven, and boom, lights it up. And that's usually where the children's stories, book Bible version, kind of just stops.
If you want to take it further, and even do some dramatic reenacting, he goes and slaughters all the prophets of Baals. So, fun stuff to do in your household. More family discipleship advice for you. It's an absurd picture. That's the way Elijah's getting at. Your gods aren't real.
Bowing down to this is an absurdity. When I was in, years ago, I was in India, and I was studying Hinduism as a part of the study of God program. And I went and traveled and looked at Hindu temples. Went to Hindu temples and watched. I watched people bow down to false idols. This made, decorated idol with incense burning.
I watched them and studied how they worshipped false idols. And when you see that picture, you see, man, how ridiculous is this? That you're bowing down, seeking for this to provide, for this to take care of you. what he's hitting at over and over again here is that idols are lifeless and they are dumb. No. Our God is in the heavens. So he gives this heavy, intense critique, and then in verse 8, he gives an absolutely helpful warning. those who make them become like them.
So do all who trust in them. What he highlights is an unbelievable truth. What you worship, you will become. What you worship, you will ultimately become. And if you worship these dead, lifeless objects, then you will receive spiritual death that comes along with it. You'll be spiritually deadened by it.
Now, reading this through the lens of a 21st century Westerner, you might think, good, glad we don't have little carved idols in our bedrooms. Am I right? Might want to distance ourselves from this. Might look at the Hindu practices of bowing down to false idols that still happen today and think, good thing that's not us. But the reality is, is that we do this, we just do it in a far more sophisticated manner.
This is what Ezekiel, and the prophet Ezekiel is picking up in Ezekiel 41, and it's going to be developed throughout the rest of the scriptures. In Ezekiel 41, he says, it says, Son of man, these men have taken idols into their hearts. Taken idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? And then in verse 6, he says, Therefore, save the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord God, repent and turn away from your idols and turn away your faces from all abominations.
It is here that we see a theme that gets picked up and developed throughout the rest of the scriptures that idolatry is worshiping anything in the place of God. God. It's heart idolatry. It's choosing anything and beholding that, loving that, worshiping that in the place of God. This is why John Calvin says that our hearts are idol-making factories. That we easily, because of our fallenness and our flesh, can make idols out of anything.
That we would worship anything in the place of God. We are designed to worship. That's how humanity is designed. And ultimately, we're designed to worship the Lord. But we reject that for the tangible things that are right in front of us.
And the psalmist is warning us. If you worship idols, you will become like them. For the one who worships money through greed, you ultimately, if you worship this, you will become like that dead object. Your heart will be hardened towards generosity. You will sacrifice and sever relationships with friends and church family and family. You'll sacrifice all of that because the goal is to make money, make money, make money, stacks on stacks on stacks.
If I can get that, then I will be happy. And ultimately, if you pursue this and you worship this, you will become Ebenezer Scrooge or Walter White. And it will ultimately end up to your own demise, hardening your own heart, deadened to what is ultimately good. If you bow down before the altar of pleasure, you will follow the road of sensuality until ultimately you don't have a taste, you have a distaste for God. and you fill that in with drugs or porn or explanation or whatever. But you follow that road and what happens is you eventually just, you don't want God.
I've watched people who went down that road and then ultimately they're just like, I don't care anymore. And it deadens you spiritually until you're numb and you don't want God. I stumbled upon a quote from a Sri Lankan theologian that I have never seen before until this week. His name is Vinath Ramachandra. And I thought he nailed it. He said, It is not surprising that those who worship technology eventually develop machine-like personalities.
Mark Zuckerberg. Right? I mean, develop machine-like personalities, emotionally underdeveloped, shallow and the relationships driven by a desire to control and quantify every human situation, unable to appreciate beauty and value in anything outside the artificial. What a unbelievable critique on this cultural moment. We bow down to social media, we spend all of our time and our energy in the artificial. this is going to get worse as the meta comes on board and everything else that comes with that. He says, No wonder.
No wonder we have shallow relationships. We're driven to control and quantify every human situation. You see that in kids that are on devices all the time. You see that in adults who have lost the ability to have a nuanced discussion with anyone or just lobbing grenades like crazy. Because you've bowed down before this idol over and over and over again and it's starting to make you in its image. He goes on to say, Those who worship sex, on the other hand, are incapable of trust and commitment in their human relationships and hide a lonely existence behind a mask of superficial adulthood.
Benoth is throwing bows. Man, he is going for it. I mean, he is absolutely, he can go on and on with this. He is absolutely showing us what the psalmist is teaching us that idols will ultimately create you in their image. You no longer will be conforming to the image of our creator. When you bow down to idols, it makes you in their image, ultimately to our own spiritual destruction.
You see why the psalmist has this aggressive, polemic, sarcastic defense, this aggressive nature against idolatry? There's so much at stake in the human soul. There was so much at stake for Israel as ultimately it was their own destruction because they worshipped idols. There's so much at stake for us because our flesh loves it. Our flesh loves idols. A couple months ago, I was talking with one of our pastors, I was talking with Chet, and I was just, I was confessing some sin.
I just was like, man, I'm just, I am, my flesh loves sin. Like I just, like I'm struggling right now. And he had a very helpful picture that will stick with me for probably ever. He said, you gotta see it for what it is. He said, it's, it's meth. And I was like, yes, it is meth.
Absolutely is. Have you ever seen before and after pictures of what meth does to people? They're a normal, functioning human being and then a few years, the before and after, they, it's conformed them into this horrible image as they bow down to this drug over and over and over again and it's stolen the life out of them. Yes! He knew how to get to me. I was like, that's absolutely it.
It is like that. It spiritually decays and destroys. That's what sin does. That's what idolatry does. So he gives that aggressive warning and then he pivots to beholding who our God is.
In verse 9 and following, he says, O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. He's gonna repeat that three times. Their help and their shield. That is kingship defense language. Okay?
He's saying, our God is our help and our shield. He's the one that defends us. He's the one that provides for us. He's the one that takes care of us. O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield.
O house of Aaron, verse 10, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. The house of Aaron was a part of the tribe of Levi. This is where the priesthood came from, was the house of Aaron. So what he's highlighting there is the priesthood is bowing down to foreign idols.
They're falling prey to this. Which absolutely fits pretty one-to-one with our current culture. Because the priesthood throughout America and those who plan to be pastors literally are leading people into worshipping idols, worshipping success, worshipping money for the sake of lining their own pockets and getting a G4 and all that mess. we're not much different. Verse 11, you who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. He's saying, you who fear the Lord, everyone who fears God, trust in the Lord.
He is their help and their shield. He's like, believe this. Believe this. He will protect you. He is better. He will protect you in the way that idols cannot.
And then he moves from this repeated promise to a repeated blessing. He says in verse 12 and following, the Lord has remembered us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the Lord, both small and great.
He's saying, this Lord, this God will bless us. Listen, Israel, Aaron, everyone who fears the Lord. And this is a deep, spiritual blessing. This is not a shallow, material one. Believing that ultimate hope is found in material blessings that will ultimately end up in a landfill one day. No, this is deeper than that.
This is the kind of blessing that resounds into generational blessings. Verse 14, he says, may the Lord give you children, or give you increase, you and your children. May this blessing resound through you, to your children, to your children's children. What a powerful legacy of faith that we might uphold when we behold who our God is. This is in verse 15, may you be blessed by the Lord who made heaven and earth. The heavens are the Lord's heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.
It's highlighting a truth that God is in the heavens. He rules and reigns. But as we see in Genesis 1, he entrusts earth. He gives us the ability to have dominion over the earth. That's why it says, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it.
That's the truth that he's highlighting there. And then in verse 17 and 18, the final two verses, he says, the dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence. But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord. He says, those who ultimately worship idols, those who find their hope and satisfaction and fulfillment and idols, well, they ultimately will receive what is coming, death. And the picture we see of that is judgment.
He says, but we, we will trust the Lord. We will praise him. We won't go down in silence. No. We will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord.
All right. So this Psalm is noticeably different than many of the Psalms we've tackled before. Sarcasm shows up a little bit in the scriptures. Aggressive defenses like this show up a little bit. This is different than some of the Psalms we have covered. And he is hammering one central truth over and over again.
Idols are dumb. Idols are ridiculous. Idols are not worthy of worship. Our God is in the heavens. Behold him. Worship him.
He is greater than idols. But the problem for Israel and the problem really for us is that idols are very tangible. Idols are, you can see them, you can touch them. It's the reason why they bow down to golden calves and Asherah poles. They could grab a hold of it. The psalmist says that's foolishness.
That's foolishness. Our God is so much bigger than that. Can't you see? Our God is in the heavens. Don't bow down to these objects. Don't worship anything in the place of God.
And we may be more sophisticated. We may be more sophisticated than this time period. But we are not smarter. Not at all. We're very much like them. We may, listen, Southern Christians, we may know the Bible.
We may know stories about Jesus. We may know the right things to say. You know, all kinds of things about who our God is. But to us, He's not as tangible. Not saying that Jesus is embodied. He certainly is.
But He reigns at the right hand of God the Father. But idols are tangible. They're right in front of us. And our flesh says, I want it. Money is tangible. Put your hands on it.
Pull up your app and watch your bank account. Your crypto wallet. Whatever it is that you do. You can see that. It's material. You can purchase things that your heart desires with that.
Amazon packages are concrete and tangible. Right? I thought about this this week. I was like, you know what? I'm going to see if I can total up how much we spent at Amazon this year. So I thought I could go on Amazon and look at the order details and stuff in that section and see.
But shocker, they don't let you know that. Because I don't want you to know how much you've spent there. Because it's a lot. That's tangible. It's something you can get in two days or less. That's tangible.
You can put your hands on that. Social media is tangible. You can spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours obsessing, worrying, getting stirred up, getting angry, getting jealous. That's tangible. Children, spouses, relationships, friendships, success, comforts, you name it, our heart can make it and we can bow down to it. It's tangible.
It's right in front of us. And our hearts will go after it until little by little our affections, our desire and our worship towards God is slowly turned towards created objects and we're more deadened and more deadened and more deadened until spiritually it's like, I don't want God. and then we reject Him just as the nation of Israel did. One of the things we talk about in our church is the concept of deep idols. The concept of deep idols and if you want to, we have sermons that expound on this more, you can go on our website and you can go into our sermons and do it in the search bar and you can type in deep idols and hear some more teaching on this but the premise is is that we try to look at the sin beneath the sin, the motivation beneath the motivation, the idol beneath the idol and there are four main deep idols, four main categories that you can funnel most of our sin into.
That's comfort, control, power, and approval. And you can literally take any concrete idol that you'd bow down to and you can run it through those categories and see, like if it's money, not something you obsess over, you think about, you live your life for, you can try to determine which deep idols is this rooted in? Is it approval? Do I make lots of money so that I can be liked? So that people will accept me?
So that I will get claps in adoration? Or it's control. Maybe you grew up with less money and you said, I ain't doing this anymore. I will absolutely control my future and every dollar, every paycheck is another opportunity to control your destiny because you've rejected ultimately that God is sovereign over your future but you can control it with your hands. Maybe it's, maybe it's power. You make money because that gives you influence.
That gives you the ability to peddle and to meddle and to manipulate because it puts you the one in power. Maybe it's comfort. That you worship money because it brings the comforts in this life. You can buy the next car or the next house or the next vacation until you fill your life with comforts that never truly satisfy you. Listen, we're not much different. We're not.
The Psalm is for us and we we have to see idols for what they are. We have to see it for what it is. They're as healthy as meth. They're as life-giving as the wood from your kitchen table. They're as secure as a house that is built right on the top of beach sand. They are not better.
Idols are dumb. They're not worth pursuing. They're not worth worshipping. Trust in the Lord. He is ultimately worthy of our worship. With Him comes blessing and promises.
Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases. The psalmist is pleading with us. See God as better than idols. And when you start to believe this. Listen, when you start to when God starts to unlock this truth in your soul.
When you start to realize that what you've worshipped doesn't satisfy. That it never truly brings fulfillment. Whatever that is for you. And when you've examined your soul and you realize that God by His grace shows how infected we are with idol worship. How we bow down to so many other things through our attention and our affections and our desire and our worship. when you see that for what it is your one logical response should be how can the God who created everything who is the only one worthy of my worship how could He possibly love me in spite of all of my rejection in spite of all of the worship that I've given towards lesser created things.
And it is in that moment that you can discover the goodness of the gospel. And the goodness of the gospel is that God knew that. God knows all of that. He knows all the idols that you bow down to. He sees all of it. And still He sent His Son to die for you.
And still He sent His Son to rise for us. And still He came to His Colossians 2 teaches cancel the record of debt the record of sin that's done against us with its legal demand. And His kindness as Romans 2 teaches leads us to repentance. Away from lesser created things back to our Creator. Our God does all that He pleases. And the good news of the gospel is that it pleases Him for you to worship Him.
And it pleases Him for you to desire Him. And it pleases Him to see you repent of idols because they are not worthy of your worship. He is.
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
American Idol
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet virtually this week.
Transcript
Good morning my name is spencer i'm one of the pastors here uh obviously we expected to be live in person this morning but because of some coveted exposure we want to be safe so we are live streaming online if you're joining us we're glad you're joining us here we as a Church we believe that Jesus is better than everything else and because of this we get to be a Gospel-centered community on missions so this morning that looks like worshiping from home that looks like singing songs listening to the word of.
God being preached and responding in faith and repentance but it also means that we get to be a collection of community groups that meet throughout the week it's one of the things we talk about that are our community groups our smaller groups of our Church family they're not events they're not something that you go to it's not it's not a function it's your people it's your people that you get to journey through life with that you get to go through good times and bad times with you get to come and bear burdens you get to come and celebrate what.
God is doing and and learning about the Gospel together so for some of you this week that's going to be through facetime or jitsy or zoom or or skype and our encouragement for you is to be present it's not an event uh it is better to be together but it's not an event that we just uh that we get to skip out on it's a people that you get to see face to face that's in person or through a screen there are people that you get to gather with uh and walk through the Gospel with and walk through this sermon series that we are walking through the next three weeks.
So that's a little bit about who we are as a Church and if you're new we want to invite you into that one of the ways you can find out about community groups in our Church is to go to our website millcitycasey.com you can go to our community groups tab uh and you can fill out a connect form when someone can follow up with you and tell you about our groups tell you uh what groups you can go and check out.
But we're uh glad you're here with us this morning tuning in online uh if you are part if you are a part of our Church family we invite you to give you can give online at our website we have a giving tab you can also drop off checks here at the office uh throughout the week so i want to pray that uh right now God prepare our hearts from worship wherever we're tuning in from and then i'm gonna read from psalm 100.
Father i thank you that we get to worship wherever that is we get to sing your praises we get to sit under your word you get to form us and shape us and mold us into your image God i pray that you help us be present that you help us focus that you help us join in worshiping you we ask this in Jesus name amen all right this is a reading from psalm 100 make a joyful noise to the lord all the earth serve the.
Lord with gladness come into his presence with singing know that the lord he is God it is he who made us and we are his we are his people and the sheep of his pasture enter his gates with thanksgiving enter in his courts with praise give thanks to him bless his name for the lord is good his steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations let's sing together worthy of worship worthy of worship worthy of the grace souls we can.
See father creator you are worthy savior you are and wonderful worthy of worship and praise of reverence worthy of fear worthy of love and devotion worthy of all this and added to these father creator you are worthy save your sustainer you are almighty father master and lord king of all kings and redeemers savior and source of a life without in worthy and wonderful i got a firm foundation alright the only solid ground the nations rise and fall kingdom comes one strong.
Now shaken we trust forever in your name the name of Jesus we trust the name of Jesus you are the only king forever almighty God we lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious you are the only king forever almighty God will lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious knee will bow we bring our expectations our hope is anchored in your name the name of Jesus we trust the name of.
Jesus you are the only king forever almighty God we lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious you are the only king forever almighty God will lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious the name of Jesus from age 28. you are the only king forever almighty God will lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious you are the only king forever almighty God will let you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious a reading from.
First Peter 1 3-9 blessed be the God and father of our lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials to the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise.
Glory and honor at the Revelation of Jesus Christ though you have not seen him you love him though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory obtaining the outcome of your faith salvation of your souls how great the castle then lay between us how high the mountain i could not in desperation i turned to heaven and spoke your name into the night then through the darkness your loving kindness tore through the shadows of my soul the work is finished the end is written.
Jesus Christ who could imagine so great a mercy what i could fathom such boundless grace the God of ages stepped down from glory to where my sin and bear my shame the cross has spoken i am forgiven the king of kings calls me beautiful savior i'm yours forever Jesus Christ hallelujah praise the lord who set me free hallelujah death has lost his script on me you have broken every chain there's salvation in your name Jesus Christ death has lost its grip on me you have broken every chain this salvation in your name.
Jesus the Christ that sealed the promise your very body began to breathe out of the silence the roaring lion declare the grave then came the morning that sealed the promise your very body began to breathe is set me free hallelujah death has lost its grip on me you have broken every chain this salvation in your name Jesus Christ oh God you are my living God we're thankful this morning that we get to claim Jesus as our living hope Jesus who came of his own will came of his own purpose to rescue us to redeem us we are grateful this morning who lived a perfect sinful life a sinless life he died on the cross.
For our sins and rose from the grave God that that's our hope this morning and i pray that we would put our hope in Jesus uh as we open up your word this morning we pray that you would speak to us you would help us learn help us grow we ask this in Jesus name amen well good morning i uh i really like that bumper i'm excited that we are getting to start a series together looking at politics but as we do that we we need to kind of set uh some ground rules and be able to come in this.
Well so we talk a lot about politics in the united states we talk about them almost unceasingly and we are in the middle of an election year and so you might already be overwhelmed by how much you're having to hear about political candidates and political parties and political hopes and dreams and political fears but we wanted to take some time as a Church family to discuss politics and our approach as Christians to politics so even as we begin that i know that.
For some of you that brings up a lot of fear or frustration or a desire that we as a Church would never discuss these things maybe you even believe that the Church should never discuss these things others of you may be very excited and want to talk about politics maybe you're like finally we should have already been talking about this and i'm willing to bet there's a big mixture of all of that across our Church family we want to be able to discuss this in a healthy biblical way just.
Because something is tense or difficult in our culture does not mean we have to shy away from it or we ought to shy away from it often it means we we ought to press in we as a Church ought to investigate and discuss and look at and so as we move into this series together i want to give a few things for us one is it's not going to be that long of a series we're only taking three weeks we're not going to get to say everything that ought to be said about it.
But we're also not going to spend a ton of time on it what we're trying to do is set a foundation for how we ought to approach politics and since we're in such a heated political climate we need to have some biblical wisdom as to how we ought to approach we understand that our Church family differs on policies and politics and we we we think that's beautiful and that ought to happen inside the Church but we want to have a baseline.
For how do we as Christians engage in the political processes around us without losing our mind or without losing our souls and so as we walk through this realize it's a three-week series not everything will be able to be said certainly not everything will be able to be said in each sermon if there is something that frustrates you makes you angry makes you aggravated don't value your politics above being Church family and let's press in and talk about these things come talk to me let's clarify what i said what i meant to say go talk to the people in your group as we walk through this.
But we're going to try to as best we can look like God look God like and graciously walk through this as Christians as we move forward so the point of this series is that we believe that Christians ought to look different from our culture when it comes to our political engagement that Christians ought to be distinct from those around them and how they think about and approach politics we believe that we believe that we ought to have a different viewpoint and a different starting point.
And so that you should look more like the Christians on the other side of the globe that when we boil down your life and your hopes and your aspirations and the way you walk through life that you should look more like a believer in china or india or russia than just someone who looks like you and votes like you in the united states that we ought to have a distinct way we approach politics as believers over and against those who we would technically be in the same political party as that's what we're trying to discuss.
Look at for the next three weeks specifically today we're going to look at the fact we're going to take kind of a zoom in on our current political climate and look at how our culture demands that we approach politics and ultimately what they're asking of us is to approach a political candidate or a political party as a hero and a savior to elevate one party one candidate as a messiah who will lead us into a bright future and to understand that the other candidate the other party is evil and destructive that they ought to be feared that's kind of the current political climate that we have.
So we're going to investigate that a little bit and try to see how we as Christians ought to approach this step away from that and have a different on-ramp to our approach to politics so let's pray and we'll begin to look at that this morning God we ask for your grace and your wisdom as we walk through this we know that just live streaming and then gathering in our groups is not our ideal not our desired way to approach this but we also know that through the power of your Holy Spirit and through the the way you work in your Church which is not a location or an event.
But a people that will be just fine as we study your word together and seek to be good missionaries in our city and so we pray that you would bless this as we study together and as we get to gather together in community groups that we would grow in our understanding of who you are and how we ought to approach government and the political process in the place that we live we ask for grace in Jesus name amen if you'll grab your bibles and go to Philippians chapter 3.
That's where we'll spend our time today it's going to take us a minute to get there but go ahead and flip there get to Philippians 3 we're going to be looking at verse 17 through and we're going to have to talk through a few things before we start in that passage so that we can kind of set the groundwork for what we're looking at but we will get there politics is neutral in general the idea of politics is just taken from the greek word polis which means city and it's how do we organize ourselves as a city how do we organize ourselves as a group of people what's inbounds what's out of bounds what works.
Towards human flourishing and what doesn't these are the questions that politics have to answer so in general politics is neutral now we use the word with a negative term because we've filled up politics with people and once we do that we get partisan politics and we get someone being political which just means they're maneuvering things so that they can get the most benefit without any skin in the game and so but when we're talking about this as we approach it it's the idea of government is good it's a common grace blessing from.
God it is something that we ought to participate in celebrate and enjoy that the idea that humans should collectively have ways that they govern themselves and that they keep society in order and work towards human flourishing is good and it's a gift from God and we will talk specifically next week and the week after about how we ought to engage and how we ought to press them but as we start today we want to just approach understanding how we get to where we've elevated political parties and political candidates to the position that they're in or we are really in some ways at our heart level looking.
For a savior looking for a messiah someone that we can hope in some party that we can trust in something that would put us at ease and at rest and deliver us to the promised land so as we were working on this i got with josh pabone and inspired by old political cartoons we drew up well josh drew up the government octopus and so here it is this is the the octopus of government now this is not meant to scare you.
If you're scared of octopus i'm sorry this is meant just to show you how the government can attach to and be involved in so many things that matter to us so if you look at his little headband that's the government if you see tucked up behind him he's got comfort and power because ultimately that's what happens if the government has some power and it offers us power if we're in line with it it offers us some comfort it kind of has these things that we care about and pursue and it touches all these things that really matter to us justice schools health money happiness we're going to do something that we haven't done before.
But we're going to try out as we're trying to learn how to do this well i'm going to stand to the side here and we're going to try to have this pulled up over here so that we can see it it may move around a little bit as we get it adjusted adjusted but this is the neutral not meant to scare you government octopus that touches all the things that matter and you can see how we begin to place a lot of hopes in who's in power.
Because the government affects justice what happens in our court system what do you go to jail for are there jails are there prisons who runs them how long do you have to stay there what are the conditions there how do you seek justice if you've been wronged who decides what is right and wrong you see every government whether it's big or little whether it's a a democracy or a dictatorship it's going to address some of these issues it's going to have answers to some of these problems.
If people are going to exist with one another so government attaches itself to justice and has to answer some questions for us and sometimes when it doesn't give an answer it's that's an answer it pushes it into the market it puts it into how people will handle it on their own schools so that this government octopus can address schools which is our children are they safe are there standards that all schools have to meet or is it just if you have enough money you can get a good education.
And if you don't you don't are there health standards are there safety standards who's teaching them what are they learning are they being indoctrinated in all the good things we want them indoctrinated in or they being indoctrinated in all the evil things that will lead them to stray see this matters this is why when we talk about government it matters to us our health is tied up in this what happens when you go to the hospital is it clean is it nice is that just based off of whether you have money or the area you live in has money are there standards that that medicines have to meet are there standards that doctors have to.
Meet who sets those standards who controls that how much does it cost who pays for it these are questions that government answers or chooses not to answer and just pushes out into the world but it matters it matters the type of care you get the type of care your family gets if you look at happiness we have that on there the way we've worded that in the u.s is this idea of a pursuit of happiness that the government is meant to help you not be infringed upon by them and not be infringed upon by the people around you that you can have some level of freedom this isn't the case everywhere.
But it is here and it does matter as we're trying to talk about our political landscape can you own property can you defend it or not can people take it from you is there some amount of upward mobility can you work certain jobs or not depending on who you are your skin color your race your family of origin whether or not you started off wealthy or poor like there's this level of what kind of boundaries do i have the government affects our money they set a currency is it a good currency is it a bad currency how much do you earn.
When you work does the government control that how many hours can your employer ask of you all these things government effects and so all these things matter to us and so you can begin to see how we would begin to elevate this and in reality in a culture where we step away from God where our culture drifts from understanding that God is sovereign that he rules over everything for us this matters more and more and more this idea of this government octopus matters more and more.
If we're to trust it over and against trusting God as he works it always has mattered but the more our culture shifts away from God the more we begin to look for this to deliver us the kingdom this to deliver us the promised land this to keep us safe this to give us a hope and a future and so this is where political parties begin to step in this is where political candidates begin to step in because all these things matter to us they're tied to our hearts.
And so it's easy for us as they're clumped together for us to look to political hopes as our true hope so if this is good if it's your political candidate of choice then everything is awesome everything works out beautifully it's like this governmental octopus is not just touching these things but it's hugging them it's protecting them it's keeping you safe if your candidate is in office or if your hopes and dreams are being fulfilled by those in congress maybe if you're in another part of the world and you have a benevolent dictator this is the way it works that this offers a lot of security a lot of safety it helps you.
When you walk through the world to know where your place is but if it's not your candidate of choice it's terrifying if it's not your party this this octopus is now snaking its way around it's sucking the life out of you it's it's here to harm you and destroy you this is easy for us to believe it's easy for us to feel this because the government has an effect on so many things for us it's easy for us to be able to.
See this and there's part of this that's absolutely true you start looking at it and go no the government does have a large role to play and what your day-to-day life looks like the government has a large role to play in and what your whole life looks like whether it's good or bad and so we begin to place a lot of hope a lot of intense passion around how is this going to play out but the reality is Christians cannot approach it the same way that our culture has begun to call us to here's what i mean the cultural push right.
Now is kind of a three-step process first they're going to convince us that the stakes are high and that's easy to do this idea that the stakes are high is easy to convince us that we ought to place a lot of hope in how this would work out because if it goes bad it goes really bad but if it goes good it can go really good and so this is why we've begun to give a lot of rhetoric and language towards how this plays out that we've got to give a lot of rhetoric and language tours who is to be trusted who is to be elevated you hear things like donald trump is an existential.
Threat to america he's an existential threat to democracy that our democracy the united states won't exist i saw somebody post recently on facebook or on twitter that this we were facing the fight of our lifetime and if donald trump was not elected it could mean the end of christianity we've begun to elevate this language and what happens on both sides is we start to pump up one leader or one party as the hero and we begin to pump up the other one as the villain and we're told by everybody.
When you turn on the radio when you turn on the news when you flip through your news feed on your phone nobody is coming to you and saying hey calm down it's going to be all right we're gonna we're gonna last beyond this we're gonna be okay everybody is working us into a frenzy to tell us how high the stakes are i've only seen a few elections but what i know about them is that the stakes were highest they'd ever been the.
First one i ever saw and then they were the highest they've ever been and they got higher and i'm going to go ahead and tell you that in 2024 when we're having another election i seriously doubt they're going to come on your news feed and say hey the stakes are a little bit lower than last time i feel like we're going to continue to barrel towards this cataclysmic future because the more we fear the more we approach politics with fear the more we.
See how this is snaking in and could either protect us and guard us or or snatch life away from us and so they build this up on one side you have a Christ and on the other side you have an antichrist and you may say that's that's a bit strong well the reality is i we lived through an election where the the candidate was called an antichrist i actually remember leading a Bible study in college and some of the guys on our football team came and asked me hey i've been hearing that obama is the antichrist do you think that's true i said no i don't i don't think that's true i think people politically.
Don't like him they disagree with his politics i don't think he's the antichrist but we've begun to elevate this so on this side you have a hero and on this side you have a villain this side we're going to exalt them we're going to exalt a party this side we're going to vilify it this side we have a Christ and an antichrist someone who will lead us to the promised land someone who will give us a hope and a future and someone over here.
If they're elected there will be blood in the streets you will be hunted everything you hold dear will be taken from you everything you've ever hoped in or trusted will be gone everything that you've ever built or loved the type of person you are will be snatched from you your children will be destroyed this is the type of language we see that over here we have a savior and over here we have the devil and over here we have a 75 year old white man and over here we have a 75 year old white man.
Well that one's the same but you can see how we build this up to a fever pitch and it doesn't matter the language is the same the rhetoric is the same and you can insert whichever party you want and sometimes it doesn't just get wrapped up around the candidate often it gets wrapped up around the policies or the party but they want us to believe that the stakes are higher than they've ever been and that you ought to be afraid secondly once we are rightfully fearful we're told to join a tribe you got to pick a team it's not just a team this is a tribe this is the people to whom you belong what.
They're demanding is not just pick some policies you like but they're saying no pick a party to which you give allegiance wholehearted devotion because when there's a tribe we cannot show weakness when there's a tribe we can't have internal fighting if we have weakness over here that's how the other team wins if we're fighting things out on our side if we don't have agreement on our side so everybody has to step in line you have to perfectly agree you have to defend your tribe over and against the other tribe i have two brothers my dad uh consistently told us that we were a team that it was us to me and my two brothers against.
The world even to the point at one time i told on my other brother and my dad called me a narc told me i was singing like a canary and he said it's not you and me against your brother it's you and your brother against me and i thought this is a weird family dynamic but okay but what he was trying to put in me was that my brothers would be my brothers forever and he would say these are your brothers you don't disagree with your friends over against your brother you don't you defend your brother he told us that.
If we were out somewhere and one of our brothers one of my brothers got himself into trouble by running his mouth or doing something wrong it was my job to help defend him and then when we got alone i could hit him upside his head for being a but i couldn't do it when we were out i had to defend him the reality is that's what we're told about our political tribe blood level allegiance you line up with us perfectly once we're fearful once we've picked a tribe the.
Third one's simple win destroy your enemies this is what's asked of us in our political landscape that you need to understand how much is at stake you need to be afraid you need to join our team and we must win at all costs this is the fight of our lives we must take them down you don't understand how they will rob you of everything you hold dear how they would snatch it from you everything will be destroyed we must win they want us to be outraged they want us to be angry they want us to hate the other side.
If we can see them as a big block of something dangerous rather than humans who were walking out life trying to figure things out then all the better the reality is as Christians there are things we ought to be outraged over there are things we ought to be angry about but not constant fear-driven anger over every little thing not anger that's only against one political party and not the other but anger for the things of God it's a slow anger that continually works towards things that matter justice mercy the value of life there are things that we ought to be outraged over.
But we don't just shout it out we work towards good ends but the reality is they want us to be fearful give our full allegiance and on the attack ultimately they want us to pick a and have a savior do you see how that's a problem for us do you see how Christians can't really join that let's go to Philippians 3. hopefully you're already there i said it take us a minute to get here but this passage is so helpful for us this is Paul writing to the Church in philippi he says brothers join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us who are.
Our leaders Christians who do we keep our eye on godly faithful men and women who follow Jesus for years who do we get our political marching orders from Scripture and those who love Christ not just the political candidates of choice so he says keep your eyes on them that's not exactly he's not talking about a political thing here but i just wanted us to see that that's we join in imitating those who've come up before us verse 18 it says for many of whom i have often told you.
Now tell you even with tears walk as enemies of the cross of Christ their end is destruction their God is their belly and they glory in their shame with mind set on earthly things says those who are opposed to Christ their God is their belly meaning their passions their desires their lusts their desires of the flesh that they glory in their shame meaning all the things that are terrible are the things that they uphold as wonderful they brag about their greed they brag about their promiscuity they brag about all the things that are sinful and broken they glory in them their minds are set on earthly things all they can.
See is here and now what most benefits me here and now so he says there's this whole group of people that are walking as enemies of Christ and their end is destruction we have a picture of this to try to help us see this when when our culture tells us the stakes are high and what they mean is the political future of america is in danger if you don't act your political hopes and dreams won't be lived out the reality is we're already in a situation where the stakes are high all of creation is groaning waiting.
For God's Revelation of himself groaning waiting for him to redeem the Church and the reality is all of creation is going to be either redeemed or judged every person we know is going to be redeemed by Christ they're going to have a Christ-filled eternal future or they're going to be condemned in their sin those are the stakes that's the situation we find ourselves in and so when Paul says this he says their end is destruction their God is their belly and they glory in their shame he doesn't say this smugly he doesn't say this pridefully he says i tell you this even with tears they walk as enemies of Christ the reality is uh the.
Enemies are not political enemies they're not enemies of this party or that party they're enemies of Christ and Paul says this with tears with the hope that there would be so few of them that most people would walk into the freedom that's offered through Jesus and salvation and have an eternity with him so when they tell us the stakes are high the reality is the stakes are far higher than they know and we don't have political hopes that will fix them we have an eternal game that we're playing we have an eternal hope that is set we have an eternal judgment that is he coming.
So Christians cannot participate in the fear they want us to have over our short run political future Christians cannot participate in the fear they want us to have over a short run political future because we come from a different place understanding who the true fear is that we ought to fear him who can do more than kill the body but can also destroy the soul that we ought to fear him who rules over the cosmos and rules over history and who raises and lowers nations and who redeems in Christ in Christ alone we cannot participate in the fear they want us to have over short-run political situations and scenarios.
When they tell us to join a tribe to give our allegiance they're saying pick who you think will save you listen to this policy listen to this listen to that weigh it out and then pick one and join and fight for that end there's a scene in monty python's quest for the holy grail it's a really dumb movie they're running around questing for the holy grail that's what they're gonna go find one they go to this castle they announce that they're on a quest to find the holy grail and the guy leans over the edge of the castle and says we've already got one.
And then he ducks down and says i've told him we've already got one he's just messing with him but he he says we've already got one we already have a holy grail we don't need to join your quest and that's how i feel that Christians ought to respond when they say pick a tribe we've already got one i already have a savior i already have a hope this is what he says in Philippians 20 3 chapter 3 verse 20. but our citizenship is in heaven you already have a tribe you already have a people and from it we await a savior the.
Lord Jesus Christ we already have a messiah we already have a hope and a future we already have a glorious promise of progress so when they tell you that you ought to be afraid and you ought to join a tribe you need someone to save you we already have someone to save you and i'm awaiting a savior i'm not awaiting a savior from the republican party we're not sitting and awaiting a savior from the democratic party we're not waiting for their policies to come in to redeem and rescue we already have a savior we already have a hope we already have a future i recently watched the play hamilton.
Because it's on disney plus spencer talked about that about a week ago i thoroughly enjoyed it i think it was well done i liked the artistic nature of it i enjoyed my wife and i more enjoyed getting to see the history of things we kept looking up stuff to see if it was true we looked up to see who hercules mulligan was which by the way i know that our Church family keeps having new babies hercules mulligan is a sweet name and has the benefit of being gender neutral boy or girl would work excellently that's less true.
But it's a really good name and so we're watching this and i i enjoyed i enjoyed watching and seeing the history and thinking through this and how the united states fought against the largest empire in the world at this time and and won their independence it's fun for me to celebrate that and see that i like that we got rid of a king and got a republican democracy a democratic republi republic that's the word i was looking for it's the same thing kind of.
But we got a democratic republic i love that the queen can't show up and get rid of all of our governmental officials like she can in i don't know other places around the world like australia i appreciate that we have this but the reality is i long for the day when the king rides in and overthrows this democracy i long for the day when i no longer get to vote because i'm a servant in the house of God and all the good things are taken care of.
Because i already have a savior and from heaven we await our hope we are citizens of heaven and we can participate in the good things that government has now but our hope does not reside here and our allegiance cannot be given here because it's been given to Christ we cannot participate at the same level that those who have no hope can we ought not to this is a quote from russell moore in his book onward he's the president of the southern baptist ethnic ethics and religious liberty council he says this it would be a tragedy to get the right president the right congress and the wrong Christ he goes on to say that.
If we accept anybody who says they'll be a they're a Christian as long as they have our political leaning and we elevate them even though they show no marks of being a Christian what we're actually demonstrating to the world is that we love politics over Christ we're actually demonstrating what our real hope is and who our real savior is and it's a problem we're told then to destroy our enemies the reality is the enemies are enemies of the cross of Christ and we do not approach them with hate.
But with tears we're told that we ought to fight against our enemies that we bought ought to be outraged that those who would destroy america but the reality is their end is destruction because they're destroying themselves because they walk as enemies of the cross of Christ and so we join with our God who died for his enemies who told us to love our neighbors and love our enemies we cannot participate in the anger and the outrage they want us to have against the political party.
Because we are not just playing out a political hope we can't participate in the fear we can't give our allegiance and we can't walk in the anger they want us to have because we understand how the world actually works Christians ought to have a distinct approach to politics and to government we're called to participate we're called to work actively in them we're going to talk more about that but first we've got to repent of where we've elevated a political party to a hope into a messiah that can give us the future we want and and denigrated the.
God who has already done that for us in Christ and from whom we await salvation we need to repent this is as he continues out in verse into verse 20 he says we await a savior the lord Jesus Christ and he says who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself i want to finish up by reading two quotes that i think are helpful for us and we'll spend some time this week in our community groups walking through uh some questions that help us begin to.
See and untangle where we might have begun to worship and elevate a political party over our savior brett mccracken wrote this for the Gospel coalition i think it's helpful he says here's the hard truth for believers wanting political influence in these times consistent faithfulness to Scripture will never square with total alignment with any political party a Gospel agenda is not set by partisan think tanks in washington dc it's set by Scripture a Gospel agenda may align with some aspects of one political party and some of another and should spur us to engage in those areas.
But it also decidedly rejects some aspects of both God's agenda is better bigger and more glorious than any one party nation culture or time the mission of Jesus will outlast every white house tenure it will outlast america itself for the Christian the right side of history is always the side that places faithfulness to the eternal God above loyalty to a temporal tribe if we have begun to elevate our political party and our hopes are set in them and you'd feel more comfortable knowing that your political candidate won and that you began 2021 with the right political candidate and you care more about that than who's on the throne in the eternal heavens ruling over history.
We have a problem if you're more willing to evangelize for your political party of choice but have no words for those who don't know Christ we have a problem but the reality is we await a savior who redeems and works and transforms and has everything in subjection to himself and we have hope so we come in from a different angle hebrews 12 28 says therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and let us offer to.
God acceptable worship with reverence and all some of us have begun to worship political parties we've begun to worship political candidates we've worshipped our way into this and we need to worship our way out for us to begin this as we approach following the lord well we need to begin setting our hearts and hopes on Christ and not political agendas we've been being stirred up in fear and tribalism and anger and we need a reset we need to spend time this week in our Scriptures before the face of.
God reminding ourselves of the eternality of the mission we've been sent on it's not a short run one the reality is there will be a king who rules forever and we have hope only as we have hope in him we'll finish with this leslie nubigen he's a missionary went to india went back to the uk and saw that there was that as he had gone to india to be a missionary when he finally came back he realized that the uk had drifted as.
Well and this is one point he talks about our hope not being governmental he says the point is that a transformed society is not our goal great as that is our goal is the holy city the new Jerusalem a perfect fellowship in which God reigns in every heart and his children rejoice together in his love and joy and though we know that we must grow old and die and that our labors even if they succeed for a time will end will in the end be buried in the dust of time and that along with the painfully won achievements of goodness there are mounting seemingly irresistible forces of evil yet we are not dismayed we know.
That these things must be but we know that as surely as Christ was raised from the dead so surely shall there be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness and having this knowledge we ought as Christians to be the strength of every good movement of political and social effort because we have no need either of blind optimism despair we get to begin in a place of hope and certainty we get to approach the political landscape of our nation distinctly from our neighbors who don't know Christ we understand the reality of the eternal situation we're going to walk in.
And so we ought to worship we ought to celebrate that we have a kingdom that will outlast all kingdoms that we have a kingdom that cannot be taken shaken or destroyed and we have to begin there if our starting point is not that our savior is Christ and that we are brothers and sisters and citizens of heaven we won't be able to even begin understanding how we ought to approach something temporary and good like politics let's spend this week repenting let's spend this week confessing let's spend this week re-setting our hearts and hopes.
So that we might move forward participating fervently for the good that is in government but doing so without either despair or blind optimism understanding that we have a savior let's pray God we thank you for your grace we pray that we would be politically active but that we would be politically active as Christians who have a hope and a future who have a citizenship in heaven secured by Christ and Christ alone help us to repent this week as everything around us calls us to fear and allegiance and anger may we live as.
If we believe in Christ amen may your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven for yours is the kingdom the power and the glory forever you reign swelling lives we will be the Church to live our your heart oh God rise up in us we'll show the world how you love Jesus take our heart and make it yours salvation over us the fight was one on the cross to take may your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
For yours is the kingdom the power we will be the Church to live out your heart oh God rise up in us we'll Jesus take our heart and make it yours salvation voices make a joyful noise make a joyful noise and raise your voices make a joyful noise oh God rise up in us we'll show the world how you love Jesus take our heart and make it yours salvation over for you have overcome the world all right before we uh let's get out here.
Today before you guys tune out uh a couple announcements uh we encourage you if you're not a part of a group to jump in with a group you can go to our community groups page you can find out some more information there fill out a contact form and we can connect you uh to a group uh for our Church family that's in groups we invite you to to be present in group this week whether that's uh through uh facetime or jitsi or whatever or it's in person uh be present and uh and let's walk through this very difficult subject together let's watch this with a lot of grace and repentance also.
If you're part of our Church family we invite you to give you can give online on our website you can also drop off checks at the office during the week uh we hope to be back in this room uh this coming uh this next sunday uh but we're gonna have to wait and see so there'll be more information on that at the end of the week so let me pray that we respond well as we walk this out as a Church family.
Father i thank you that you give us your word and that it pierces our hearts it exposes the thoughts and intentions of our hearts so that we can walk and repentance so that we can see that you are our ultimate king and your kingdom is not of this world God i pray you give us grace for one another this week that we walk through this together that you would keep us safe we ask us all in Jesus name amen.
Isolation and Idolatry
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet virtually this week.
Jesus is Better than Everything Else
Transcript
Well, good morning. My name's Chet. I am one of the pastors here. You are a sinner. But, it gets worse. The Bible tells us that sin, what we often think that sin is primarily us breaking rules or disobeying God, but the Bible tells us that sin is actually worse than that.
It's deeper than that. That it's actually that we love other things more than God. And then, because we love things more than God, because we value them over them, our affection over Him, our affection is set on them rather than Him, then we sin, then we disobey. This is actually what happened in the garden. Some people are like, I don't understand the Adam and Eve story, why that was such a big deal, why, you know, he says a tree don't eat the fruit or whatever, and they do, and then everything falls apart from there. That feels a little crazy.
But really, what happened was, prior to thinking the fruit was delicious, prior to thinking that it was more flavorful, they had to believe that it was more flavorful than God. That it had to have, their taste for God had to die first in order for them to have a taste for it. And that's actually the fundamental issue in the human heart, is that we were designed to love and to cherish God. He made us for Himself. And that's beautiful, that God, when He designed the world, He made us to enjoy Him, and Him to love us, to cherish us, for us to have Him as our highest affection, because He is the highest good in the universe.
And rather than do that, we trade Him out for smaller things, that ultimately cannot carry the weight of our worship, and carry the weight of our love, and that's called idolatry. Today's going to be a little bit different than normal. A lot of times we just go to one passage, we walk right through it. If you want to turn to Colossians, Colossians chapter 3, we will get there. But first, we're going to look at a few different places throughout the Old Testament that will be on the screen.
So we will all look together there, but we will get to Colossians 3. I have two sons. I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old. He's like one and a half. My one-year-old came out big, healthy, sleepy, loud, you know, baby stuff. And then about six months into being a human, he started getting really red.
Four to six months started getting red and itchy, and his skin was scaly, and he looked gross. And he would scratch himself so much that he would bleed. So we had to start like zipping him up in bags at night, which now he's hooked on, and we don't know at what age we're going to be like, bro, you don't have to sleep in this bag anymore. Maybe he's like seven. The first time he goes to do a sleepover, we'll be like, you've got to zip him up in this sack. But he scratches himself.
He would scratch himself until he bled, and we started figuring like there's something wrong here because most people don't look like this, so we've got to figure out what's going on. And at one point when he fully kind of transitioned to just being bottle-fed, he got way worse. And so we were trying to, you know, you start mixing in like oats and stuff in his bottles, and he actually started just throwing up every night. And we were like, well, this is a problem. Like he's got to be able to keep food down. So we took him to the doctor.
The doctor had been seeing him and kind of giving us some creams and stuff. We finally brought him. We're like, hey, this is worse. This isn't just like dry baby skin. Like we got problems here. And what you want when you go to a doctor is you want them to figure out what's causing the symptoms.
Like we can see the symptoms. You don't want the doctor to just be like, well, he looks red. Like, yep, it's true. It seems itchy. Yep. All right, cool.
We'll rub some like jelly on that and see if it gets better. It's like, no, like, you're just like, let's figure out why. Why though? Like he's throwing up. Like, let's figure out. I am no doctor, but I figured that out.
That's why I brought him here. What you want is them to find out the symptoms. It turns out he's allergic to eggs, wheat, milk, peanuts, and oats. So every night we were taking milk and putting oats in it. We were trying to kill him. And it turns out when you stop poisoning him, he is the pastiest white kid you've ever seen.
It's really hard. You take him out in the sun and you rub sunscreen on him and you can't tell where it is. Like, where you've covered and what you had and it's the same color. So, but we had to find out what was causing the symptoms. And that's actually what we're going to try to do today. We looked at idolatry.
We talked about in general what it was. Last week we said we actually can have idols. We can make idols of anything. That you can take any good thing and you can turn it into an idol. That you can love money too much. That you can love work too much.
That you can love your family too much. And I know in America that sounds crazy but we can. We can take something that is good that was meant to be a good thing. Romance, love, work, children. And then we can move God out of the way and we can elevate it to a place it was never meant to be. So that we begin to look at something that is a good thing.
Begin to treat it like a God thing. And we begin to say without you I can't have life. I can't be happy. I can't have joy without you. And so maybe as we've walked through this some of you have begun to see these things in your life. You've begun to go yeah I do care about work too much.
I do care about my children too much. I'm supposed to care about them but I've begun to place them too high in my life so that everything's built around them and I have to have them happy and I have to have them turn okay or I'm not going to be okay. Well here's the thing. When we begin to identify yeah work yeah romance yeah I have to have a girlfriend or I just don't feel alright. It's like okay well that's actually just a symptom. In reality there's something deeper than that.
In reality that's actually just a tool. It's just something you're using to get after what you really want and so that's our goal today is to look beneath if we've discovered surface level idols we're going to try to look beneath them to root level idols. It should be a lot of fun. Let's pray and then let's start looking at some scripture. God we ask for your help today that your Holy Spirit would not only help us see our surface level idols the things that we are using the things that we are pursuing the things that we love inordinately but that you would help us to see why. Why is it that that has been elevated to a position that it ought not to be in?
Why is it what is it that we believe it offers what is it that we believe it gives us that we might find our joy our life our fullness and satisfaction in you because it can only come from you. Let me ask this in Jesus name. Amen. So like I said we're going to get to Colossians but we're going to start in a few places in the Old Testament to get us started so the first one is going to be on screen it's Jeremiah 2 we started here three weeks ago and what we're trying to do today is see that the essential element of idolatry is looking to something other than God to get what only God can give us.
Of idolatry is looking to something other than God to get what only God can give us. Looking to something other than God to receive what only He can provide what only He is able capable of giving us and so Raz started this off here it's in Jeremiah 2 God at the beginning of this chapter has referred to Israel as His bride
He says I remember when you were my bride and you followed me around in the wilderness He's like I look him back and I remember how good it was and then He keeps going and He says that they've swapped Him out so He says be appalled oh heavens at this be shocked be utterly desolate declares the Lord the reason He says oh heavens is because the heavens all of creation
All of angelic world understands fully who He is so He says you want to hear something crazy you want to hear something that will make your jaw drop to the floor you want to hear something that will destroy you and make you desolate my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and they have hewed out cisterns
For themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water okay so Raz explained this a cistern is a man-made bowl that catches rainwater they can be nice none of them are as good as a fountain of flowing water when you live in an arid climate actually when you are a human but more so when you live in an arid climate water is life
You have to have water to live you have to have water to have crops this is we're in America where we take it for granted but if you quit having water come to your house if our reservoirs run out if that big old water tower doesn't have water anymore we got problems and you will move or you will die that's how it works so the people in this arid climate
Would go to places where there was running water you want to be near a river you want to be near a fountain that's where you would set up life because without water there is no life and if you were if there was no water if there was no running water you would dig a big cistern and it would catch rainwater but nobody who was near a
Fountain dug a cistern because you didn't need to there's a fountain there's flowing water here you don't I don't need that and so what he says is I'm a fountain forever pouring out life forever clean forever fresh forever new and they have swapped me out for a hole they dug if the city
Came to you and was like hey we're going to run water out here and you were like no I don't need that I got an above ground swimming pool we got all the water we need you'd be a moron that's what they did they swapped him out for flowing
Water they swapped that out for an above ground swimming pool but it had a hole in the liner it doesn't even hold the water it says it's broken it fails they're going to die that's what idolatry is this is actually Augustine who was an African church leader in the
Beginning of the church he actually says that sin is a disorder of love that we love something out of place so that God says that we've swapped him out for something that won't suffice but then he keeps going and in Jeremiah 3 it starts this way I want to teach y'all something real quick go to Jeremiah
3 Oh never mind I can't teach you yet I'll have to do it on the next slide you have played the whore with many lovers and would you return to me declares the Lord lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see where have you not been ravished
So this is how God sees idolatry he's talking to Israel he says you were my bride you swapped me out I'm a fountain of living water where all the good stuff comes you built yourself a cistern and you're a whore look look and see where have
You not been ravished that when we go to something other than God to receive what we are only meant to get from God he sees it as being a whore and an adulterer he keeps going verse 9 if you move down in Jeremiah 3 he says
Because she took her whoredom lightly she polluted the land committing adultery with stone and tree so we were meant to find our good things in God but that we go to some idol that's what they had stone idols and trees that they would bow down to
And worship and he says that you've run around on me that you were meant to receive joy and hope and satisfaction and fulfillment in me and you've run to something else pursuing what you were only meant to get from me in something
Else he sees it as adultery see at the bottom says Jeremiah 3 1b if you see that written what that means is it's just the back half of the first verse sometimes it'll say 1a that's actually about to come up that just
Means it's the front half so that's just coaching y'all up on what that means because otherwise you're all like what on earth I don't see a 1b it just means back half because the front half had more to it that we would have to explain so I decided rather than showing that I just
Explained this you're welcome go to the next one Jeremiah 37 for they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands with their idols they have committed adultery you see what happens when we run to something other than God we're actually seeking from it what we're meant to only
Have in him and so the question becomes not just that oh I figured it out I love money no no no why what is money telling you what God level promise is money making to you that you're believing oh no no I've elevated romance too high
You know I was sleepless in Seattle it tricked me and ever since I've been sleepless in Columbia it's like yeah okay but what did it promise you what did it promise you that you bought into why why is that
What you've based life off of what God level promise I will fulfill you I will make you whole I will bring you joy so that you're looking at something and saying if I don't have you I'm not okay I'm not okay you see when we lose a good
Thing we're sad when a good thing is attacked we're angry that's right that's how it's supposed to be but when we've placed something in the place of God we begin to not just feel sad or angry we're devastated we're resentful to the point of we can never forgive someone and it's because we've elevated and said I have to have that or I'm not okay you've stolen
Life from me so here's what we're about to do as we ask this question why I'm going to show a chart all right we're going to walk through this chart now we have found this to be helpful this chart is not found in scripture the things we're going to talk about the concept is found in scripture but the specific
Ones we're going to talk through aren't found in scripture so don't argue with it and get real upset and be like well it's like no this is just to be helpful it's a tool to help us see something what we're trying to see is that we can have a surface level idol but we're actually trying to pursue something underneath it so we're going to do four there could be more there could be fewer
It's just it's just chart to be helpful okay deep idol my life only has meaning if my worst nightmare is people around me feel my problem emotion is it's like a like a really sad game show all right first one power deep idol of power meaning that beneath your surface
Level and I'll explain how that works in a second we're going to walk through all four of these is power my life only has meaning if I have success influence or I win worst nightmare humiliation or failure people around you can feel used problem emotion anger next one approval
My life only has meaning if I have affirmation relationships or I feel loved my worst nightmare is rejection or loneliness people around you can feel smothered problem emotions cowardice can't hurt anybody's feelings can't correct anybody because you need freedom next one comfort
Life only has meaning if I have freedom privacy no stress worst thing ever stress demands people around you can feel neglected because you're supposed to care for them but you just don't problem emotions apathy I would help but so far
Away control life only has meaning if I have self-discipline certainty and standards worst nightmare is uncertainty people around me can feel unloved problem emotion worry or anxiety again this is to be helpful we're gonna leave this up for a
Second I'm gonna walk through and show you some things this is to be helpful to help you see there can be something underneath that your idol is actually working to serve so let's talk about money for a second
Because money is very helpful for us to see this it makes this really clear nobody likes money just because they like money I mean you might would have a few like you might have some money that's like hey look this money's from Mexico isn't that
Neat but you haven't worked really hard to have tons of that it's not super helpful here nobody hoards monopoly money you only care about that for the seven and a half hours you play that game someone was like
Hey things seem to be fun can we try to work to destroy these relationships that we've built over time let's play monopoly yeah I didn't want to like my grandmother after today see we only like money because
It's a tool it accomplishes things for us so you and your spouse might both have a money idol but you argue about money all the time because you actually have
Something underneath that's at work so let's walk through them real quick if you have maybe the deep idol of power and you love money so maybe last week you were like oh I
Just care about money too much I'm working too much I'm just all I care about is money it's like okay but why so if it's power maybe
You realize that one of the best ways to have power in life is to have money you can exert influence you're in control
Of what's going on around you you can have people want to talk to you and want to know you you can affect if
You have enough money you can have people that will come ask your advice on things one of my favorite movies ever is Fiddler
On the roof he sings that song if I were a rich man one of the lines in it is the most important men
In town would come to call on me they'd ask me to advise them like Solomon the wise and then he says and it
Doesn't matter if I answered right or wrong because when you're rich they think you really know and maybe you realize if I have
Money then I have influence I have power the more money I have the more points I have scored in life the more it's
Obvious that I'm winning maybe it's not that at all maybe it's approval so you realize one of the best ways to get people
To like you is to buy them things if you want people to smile at you pay for the pizza boom instant approval be
The person who gets the cheese dip for the table I think I just found my best friend like you just maybe find this
It's one of the best ways to get people to appreciate you maybe it's not that kind of approval maybe you just realize if
You have nice clothes and a nice car and you have the newest stuff people just want to be around you maybe growing up
You were the kid who had the Atari or the N64 or the Playstation 4 just depending on what age you grew up in
The basketball goal whatever you just found hey this is a great way to get people to want to be around I'm annoying but
If I have an N64 people will be my friend maybe it's comfort so you need money you work hard but the goal is
To then use your money to defend you from discomfort biggest couch biggest television door dash uber eats used to be you could just order
Pizza around here now you can have someone deliver mcdonald's to your house why would you do that you have money and you love
Comfort you can have how amazing is that I'll sit on my couch I'll watch stranger things someone will knock on my door and
Hand me food I don't need to be in a community group I'm good I got friends I got food I got a couch
Leave me alone maybe it's control you don't have to worry about the future because you have money you can pay for something for
Your children but then you use it to dig your hooks in I'll pay for the wedding no no not that color no no
Not that music no no I'm sorry I wrote a check I am in charge now maybe it's not that malicious it's just so
Nice to have some money in the bank because the future isn't as scary transmission goes out I got this I know nothing about
Cars we're okay it's just a good way to be in control now that's just four you can put success up there you can
Say that's the primary one you can put something else up there this is just to help you see that if you've identified a
Surface level idol in reality it is just think back to the ancient Greeks and they had the Parthenon where they had all these
Different idols that they worshipped and they had Artemis and they had Ares and they had all these different ones that they would worship
They were just a means to an end Ares helped you win your war Artemis kept you influential and made you successful Aphrodite brought
About beauty and love and the reality this so I'll serve this I want comfort I want control I want power I want influence
I want love I want approval I want romance so I'll serve this alright now it gets really scary let's take approval let's follow the life of a young
Lady she just wants approval she just needs people to look at her and smile and clap you guys from zero to fifth grade
She is a little princess perfectly well behaved made good grades she memorized things she did all the stuff in front of people and
It was celebrated it was beautiful it was good to see and not a bad thing to be doing but in reality she just
Has this hole in her heart she needs approval that's what she was running off of then middle school things got weird it's like
What happened to our perfect little angel but the reality was nothing happened to her she just found a better idol surface idol to
Serve her approval God she got to middle school and it turns out it was other middle school girls that's that's that's where she felt the most
Approval and when she didn't have that approval it's where it hurt the most wasn't coming from mom and dad anymore it's coming from
13 Year olds so she completely changed her heart level idol didn't but her surface level did that was middle school she has high
School turns out it's boys best way to get approval so most of her life back in the day maybe that meant she was
At parties she was always decked out hanging at the mall maybe it meant she was in the backseat of cars now maybe it
Means she's on Instagram all the time sending out pictures and doing things that she ought not be doing with a cell phone the
Goal is just to get some likes just to get some approval just have somebody smile and clap she gets around some Christians all her friend group
Changes and now the best way to be approved of by Christians is behave say the right stuff so she's not in love with Jesus she's
In love with approval but she found that being around Christians is a good way to get encouragement they're super encouraging people you guys she
Starts behaving well they start clapping for so here's what happens she looks like she loves Jesus she falls into sin can't confess it
Can't let anybody know she pretends she hides she doesn't actually love Jesus she doesn't actually understand that he's a savior she doesn't actually
Understand she can confess everything she just needs approval and so what looked like great behavior and looked like a love for Jesus was
Actually just a love for approval and as soon as it came time to repent it came time to confess and it came time
To own some sin and to get rid of some evil in her heart she can't do it because she'll lose approval from her peers
And you could watch her life and it would seem like she'd gone through different phases but she hadn't she served one God the
Whole time you can do that with power you can do it with comfort you can do it with control you can see that
Something changes over time but in reality the deep heart level God that is being served maybe hadn't shifted at all just the thing
That seemed like it would best accomplish the Job at the time you see our idols are so often just a means to an
End because our idols have come along and they've promised us they've made God level promises I know when people meet me one of
The first thoughts they have is I bet he was really cool in middle school you'd be surprised to find out that is not true
I was not really cool in middle school I know be shocked be utterly desolate but in middle school at one point I thought it
Would be cool and it would make me from this color to like a bleached white blonde and then as I got closer to
It I was like not my whole head just the top just this part you'll be even more surprised to find out that that
Did not make me cool it did not look cool I didn't really know it right when I first did it I thought it
Was awesome and then the more grew out and often the people around us can see how stupid we look but we can't see
It it's one of the things we talk about in our community groups one of the ways you serve each other best is to help point out
To someone hey I think this is actually an idol for you come in tread lightly as you enter don't move don't back up
When they say no because of course they'll say no hey I actually think you value your children a little more you probably ought to
Just keep pushing there keep talking about it be calm but don't back up if they just say no I actually think relationships boyfriends
Mean a little bit too much to you because it's easier for us to see other people's idols than it is for us to see
Our all we need the church family we see our own idols because in reality so often they're good things and we love them
So it's hard to move off of them they're promising us something that they can't provide but we don't know that yet and often
When we are most frustrated with God it's actually him doing what he's done since the beginning he's grabbing our idol and he's punching
It in the face it's actually what he does in Egypt when he does the ten plagues he goes through and picks their gods
And just makes a mockery of them oh y'all have like a frog God watch I'm in charge of frogs because I always wondered
I read those and these plagues are so weird God was like I'm going to flex frogs that's a weird flex but okay it's
Like no he's actually picking a God they have and he's he's just putting their gods in a headlock you have an eye of
God turn it to blood how's that taste like he oh you have a God in charge of the sun sun doesn't work anymore
And he does that to us because he loves us he graciously at times will come in and just destroy one of our gods
It'll fall apart in front of us because he wants something better for us that can actually withstand the weight of worship that can
Actually fulfill the promises that it's making I remember being in middle school my older brother and my dad were arguing which was not
Uncommon I remember my dad looking at my older brother and double pointing because that's how he pointed I think he got used to
It from when he was smoking all the time and he would pop it out there I mean it was serious big forearms big
Hand he double pointed at him I've been practicing it now I got boys look here boy I've learned I'm a pastor my dad
Was not I've learned that my dad say phrases I have to work on because some of them I writing some checks that you
Can't cash you making some promises but if I have to take that to the bank it's going to bounce because there's no money
In that account you cannot provide for me what you have told me you can provide you have lied and therefore have no place
Here anymore you see what happens is our idols are telling us that they can give us life that they are chapter three I
Said we'd get there isn't it nice to know you had your bible hold open to some good news the whole time Jesus is
Just hanging out about to show us what he does starts off if then you have been raised with Christ so this is for
Christians if you are not a Christian this is offered to you but is not true for you this is offered to you but
It is not true for you but if you are in here and you are in Christ this is true for you provided through
Christ if then you have been raised with Christ meaning that when we do baptism this is one of the pictures we have in
Baptism is that you're buried with Christ that you're dead to your sin and that you are raised with Christ that you rise to
New life in Christ so it's saying if you've placed your faith in Christ that you've died to your sin that he died for
It that he nailed it to the cross that when he rose your life is in him now that's what it's saying if you've
Been raised with Christ seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God you see so much of
Our idolatry is us seeking things us chasing after something saying if I could just have this then I'll be okay and what he's
Saying is if you're with Christ if you're raised with Christ set your mind on the things above seek the things that are above
Set your minds on things that are above set yourself set your mind put this more set your mind on the things that are
Above not on the things that are on earth for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God and when
Christ who is your life appears then you also will appear with him in glory you see our idols have told us your life
Is hidden in me if you can have me you have life you have the good life that's however you would define it you
Have comfort you have control you have security you have joy if you can have me the reality is only Christ can fulfill those
Promises and it's only in him that our life is hidden I had a friend and a co-worker who would do online dating he
Had been married when he was fairly young he had gotten divorced and he was older at this point and really wanted to get married
And he would do online dating and you guys when he would start a conversation and I don't remember what app he was using
And they would send winks or you know touches or jolts or whatever hearts whenever that happened he was through the roof she might
Be the one like he would just be giddy a bit much for me he would just be around me like okay you know he
Would be sending our messages or whatever and he would start sending too many messages and he would do you know he just it
Was too much and then whenever these conversations would die off or they would go on a date but he just would crash I remember
Looking at one point going bro you met her a week ago you should not be this sad and for all we know she is the
Terrible person maybe not the best advice I was just trying to think through here you don't know anything but the reality was he
Thought he believed that life was hidden in one of these females it was hidden his life his joy his hope his future was
Hidden and he just had to find it and so anytime it came around and anytime there was an opportunity for it he was
Through the roof because here comes life here comes joy here comes the fix to all my sadness here comes the thing I can't
Live without and when it would die off when it would stop he would just fall apart and in reality we're all doing that
Maybe yours is a little further down the road if I could just have this type of land if I could have this type of
Job if I could just have this if my kids just grow up and they're well behaved and people look at me and think
My life is hidden in them so that I'm something because my life is bound up in them and if they don't turn out
Okay I don't have life and I don't have joy and I don't have satisfaction so you've elevated your children so you've elevated your
Spouse so you've elevated your Job to a position that it cannot hold and you are asking of it something that it cannot provide and
Therefore you are dying and my wife likes me most days the day she needs me to perfectly fulfill her perfectly fill her up
Provide for her what only God can provide she will be very sad and I will be crushed I will not be able to
Sin I will not be able to confess I will not be able to fail she will need something from me that I cannot
Provide and if I do that with her the same do that with your Job you can do that with your friends you can
Do that with your children if you begin to believe that your life is hidden in them it will fall apart but if you
Are in Christ your life is hidden in him what my friend needed to learn how to do what I need to learn how
To do is when this thing begins to whisper if you just have me is to be able to look at it and say no no no no my life is not hidden in you my hope is not found in you when you appear when I get the rays when I get the thing
When you appear I will not suddenly be swept up into glory and find my life it will not happen my life is hidden with Christ in God and when he appears then I'll have life then I'll have hope then I'll have joy then it'll fulfill me fully and completely and that is where my rest is and that is where my hope is and so just as we have inadvertently removed God from his throne and placed something else there we get to actively remove that it's writing checks it cannot cash and then look to Christ and say my life is hidden in you my hope is found in you my joy is found in you my satisfaction my security
My comfort you approve of me and that outweighs everyone else's approval so that when I sin I actually can confess and I can walk in the approval that is provided for me by Christ I can be open about my sin I can be open about my struggles because I get approval from you I get joy from you I get comfort from you I get hope from you I am not destroyed by the things going on here because my life is not in them therefore they cannot take it away there is freedom in having our life bound up in a resurrected and ruling Christ and we are not free until our life is there
As long as your life is found somewhere here you are not free you are a slave you are bound and it will destroy you but when our life is in Christ we have life Augustine I quoted them earlier he says this he says you have made us for yourself oh Lord and our hearts are restless until it rests in you and that is the truth we were designed for God and we will not find satisfaction and fulfillment in anything else Raz and Matt
Are going to come back up our hearts will be restless until we learn how to rest in him until we learn how to look at him and say you are the one who approves of my soul you are the one who has died for me who has risen for me who has saved me you are the living hope and my life is bound up in you I will not find it anywhere else see the reality is that only satisfaction satisfaction can only be found in Christ rest can only be found in Christ fulfillment can only be found in Christ and if we are looking for it somewhere else it is too small to handle the weight
Everything else is just a little picture of what he is like none of them can actually handle what he accomplishes for us and Jesus Christ is jealous for us and loves us so much that he comes he challenges our idols and he dies and dies for our sin rises again that we might place our faith in him and not in anything else we put our hope in him and not in anything else we put our trust in him and not in anything else therefore we will not be let down we will not be put to shame as the Bible says it so often that no one will be put to shame
That trusts in him see there are things that we trust in and we get put to shame I dyed my hair yellow publicly wore shame on the top of my head but in reality I am so tempted to do that with other things that will put me to shame far worse that will fail me far more extravagantly that will fall apart and I have built my whole life on them because I will believe that my life is in them and it is not and everyone who trusts in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will not be put to shame
He can handle the weight of our life it can be hidden in him and if you have not trusted in Christ I would encourage you to do that now and for those of us who are in Christ I would encourage you to take this time to ask the Holy Spirit to help you see your idols to help you see what it is why you have believed their lies and to look at them and actively through the power of the Holy Spirit say you are a liar my life is hidden in Christ you cannot provide what you have told me you can provide but Jesus Christ can so we are going to
In a moment as they play we are going to pray through that and then when you feel ready to walk up and take communion if you are a Christian that is for you if you are not a Christian please do not take communion we want you to have Christ before you remember what he has done for you but as Christians as we repent as we tell our idols that they are liars and we trust in Christ we are going to walk forward and we are going to partake in his broken body and his shed blood for us knowing that we have died to our sin
That our life is in him and when he returns we will be swept up with him in glory and we will find our life that none of our idols can handle that none of our idols can carry that let's pray Jesus our idols have lied to our hearts and we have believed them forgive us forgive us for committing adultery for running to created things and begging them to provide for us what only you can Lord help us
To love you more seeing that you died for us that you rose again and that we trust in you our life is in you and help us to never believe that something else smaller can handle it we ask that in this moment that you would work in our hearts that we might see our idolatry and that we might trust and love you more
We ask all this in Jesus name amen arevideo there may be well
Never Satisfied
Transcript
Well, good morning. Hopefully you saw something on that video that you love and care deeply about. Part of our goal in this sermon series is to pick a little bit of a fight. So I'm glad to see y'all this morning. We are in the second week of our Idol series. We're taking just a couple of weeks to talk about the fact that we as humans are idolaters, meaning that we put something else other than God in the place of God as our highest affection.
This is what Raz talked about last week, that the first and greatest commandment is that we would love the Lord our God with everything we have and that that orders everything else for us. That comes first, and as long as we have that in place, then the rest of life will flow, function, work, make sense, operate the way it ought to. And as soon as that's out of place, we are disoriented. Our lives are disoriented and everything begins to go poorly. That's primarily what we're talking about, and that is idolatry. Now, there's a temptation for us culturally to go, okay, okay, okay, hold on a second.
Like, other cultures have idols. We don't. That's why we started that video. It starts off with a totem pole. It's like, yes, that's an idol, but we don't really have that. Like, if you went to ancient Rome or Greece or whatever, yeah, they have a temple set up to Athena or Artemis, or they have a temple set up to Aphrodite, but we don't do that.
And I would just argue that I think they were just a little more straightforward with their idolatry, and we're just a little more subtle with it. Aphrodite, they would have a temple set up to her. She was the goddess of beauty and sexuality. Okay. You might not worship Aphrodite, but Americans worship beauty and sexuality. When you're in line at the grocery store, check out the magazines.
That's half of what they're talking about. You may not have a festival to Bacchus where you're going to drink and celebrate in his name, but we're going to have a festival to something where we're going to drink and celebrate and give too much credence to comfort and to celebration. You may not think that you worship Athena, but our culture worships wisdom. We worship education. We place too much value in these sort of things. We don't worship Aries, but we do have the greatest military on the planet.
And some of y'all, see your little heart just beat a little faster because of how special and magic that is in the 4th of July in America. And we blow things up to become a country, and we blow things up to celebrate. We are a country, and there's this tendency to worship some of the same things. That they would worship Baal by having a giant bull statue that they bowed down to, that they worshiped, that they celebrated, that they hoped brought plenty and value and economic growth. And we have a giant bull statue sitting out in front of the New York Stock Exchange that you can go rub for good luck if you'd like.
We're just a little more subtle, but we're worshiping the same things culturally. And I want to argue with you today that you are in your heart an idolater. That I am in my heart an idolater, meaning that I place other things in the spot of God, expect them to give me what only God can give me, to save me, to give me value, to give me worth, and that ultimately this destroys and falls apart and cannot stand, that what I am worshiping cannot stand under the weight of my worship. So here's our goal. We're going to talk a little bit about idolatry. We're going to get our minds wrapped around that, make sure we're all on the same page conceptually, and then we are going to try to diagnose our own hearts today.
So we're going to study a few passages of Scripture, and then we're going to ask a lot of questions, and I'm going to coach you up on how to do that. But grab your Bibles, go to Exodus chapter 20. We're going to pick up where God is giving the law. So this is the first, this is His Ten Commandments, after He's brought the Israelites out of Egypt. I don't know if y'all have ever read Genesis. If you get the chance, it's a wonderful book.
At the end of Genesis, the Israelites are in Egypt, and the book of Exodus picks up, and it's hundreds of years later, and it says a Pharaoh came along who did not know Joseph, and they just saw that all these Israelites were here. They thought they were a threat, so they enslaved them. They're enslaved for 400 years, and then God sends Moses down to Egypt with a hit song that He's going to sing to Pharaoh about letting His people go, and they're going to march them on out. That's not true, but the song helps you remember stuff. He brings them out of Egypt into the wilderness, and God begins to give them His law, and that's what we're going to pick up, but we're going to pray before we do that.
So let's pray. God, identifying our idols is difficult. It is a difficult task for us to do. So we ask for your help. We ask for your grace, and we pray that you, through your Holy Spirit, would minister to us so that we might love you above all else. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, so Exodus chapter 20, and 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. You shall not have no other gods before me. So he immediately goes into the Ten Commandments, but I want to point out something to us real quick. He starts off with, I am the God who brought you out of slavery. Now, here's how to obey. Here's how to follow.
That we sometimes want to get this backwards. We want to get to, God calls us to obedience. God calls us to morality. God calls us to good works. And then, He'll save us. Then He'll redeem us.
Then He'll work on our behalf. But that's not how it works in the Old Testament or the New Testament. You don't clean yourself up so that Jesus will love you. Jesus loves you. He cleans us up. Therefore, we obey.
In the Old Testament, God rescues them out of slavery and then says, here's how to follow. Here's how to obey. We always move in response to what God has already done. It's not the main point of the passage or the sermon, but I got to point that out because it's really, really good news. Verse 3. You shall have no other gods before me.
Meaning, first rule is that I'm primary. Nothing else gets to be in my spot. Nothing else gets to be in front of me. Nothing else. I'm number one. That's what God says.
I rescued you out of slavery. I'm number one. Now, I've heard people argue, I've heard my cousin argue, that that puts God in a very narcissistic position. If I elevate myself, if you elevate yourself and say, I'm number one, everybody needs to worship me and love me above everything else, that is a very narcissistic position because you can't handle it. You're not valuable enough to be worshipped like that. When God calls us to it, he's calling us to something that is for our own good because he is better than everything else.
He created everything else. All the little good things we have in life are just small pictures of what he's like that point us to his goodness. The one who created it, who thought it up, who exudes it. And so when he says, put me first, he is actually calling us to our own joy, not to begrudging submission. But he says, I'll be above everything else.
And the second commandment is, 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 generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. God says, I am a jealous God. I told my son that and he was like, well, that's bad because there's this idea that jealousy is bad, that it's a negative trait.
Greed's bad. Covetousness is bad. Jealousy can make us do inappropriate or bad things, but jealousy is not bad because God is jealous and therefore there's an appropriate type of jealousy. Let's talk about jealousy for just a second. This is actually really good that God is a jealous God. I, a while back I saw Oprah and she was actually talking about one of the things that led her away from faith was that she was gathered with a church.
She said the pastor said that God is a jealous God and Oprah said she sat there and was like, wait, God's jealous of me? And she was like, I just couldn't, I couldn't wrap my mind around that. That God would be jealous of me. Um, no, Oprah. He's not jealous of you. God's not in heaven going, you know, being God's pretty nice, but if I could just be Oprah, that would be the deal.
He's not, he's not doing that. He's not jealous of, he's jealous for, he's jealous over. It's a healthy, righteous jealousy that he wants our affection. He wants our love. I am jealous for or over my wife. So if we went to a party, I don't know where you're from, a hootenanny, a shindig, whatever y'all like to call it.
If we went to one of those and I looked over and there was an attractive man talking to my wife and they were flirting, she's blushing and giggling and I felt jealousy rise up in me, I would not be jealous of her. I wouldn't be over there thinking, you know, I dressed up and came to the party. He doesn't flirt with me. I don't see any guys hitting on me. I would, that would not be the jealousy I had. I would be jealous over her.
I would be jealous. I would, I don't want her to want to flirt with someone else. I want her, I want him to try and then be humiliated. And she's just like, gives him cold dead eyes and is like, get stepping. That's what I want. Because I'm jealous for her.
I want her affection. And so when he says that God is a jealous God, he says, you will have no other gods. You will not make any graven image, anything in likeness of heaven above or earth below or in the waters. Nothing, because nothing is comparable to me and I want your love and affection. I'm a jealous God. And that is appropriate both for him and for us.
You want God to be jealous. We're going to talk more about that next week, but we are too easily distracted by much cheaper, smaller, shinier, little temporary things that lead us to destruction and we want God to love us enough, to love our heart enough, to desire our affection so that he chases us down. So he's a jealous God and we are to have nothing above him. But as this passage explains it, what is an idol or what gets to be an idol or what would fit into the category of an idol? Well, anything that you would bow down to and serve. Anything that would take the place of God.
Anything in heaven or on earth or in the ocean. Anything. Anything that we would bow down to and serve. Anything that would steal our affection. Anything that would presume to dethrone God and assume his place. Romans 1.
We're going to quickly look at it. It'll be on screen. I'm not going to have you turn there because we're going to go to one other passage in the Old Testament and we're going to just look at those two in our Bibles. But Romans 1 will be up here. It says this. This is Paul talking about this conceptually for humanity.
It says, For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. You see that this is a heart level problem that we would love and worship something else. It's a heart level problem. That's why God is jealous for us. He's jealous for our affection and our love. Their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise.
They became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. It is foolish to replace God with something else smaller than God and God loves us enough to address this. If you have children and they grow to be middle schoolers and they decide in middle school, I am no longer going to listen to the wisdom of my parents who know me and love me. I am now going to base all of my decision off of the four sixth graders I hang out with. I'm replacing my parents' wisdom and guidance with the wisdom and guidance of 12-year-old boys and girls.
That would be foolish and they would do stupid things and when we say, I don't want God here, I want something else here, I want this to give me value, I want this to give me purpose, I want this to give me worth, it's foolish and we do stupid things. That's what it's saying. They became fools. Therefore, verse 24, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Alright, so it says worshipped and served.
In Exodus, he says bow down to or serve. We're actually going to use those, worship or bow down to and the idea of serve, we're going to use those to help diagnose our hearts in a minute but we're going to get one more that's going to help us. So we're going to go to Ezekiel chapter 14. Here's what you may be tempted to do and you would not be completely wrong. There's a temptation to go, okay, okay, hold on a second. I know you're making your little point about how we're idolatrous but the biggest problem in Exodus and in Romans is that these people actually worshipped another God.
So not the God of the Bible, not the God revealed to us in Christ, some other God. Actually, Aphrodite. Not just the concept of love but actually Artemis. Not just the concept of war and power but actually Ares. that was the biggest problem, that they had actual idols, that Baal was an actual other God that they went after and you're saying, okay, so, bro, I'm here. Maybe you don't say bro, maybe you say, sir, I'm here. I'm not doing that.
I'm worshipping this one. I don't have this problem. Maybe you're not making that argument at all but if you are, welcome to Ezekiel chapter 14. Oh, I said that. I hadn't turned yet. I've just been talking, y'all.
Ezekiel chapter 14, we're going to see some elders come to the prophet Ezekiel to inquire of the Lord. Meaning they care about the Lord, they follow the Lord, they want to hear from the Lord. Here's what it says. Ezekiel chapter 14. Then certain of the elders of Israel, elders being leaders of Israel, came to me, this is Ezekiel writing this, and sat before me and the word of the Lord came to me.
Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? So these elders would have said they're worshipping and serving God. They're actually so much so that they're going to the prophet to find out what they're supposed to do. They're going to go ask him what things ought to look like. They're going to go talk to...
They're here. And God says, no, no. They've set up idols in their hearts. They actually love and worship and serve other things, not me. Should I respond to them? It's a rhetorical question.
God's going to answer it. Therefore, speak to them and say to them, verse 4, thus says the Lord God, anyone of the house of Israel who takes his idol into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and yet comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols. It got scarier a second ago when we found out we could put idols in our heart. You actually don't have to have something that's a statue that you worship or serve. You don't have to have, you know, a big stadium where you gather with other people and shout and cry and worship some, I don't know, orange, you know, dressed up, I don't know, 24 year olds or whatever.
You touch a rock and praise all that stuff. You don't have to do that. You can put it in your heart. Just say, oh no, Gamecocks aren't in danger of worshiping the Gamecocks. It's a bad God right now. You're not placing your faith in them for your value.
But you're wearing orange, you're on the line, y'all. You're in danger. Jump ship before it means too much. Here's what he says. Not only can we put them in our heart, but we can actually have a multitude. I had somebody say that the bumper video we had a second ago, they were like, if you look too long at it, you might have a seizure.
It's frantic. Yes. And so are our hearts. That we have things that we love and that we worship and that we change and that we can have a multitude of things that matter more to us and that we value over God. So it says, the multitude of his idols that I may lay hold.
He says, I will answer him to his face when he comes to the multitude of his idols that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from me through their idols. Meaning that our idols lead us away from God. They make us estranged to him. So, we now have the three things that we're going to do to try to investigate our hearts. We're going to stay in this passage. We're going to pick back up here as we end, but we're going to take just a minute to try to diagnose our own hearts.
Now, Law and Order is a very popular television show and here's what they do in Law and Order. If you've seen one episode, you've seen all the episodes from what I understand. That's pretty much how Law and Order works. The first half is law. The second half is order. I don't really know if that's how it works but basically the police go investigate a thing.
They catch a person and then the second half is you get to jump ahead to the trial. That's what we're going to do. We're going to all play a game called Law and Order today. We're going to investigate our hearts and we're going to put ourselves on trial. I want to show y'all something as we step into this. I want to help us understand why we're approaching it this way.
Jeremiah 17, 9. This will be on the screen. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can understand it. There's a distinct problem in what we're going to do today. You are going to ask your heart do you love something more than God? And your heart which is a liar is going to say no.
You're going to say wait, hold on a second are we talking about this? And the answer because we're going to ask questions that are real straightforward like what do you spend most of your money on? What do you spend most of your time? What do you daydream about? And you're going to think here's what I daydream about and then you're going to go that's not a bad thing to daydream about. That's a good thing to daydream about.
And because you're saying it to you and you're a liar and your heart is the one you're investigating you're going to go good point heart. And if you go heart have you been loving this too much your heart's going to go me? Moi? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We love that the exact appropriate amount and other people who don't love it the amount that we do they're messed up. We're right.
And you're going to go you make a good point there heart. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to answer all the questions as honestly as you can. There's in truth there's going to be some things I ask like what do you spend most of your money on? You can have quick answers too and we're just going to take that as evidence to try to figure out okay that's evidence. That's the cop part.
We're just getting evidence. We're just going to compile it so we can look at it so we can have enough evidence to go to trial. When we go to trial you know in the courtroom scenes where they're interrogating the person behind the little bench and then the lawyer the prosecutor goes over to the judge and says permission to treat the witness as hostile and the judge says permission granted that's what we're doing today. Permission to treat the witness as hostile. Your heart wants to deceive you and lead you down a path that will destroy you far away from God and we're going to treat our hearts as hostile today.
We're going to compile as much evidence as we can and then we're just going to go and say alright evidence isn't looking good heart and our heart's going to go shh shh shh shh and we're going to go permission to treat the witness as hostile and then we're going to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. Y'all ready? Dun dun. Alright. That's what we're going to do. These are their stories.
Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're doing. We've got three questions we're asking using what we saw earlier that we would worship that we would bow down to something that we would serve something and then we're going to talk about that we would have something that we have set up as a stumbling block of iniquity and that's the one I'm really looking forward to just because doesn't that sound like an awesome thing to investigate stumbling blocks of iniquity? So we're going to get there.
First one. What do you what do I worship or bow down to? So he says that we would set up anything that we would worship and bow down to. So worship and bow down means that we revere. The idea of worship is that we have something that we love and fear. That we love and fear.
A good example a good earthly example is if you had a good father. You should have loved and feared your father. Now there are messed up examples but we all maybe can picture in our mind a good example of a father that you would love and fear that you would know they loved you that you would want to please them you would want them to smile on you you would want their approval and also you would not want their disapproval. You would not want the quote unquote wrath of your father. That's my goal with my children. I have two boys that one day I'm going to try to fully help them understand what God is like and my goal is to be a small stand in of what that would look like that they might love me they might know I love them and that they might appropriately fear me.
That one day I'm going to try to fully help them understand what God is like and my goal is to be a small stand in of what that would look like that they might love me they might know I love them and that they might appropriately fear me. They're not going to check under their bed for me at night but I want my sons before they go to do something they know they shouldn't do to stop and think wait a second hmm that won't go well if I do it and I love my dad
And I know he loves me and I want to please him but that's what worship is that we would love and fear something and so what happens is God is supposed to be in that spot he's supposed to be at the head of the table that we're to bow down to him meaning that he has the most weight the most glory in our lives that he's at the head of the table and that everything else follows so that we're supposed to you're supposed to in life it's normal to have a hierarchy
If you go to make a decision you're supposed to have things that you consider when you make a decision if you are married you should consider your spouse when you make a decision if you don't they will remind you that you should have done that if you have children you should consider your children before you make a decision if you own four cats you have to consider your four cats before you make a decision it's just how life works this is why people in our church family are always asking
Somebody to watch their dogs when they go on a trip because they can't just leave their house and leave their dogs there that would be a problem when they returned that's how it works you have to consider but if you consider your dog in front of your children you're out of order in how you're making decisions you ever look on Craigslist and someone says hey took a new job moved to a new place couldn't take my dog trying to sell it for 50 bucks seen those
You're like yeah I've seen that I know what you're talking about okay ever seen one that was like hey moving to a new place we're downsizing a little bit and we had to get rid of one of our children it's fair we drew straws or we just picked the youngest one because they've been here the least we don't know them as well as we know the other ones but it does that because there's a hierarchy on how we make decisions we're following okay
God's supposed to sit at the top and therefore everything is what does God want from us what does he want from me then as I go to make decisions he's worshipped he's honored he's bowed down to then I look and think okay how does this affect family how does this affect finances how does this affect the problem is we move God from the head of the table and we put something else there as our guiding
Decision making thing that we love and fear some of us so love and fear what people think about us that all of our decision making all of our life is run through that something happens first thought is what will people think first thing we try to do is image manage first thing that we run to is to try to fix the story that's going to come out because one of the primary things for us that's taken this spot of not what does God want
What's honoring to him what is image management or maybe we put money there so your primary rubric for decision making the thing that you bend to that you bow to is how will this affect my finances and you can actually trace your life on more money more money more money would help money would help money would help money and here's the thing it's in our hearts so we make all these decisions in really small ways all the time without thinking about it you don't actually
Pull out your hierarchy chart and go which do I care more about money or children let me check the chart money but you might every day make little decisions that put money above your children that put money above the Lord does that make sense are we understanding that there's a there's that these things can get out of place and that we would begin to so here a few questions
Oh let me show you something else that happens with these before we ask the questions since I looked at them on it often the thing that we truly love the thing that we truly fear the thing that we truly worship if you're in this room it's very likely that you have recruited Jesus to help you get the thing you really want you've just enlisted him
You think that he's a really good way to get the thing you really want I'm gonna give a couple of examples I had a buddy of mine I met in seminary he said his church that he grew up in his mom went to at the end of their services they would stand up and they would say money come to me money come to me that they actually believed
In their their theology that one of the things they were supposed to do one of the things that God owed them was health and wealth and finances and so they actually when they gathered in public worship they I guess commanded money to come to them okay seems a little out of order this is actually one of the things
That's told people and is that if you trust Jesus he'll give you everything you ever wanted and that works fine it's actually not a bad theology until you read the Bible and you see the people who worship Jesus get a whole lot of things they
Didn't want and not get a whole lot of the things I'm sure they would have liked it would have been nice to have I was coming through I didn't go to a church like that but when I was growing up I was in a youth group we did true love
Waits for those of you unfamiliar with true love waits this is a kind of a program that youth students would do where you were told that you are not supposed to have sex before you get married for the record I know a church family that is correct
You should not and that you were told one of the things that went along with this was if you don't then you'll the Lord has someone for you you're waiting for your true love and so if you do not have sex before you are married God will bring you
Your perfect special someone now I'm sure this was taught in an effective healthy way that not that second part and I'm also sure that that second part was was broadcast as like a real true thing the Bible says and so what happened was you
Were not obeying God because he is glorious and he is good and he has redeemed us from sin and sin is why he went to the cross we're not obeying him because we love him and cherish him above everything else we're obeying him because that's the system you get in so that God will owe you when you get to the end of the line so then you have people who who I'm 35 and I have had sex with exactly zero people and where's my perfect special snowflake
Someone rainbow unicorn person that God owes me it's like well that was a cute story but it's not here the reason for sexual abstinence the reason to be chased is actually because God is more valuable and more beautiful and more worthy than sex not because down the line who give you this promised land person this happens all the time the thing we really want Jesus is just a good way to get us there this is what people say I I had to walk away I had to walk away from the faith because I brought
My children up in church and they all rebelled and they all ran off and it was just a big old train wreck and God let me down okay well he owed you something that's not like yes I would argue bringing children up in churches good for their souls because they're sinners who need Christ but not because it's a guaranteed fix people will say I trusted God and he let me down what it means is that I had a thing that he had to give me in order to be God and when he did not do that thing when he did not give me that thing he
Failed me because that thing is actually above him not that he's trustworthy but that he's only good in as far as he'll give me the thing I really want that's idolatry it's bad for our souls so here are a few questions as we gather evidence and we will do more of this in our groups this week what are you afraid of I'm gonna ask a bunch you may just want to jot down answers as you can think about them what is your biggest nightmare what's the thing that if it goes wrong everything's falling apart what do you daydream about what do you long for what are you frustrated
With God over because he owes you he should have given you or shouldn't have taken away what steals your affection what do you most look forward to when you're having a hard day what gets you through what thoughts do you comfort yourself with in decision decision making what do you consider most there's some people that I have heard say well God won't tell you to do that God won't tell you to go to another country because you have children God won't tell you to move to that neighborhood because you have children it's your first Job to your children to do this sort of thing I think considering
Your children and considering a neighborhood and considering what country you live in is a very wise thing to do and I think thinking that God can't tell you to do something else is a very unwise thing to do so is something taking precedence over him so that it's impossible for him to lead you because that thing is actually in charge what do you defend we only defend the things that we love some of you I could tell you you are a terrible cook and you would laugh and say yes and then if I said and you are unathletic you'd be like pause time out I need to show you some trophies I need you to see how many push-ups I can do I've had people in our church family tell me
I don't like you even like on their way out they were just a part of people in my group I don't like you my response to that okay seems fair like I if that same person had said because you were stupid I would have gone wait wait hold on a second like actually stupid or like relationally stupid like test score stupid or like I said a thing you didn't like because I don't care if you like me but there's something inside of me that wants you to not think I'm stupid you can hate me all you want I just need you to think I'm great that's what I want to defend does that make sense so there's something what is it that you run to what is it you try to steer conversations to what is it that you need people to know about you what is it that you use to elevate yourself or to lower other
People a way to find that the opposite direction is what do you most look down on others for is it because they're terrible moms means you probably place a lot of weight in being a good mom you need people to be bad mom so that you can be a good mom and so that you know that you're rising up in the hierarchy and that you have value and purpose and worth is it that people are lazy you look down on them you have no time for those kind of people then you probably place a lot of value in being a hard worker and you actually need people to be lazy so that you can be elevated so that you can have your purpose and your value and your worth found in that is it that other people are inconsiderate that's because you place a lot of value in being very considerate and that actually makes you a good person makes them the bad people there's there's a way that we
Do this in a way that finds our value our purpose and our worth in something other than God and therefore it helps us make decisions and move through life that was number one what do we worship what do we bow to second what do you serve what do you serve what do you put your time and effort and money in for I've said this before believe it to be true there are certain things in your life and in my life where when the opportunity comes your wallet just appears in your hand you didn't even think about it just was there that seemed like a reasonable price that seemed like a good thing to spend money on if you look mine what my wife's budget that is eating out we don't eat out fancy we just like having somebody else fix our food it's just nice you guys and then we have a kid with allergies it's made it really hard on how to do that because we gotta
Figure out how we gotta cook for him no matter what some of you that sounds crazy to you you would never eat out that's because your wallet magically appears in your hand for something else that's where your money goes because that's what you value that's where your time goes because that's what you value some of you labor over how you look over how your body looks and our hearts immediately want to say yeah but that's good being healthy is good it is and maybe that maybe you're it's in an appropriate place or maybe your heart's a liar some of you have the greatest television and sound system and couch that the world has ever known and whenever it comes to a new gadget or a new thing your wallet just shoots out of your hand your credit card number just spews out of your mouth gleefully and you get all tingly because this is what you really love or
If somebody needs this kind of thing you would serve for you would work for you would labor for it and then somebody else asked for some service or some time and you have no time for it there's so people who who can have have everything that has ever happened in the marvel cinematic universe perfectly aligned and in their brain they know when things happen and which soul stone was which and all of this sort of thing and they read all the articles and then you say have you read your Bible and they say man I really don't have time somebody's been at the gym every day this week and then you say hey we're hanging out with our group tonight I gotta get to school I gotta do my class work that we have time for some things that we actually value and we don't have time for the things that we don't and there's something that's gotten out of place in our hearts what do you serve where do you put in time when you
Picture your future what's changed what have you earned what have you achieved what have you become what are you laboring for right now that you're saying if I can just have this then I'll be okay then I'll be happy all right number three what is your stumbling block of iniquity this is the phrase that came from Ezekiel he says they put idols in their heart they've set their stumbling block of iniquity in front of their faces what we're asking is what makes you fall into sin this is what Raz was talking about last week that if something we love something more than God it takes precedence over him and here's the thing we don't break any of the other commandments unless we've broken the first one that something else is in God's place if you love God with all your heart with all your soul with all of your strength with all of your mind with all of your mind with everything that
You have and you get the opportunity to sin you say no because he has stolen our affection but when we sin what we're saying is I would actually rather have this thing than God I'd actually rather have his his love her love I'd actually rather have money than than what God has for me it's what makes us fall into sin so the questions are what are you willing to sin to get and what are you willing to sin to keep for example some of you are perfectly have perfect integrity when it comes to money you wouldn't take a dime off the street but everybody around you believes that you can bench press 50 pounds more than you actually can't you would not lie about another person you would not lie to anyone about anything unless they called you on a Saturday and asked you to help them move and then you know I really wish I could but one of my kids is sick and like you just
What are we willing to lie to protect what are we willing to lie to to earn to save what are we willing to sin to get some of you follow Jesus love Jesus he's he is everything to you you come in here and you hold your hands up you sing and you cry we don't hold your hands up because it's in here but you hold your hands up at your house maybe maybe when you're riding in your car you help the other people in your group see their sin you help lead them to the Lord and help them understand him and then you get a boyfriend you get a girlfriend and it matters so much to have that relationship to have their love to have all of a sudden some of your standards some of the things that you would have held out are no longer true suddenly you're willing to put sex on the table because it's a good way to keep a boyfriend it's a good way to make somebody happy and yes you understand that's sin but is it really that bad of a sin and is it that big of a deal and aren't we haven't we culturally kind of moved on from that and it really just means this is a thing that I love more than the Lord that I want more than him that I think will bring me more joy more fulfillment some of you are willing to serve with your time but your wallet will not you will not give money to another soul some of you are willing to give your money away all day long but you will not get out of your house to go do a thing in service for another person because it would rob of your time and the reason you work so hard and make so much money is so that you can have all your comfort time all your leisure time to yourself that we have these things that we defend that we work for because they ultimately that we love them more and cherish them more than the Lord and we lie to ourselves and try to cover up as much as we possibly can this is why culturally the United States the Christian church in the US is confused about romance and we have done whatever we can to undercut what the Bible says about marriage
Divorce sexuality sex before marriage homosexuality that we act like the American church at large just kind of walks into that realm and goes well does it really say that does it really mean that and then there's some Greek words there that we can kind of play with you know really this is why I love when the Methodists were going to vote on this and all the African Methodists came over and were like what are y'all talking about and they were like well you know it's like no well you know what y'all are crazy one of my favorite things were the African Methodists were telling the other Methodists like this doesn't make any sense we just haven't bought into y'all's idols so we're not on board with the things y'all are doing to the scriptures we do this with sexuality and we do it with money we have a lot of little cute justifications for finances we have a lot of cute justifications for romance
But that's because culturally we love those so much more than we love the Lord what leads you to fall into sin most of these things are good things that we've put in the wrong place usually it's something that God gave us as a gift like finances like health like beauty like our spouse we've just put them in the wrong place I know this happens every time when I sin against my wife and I'm willing to confess it to the Lord and I'm willing to confess it to the guys in my group and I am not willing to confess it to my wife it is because she is bigger and scarier than God to me we've taken something and put it in the wrong place and when that happens we actually are asking it to accomplish something it cannot accomplish and it will either crush us or we will crush it because it cannot stand under the weight of being God if you place your children in the place of God and they have to turn out perfect for you to be okay and they have to be the best little children for you to know that you're saved and you're okay if you do this with your spouse if you do this with your girlfriend
If you do this with your finances it will fail you or you will destroy it and God in his grace and in his jealousy let's beg him to make it fail quicker so that we might have him to help us to see the weakness in it quicker to help us to see into our own hearts so that we might know this is actually what it says in Ezekiel if you look back at 4 it says therefore speak to them and say to them thus says the Lord God anyone of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and yet comes to the prophet I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols that's our hope is that the Lord will answer us in our idolatry to help us to see it he says
That I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from me through their idols that God wants our hearts therefore say to the house of Israel thus says the Lord God repent and turn away from your idols turn away your faces from all your abominations for anyone of the house of Israel or the strangers who sojourn in Israel who separates himself from me taking his idols into his heart and putting the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and yet comes to the prophet to consult me through him I the Lord will answer him myself our hope is that the Lord would show us our idolatry so that he might have our hearts above all else Matt and Bianca are going to come back up because of Christ
We have hope that Jesus died to save his enemies that he died to save idolaters that when we go astray and our hearts are too easily swayed by something if we have placed our faith in Jesus he will bring us back he will redeem us he will rescue us he loves idolaters he died to save idolaters that when you see idolatry in your heart it is not that you have lost your salvation and run from God it is that you have been estranged your heart has fallen in love with something that is less beautiful and we get to trust him to redeem us and to save us and to forgive us if you are not a Christian it is because you believe something is better than Jesus
And when we walk off into sin it is because we believe something is better than Jesus and we get to repent we get to turn back and say Jesus you are more glorious you are more beautiful you died to redeem those who hate you and when we see him doing that he steals our hearts when we truly see what Christ has done when we really believe the things we sing on Sunday when we really believe the things we study he steals our hearts because your money will not die for you it will demand that you serve it but it will not serve you your idols will not be able to stand under the weight of your worship they will not rescue you but Jesus Christ will your work your desire to be in a position of prominence will not forgive you if you fail it
But Jesus will and our hope is in Christ who redeems us out of our idolatry who changes our hearts who steals our hearts through his love and invites us into a more beautiful love story than we could ever imagine as he rescues and redeems the people for himself in a moment they're going to sing a song and we're going to sit and reflect and we're going to ask the Lord to help us see our idols that we might repent and when the song is finished we will then be able to take communion where we will remind ourselves that we need Jesus Christ to die for us that we might have hope that our hope is not in our hearts ability to love perfectly our hope is in Christ who loved us perfectly
And who died for our sin so we're going to ask the Lord to help us reveal our idols while they sing we're not going to stand and sing we're going to listen we're going to reflect we're going to meditate we're going to prosecute we're going to repent and then we're going to take communion we're going to celebrate that Jesus Christ loves sinners died to redeem them and that he loves you more than you love him and that he's jealous for you let's pray God we ask for your help right now we ask for your grace that you would let our lies to ourselves be obvious and evident that you would answer us yourself
In the multitude of our idols that we might see Christ fully and completely that we would know that he is enough that our hope is in him that we might repent and be forgiven and changed and loved and welcomed we ask this in Jesus name Amen
Getting the Basics Right
If you’re listening, you’ll soon realize a handful of videos were played during this sermon as a part of an illustration. Below you will find copies of those videos so you don’t miss anything!
Jesus > Idols
Transcript
How y'all doing? I'm doing well, Vicki. Y'all, let's turn to Romans chapter 1. That's where we'll be this morning. It's on page 610 if you have a Bible that looks like this. If you don't have a Bible that looks like this, it's going to be in the New Testament, kind of near the back, after the book of Acts, before all the other letters like 1 Corinthians and stuff.
So best of luck. At the front of your Bible, there's a thing that has all the names of the books, and you can look, and it'll tell you what page number it's on. I'm going to pray for us, and then we'll kind of hop in this morning. God, we just ask you to teach us and to lead us this morning, that your Holy Spirit would work in our hearts to help us see your beauty and your glory, and to help us to love Jesus more. We thank you and we praise you for all of the love and grace that you've poured out on us. In Jesus' name, amen.
So what we've been doing in the Anchor Series, and kind of the reason we called it that, is when I was in seminary and was learning, trying to grow in church planning, what that would look like, felt called to it. One of the things that we talk about is your church needed some sort of a mission, vision statement, and we in class had to write them out. And so you'll see churches a lot that'll have things like, I know one that was like, love God, love people, love life, which gets more epic at the end. It's just like, everything is great. So you love God, you love people, and then just, life is wonderful, and you're just hugging everybody.
But you would have these different things, and so there's like, seek, serve, send, and it's like, your church is saying, this is what we're going for. And there's like, no, grow, so, go, whoa, hey, ho. Like, it's just these things that people, mantras or whatever for churches. And so as we got into it, we were just like, ah, it's helpful for us to have something that's taken from Scripture. That's not just made up, but that's an idea of what we're shooting for as a church family, what we're going for. But we didn't want anything that was super out there or convoluted or complex.
And so all we said was that we're a gospel-centered community on mission. So we're just trying to define who we are, not what we do, but who we are. And so we're a gospel-centered community on mission. And so in our Anchor Series, all we're saying is that's kind of what we're tied off to. That's what holds us. And so there are some things that, man, wouldn't this be a good idea or wouldn't this be fun?
But they're outside of kind of where our anchor will let us go. It's like, yeah, that actually would work or would be a good idea, but Scripture says this, so we can't really, we can't go there. We can't do that. Or it kind of goes against how we understand we're supposed to look and be as a church family. So that's all we're doing in our Anchor Series.
So we've been kind of in the gospel-centered portion for the first three weeks. And so we're staying there today. And what we're talking about today lines up with the first two weeks and really lines up with last week where we talked about gospel fluency, which is just that since the gospel is our story, it's how we understand life. It's how we understand the world. And it's how we see the world and speak to each other. So we're not just giving each other good advice to adjust our behavior, but that we know that our fundamental issue is that we don't worship God, that we put other things in place of him and that we need the gospel to change us and to point us in the right direction.
And so that's kind of what we're adding on to that today to help us understand what we're going for and what it looks like for us to just operate as Christians. And so we're in Romans 1. We'll start reading verse 21 and kind of recap a little bit and then talk about kind of where we're going today. So verse 21 says, And so the big issue for us as humans is not that we that God has rules and that we've broken his rules, but it's that God is our creator and that we don't exist in a relationship with him appropriately. We don't treat him as the creator. And so we actually begin to look to other things to fulfill us, to bring us life, to bring us joy and hope.
And so we we move God from his rightful place and we put created things there. Now, created things is and the Bible is going to call that idolatry. But that's idolatry whenever we're we're putting something else in the place of God. And when it talks about created, they worship the creature rather than the creator. That includes everything. There's only one creator and everything else is created.
Everything else comes out of him. And so when we think of idolatry, I think most of the time we think of like a carving or we think of like a statue or we think of like a totem pole. And we'll even we'll get kind of smug about it. We'll be like, yeah, how ridiculous is that? People would cut down a tree, carve an image on it and worship it. We would not do that unless you flattened that tree out, made it green and the image was an old dead president.
Then maybe we think about it. We'd give it some thought. But it's it's anything. It's anything. And it can just be an idea. It could be love.
It could be acceptance. It could be relationships. But anything that we begin to look at and say, you'll fill me up. You'll make me happy. Life will be good if. Everything will work out if.
Anything that we begin to put in that spot is when we begin to have idolatry and we begin to worship created things instead of the creator. And so this this is a problem. And we all have something that we're looking to and saying, if that would just work out. If I could just reach this spot, if I could just have this, then life would be OK. I wouldn't be worried anymore. I wouldn't be bothered anymore.
I wouldn't be stressed out anymore. If I could just have this and we're all pointing to something and saying, this will save me. This will fill me up. This will make me complete. And that's that's that's how the Bible understands idolatry, that it's not primarily about and sin is not primarily about us breaking rules. But it's actually that we've swapped God out for something else.
So that's what happens in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, our first parents. That's what that's what they did. It wasn't that he just had a rule. It was that in that moment they wanted to be like God. They believe that God was withholding something from them and that they could, through their own effort, through their own actions, through some other type of savior, reach God level, that they could be happier, that they could have fulfillment and strength. And that's what that's what happened.
That's what the Ten Commandments, when Moses goes to Pharaoh and sings that song about letting his people go. And then and then they do. And the Ten Commandments, we think of that as those are God's rules. That's the rules God began to give the law that we follow. But it starts off with you will have no other God but me.
And the second one is you won't build any idols. You won't make any idols. You won't take anything. And when he says it, he says anything in the heavens, anything on the earth, anything under the earth, which could be anything other than God. You won't turn into something supreme. And so even the Ten Commandments begin with not here are my rules, follow my rules, but with object of worship, with I'm God and nothing else is.
And so the primary issue for us when we sin is not that we've done something bad or broken a rule or that our behavior is off. But first and foremost, we've broken the first two commandments, which is something else has become more important to us. Something else has become primary, that we've taken God out of his rightful place. And that's why we're willing to steal. That's why we'll commit adultery. That's why we'll lie.
Because something else has become more important to us than God. And so at its core, sin and rebellion and the fall is based off of not having God in his rightful place and not worshiping him as the creator. It's based off of us putting something else there, which leads us astray all the rest of the time. And that's what the Romans 1 is going to say is that's the issue, that they worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator. So we even see this as we move into the New Testament.
So when they're talking to Jesus and asking, what's the what's the primary commandment? He says to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. That's the commandment. It has nothing to do with behavior, has everything to do with our hearts and our love for God. And so as we talked about gospel fluency last week, what we were talking about is pointing each other not to here's some advice to change your behavior, but pointing each other to here's what Jesus has done and here's how that works in our hearts to bring about change. Because we're not trying to change our behavior.
We're trying to change our hearts. That's even what Jesus says. It's about our love for God. And then he says to love others. And somewhere I'm sure it says love life. Okay, so what we see first, though, as we begin to look at something and say, you'll fix me, you'll fill me up, you'll make me complete.
We're going to talk about surface idolatry. Bible doesn't use that phrase. It does use idolatry, but we're just using that to help explain this. So we're going to talk about the two major areas that idolatry shows up in us and in our hearts. So surface idolatry is when we begin to look at anything and say, you'll fix me, you'll fill me up, if I could just have this, if this would just work out.
It's what we daydream about. It's what we plot on. It's our biggest fear that we would lose this because we believe that it's going to fix us, that it's going to fill us up, that it's going to give us life. It's going to make us whole. And for most of us, that is something good. We've picked something good.
Most of us don't have really dumb idols. We've picked something good. We've picked something kind of intelligent. Just like you might put a lot of energy and effort into fixing your car up, get a new paint Job, maybe some sweet flames running down the side. But you're not going to do that to your trash can.
You're not going to put spinners on your garbage can that you roll out to the road once a week, get a sweet paint Job on it, some fire going up. Like you're not going to do that because it's a trash can. And so most of us, when we pick an idol, we pick something pretty smart, something that actually has value, that actually has worth, that actually has some beauty. And then because it has value, worth, and beauty, because it brings joy, we begin to believe that it actually can replace God. We're not usually tricked by something small and trivial. We're tricked by something good.
So even take an alcoholic. There's something in alcohol that brings some level of joy, some level of forgetfulness, some level of pleasure. At first, at least, and then it leads into worse things. But that's what begins to make someone believe this is actually what will fill me up, what will make me whole. Someone with sexual addiction, there's actually something beautiful there created by God for enjoyment, for pleasure, for life. And that's what begins to make us believe the lie that it will fix us, fill us up, make us whole.
Athletic achievement. It's good. It's designed by God for joy, for us to compete, for there to be some. And that's what begins to make someone believe, if I just get this, then I'll be fine. If I can just reach this moment. Parents, your children.
They're designed by God, given to you by God as a blessing. And that's actually because of the joy and the life that they bring. That's what actually can make you begin to say, if they just turn out okay. If they're just safe. If they just get the best of everything. If life just works well for them.
If they just end up the way the Bible says someone should end up. Then I'll know. Then I'll know I have value. Then I'll know I have worth. Then I'll know I'm okay.
And it's when we do that. When we begin to look to anything to accomplish that for us. We've swapped the creator out. And we've put the creature there. We've taken something creative. And placed it there.
And we've begun to put more pressure on it than it'll ever be able to hold. And we've begun to believe something about it that it's never going to be able to fulfill. Because it won't fill us up. And it won't make us whole. And it won't complete us. And it won't get rid of that nagging emptiness in us.
And so as far as surface level idolatry goes. We'll take anything. You name it. We can put it there. Money. Love.
Relationships. A particular person. This is what keeps us in bad relationships for longer. This is what makes us make a lot of the mistakes that we make. Is because we've begun to believe that something is fundamentally going to fix us. Fill us up.
Make us whole. And it won't. But I have bad news for us this morning. We're trickier than this. So some surface level idols you can see pretty clearly.
Like you've sat down with your friend and said. He is a terrible boyfriend. Like he is the worst. Get rid of him. And then they say something like. You just don't know him like I do.
No. You're right. He's never laid his hands on me. I don't know him like you do. But he's terrible.
And we can see that. Or you can see somebody chasing after money. And you can go. That's. That's. You.
I can obviously see this. But here's the problem. We're trickier than this. So Jeremiah 17 9 says this. One of my favorite verses in the Bible. Because it's just very true.
It's going to be up here. It says the heart is deceitful above all things. And desperately sick. Who can understand it? The heart is deceitful above all things. Desperately sick.
Who can understand it? Your heart lies to you. You have actually lied to you more than anyone else ever. And some of us just thought. No I haven't. But that's exactly what you would say.
Don't trust yourself. Your heart is desperately sick. It lies to you. If you're ever watching a Disney movie. And I always give this. This warning.
If you're watching a Disney movie. And. And a little bird comes out. And sings about following your heart. Or a. A grasshopper shows up.
Or a little cricket with an eye patch. Or no. Monocle. He didn't have an eye patch. That would have been creepy. A monocle.
Dragging a peg leg. I'm Jiminy Cricket. No. With a monocle. And begins to sing a song about following your heart. Don't do it.
It's a trap. It's a trick. Your heart is going to lie to you. It's going to lead you into bad places. And it's going to trick you. And so what happens is.
We can actually have deeper level idolatry. And so. Again. This is just a way to think about it. And to understand it. Deeper level idolatry.
Which actually begins to be the. The operator. Of our other idolatry. And so. I'm going to give us four. They're made up.
Just to be helpful. So if you think there should be more. If you think there should be less. Or you wanted them all to start with the same letter. Or something. Sorry.
There's four that we're going to talk about. And it's just to be helpful. So don't. Don't argue with the categories too much. Get the concept. Comfort.
Control. Approval. And power. These are just big categories. And it's to help us see. That we can have something else we're chasing.
Which changes. How we operate. Which changes how we manipulate our surroundings. Comfort. Control. Approval.
Power. Comfort is. I'll arrive. If I can just rest. If I can just. Have all the stuff I need.
If I can just be able to go on vacations. If I can just have what they have. If I can just have it to where I'm bored in the evenings. Control is. I don't have to worry about my surroundings. I don't have to worry about.
I'm in control of what happens. I'm in control of my destiny. I'm able to exercise authority over what's around me. I don't have to worry. I have security. Approval is just.
I know I'm okay if I'm loved. If people think highly of me. If people want me around. That if I can just be approved of. Then I'll be good.
I'll be okay. And then power is just the ability to exert. Authority over those around you. Over your situation. To just be the boss. To be in charge.
To have your decisions win out. So here. Here's. Here's why it's helpful for us to see this. Money. Some people say.
Oh that person just loves money. Or you might even be thinking. I think my. My surface level idolatry. I think what I chase after. What.
What I say will fill me up is money. Because here's the thing. Nobody just loves money. You don't. You love what money can give you. You love what money provides you.
But you don't just love money. Because. The reason I know that is. None of us. Have a bank account. That has monopoly money in it.
And none of us have a purse or a wallet. With monopoly money in it right now. Because it doesn't give us anything. Now when we're playing monopoly. We care a lot about those little yellow dollars. So much so.
We'll yell at our grandmother. And for the three or seven hours. That we play that game. Until our grandmother beats us. With a really smug attitude. We care about monopoly money.
But then we don't anymore. And the reason we care about money. Is because of what it gives us. And so I'm just going to walk through. Those four. Comfort, control, approval, and power.
And show you how money begins to be manipulated. By those. But you're not really seeking money. You're just seeking what money gives you. Comfort. Money is a great way to get comfort.
You can go on vacations. You can buy a jet ski. You can pay people to do work. So you can take a nap. Like. Money serves comfort very well.
Some of you. That's what your money goes to. Eating out. It's one of my favorites. Being able to rest. Being able to.
Like it just. Why would I own. Why would I have money. If my couch is uncomfortable. That makes zero sense. Why would I have money.
If my TV is not big. This is dumb. That's what money is for. Control. Oh. Money is a great way to have control.
You don't have to worry about the future. If you've got a lot of money. Something bad happens. We'll pay for it. Tire gives out. We'll pay for it.
You can just. People open their bank account. And just look at all this money. In their bank account. And just know. I'm okay.
It's like a big green security blanket. Approval. Oh. Money is a great way to get approval. Like if you want me to be your friend. Buy me lunch.
I will approve of you. I will be like. We are friends. This pizza is delicious. Like that's. I mean.
But money is a great way to give approval. You think. Oh my grandmother is so generous. Maybe. Maybe she just really wants to get the approval of her grandchildren. Because that helps fill her up.
And make her feel like she's okay. Power. Oh. Power is great. You can exert your authority over people. If you have enough money.
You can. You can. Sway the outcome of an election. But I know that. I know our crowd. We live in West Columbia.
In Columbia area. None of us can sway the outcome of an election. But. You can sway the outcome of where you're going to eat lunch. Hey man. If you go.
If we go here. I'll pay for it. That generous. Maybe. Maybe it's just that you wanted to be in control of where you ate. You just wanted to exert your power over it.
And money was a good way to do it. Here's why this is important. Our behavior can change. But at a core heart level. We're still chasing after the same thing. And the problem is.
That we've swapped out the creature. In place of the creator. We've taken created things. And we've put them in place of the creator. And when we do that. It leads us into sin.
It leads us into bad behavior. But the big issue is that our hearts are off. And God's after our hearts. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. With all your mind. With all your strength.
He's after our hearts. Our worship. Way more than our behavior. So. Our behavior can change. All of those idols.
Can actually have really good behavior. So if you're. If comfort is. You have a comfort idolatry. That. Yeah.
That can be laziness. Which the Bible clearly says is bad. You can be really lazy. You know what else? You can be a really good friend. You can be the most agreeable person.
Because you just don't want your friendships to be. The boat to be rocked. Makes you uncomfortable. So you agree really quickly. You're really nice. You let your friends have whatever they want.
Seems really nice. But your heart's off the whole time. Approval. We said it. Approval can show up in really. Drastic neediness and relationships.
But it can also show up in a whole lot of generosity. Which is nice. Which is good. The Bible says to do that. But the whole time we're chasing after something other than God.
And we're not doing it because we love God. And we love people. But we're doing it because we. We have to have this in order to feel complete and whole. Do you see that? So you can have a couple arguing over money.
The husband believes that why would we own money if we don't go on vacations? Like what's the point of me working hard if I can't have a bass boat? Like that's what money exists for. And the wife's saying no we need to save. And we need to plan ahead. And we got kids that are going to go to college.
And he's like our kids aren't going to college. And so like. And they have these struggles and they butt heads over money. But the truth is they're both just working to serve. What they ultimately believe will fill them up. So she seems more reasonable.
But she really is just seeking security. That's what makes her feel comfortable at night. It's what lets her sleep at night. Do you see that? So even though her behavior could be good or wise.
And the Bible would actually commend the behavior. The Bible worries way more about our hearts. So yeah we should have good behavior. And yeah those things are commendable. But the heart is the issue.
And so as long as we're chasing after other things. Other than God. Other than resting in God. We can get ourselves in trouble. So let's take a guy.
Power is his thing. So he just. First way he can feed that. Is through sports. So he gets real strong.
Works really hard. Seems really determined. And just is very powerful. Exerts his power on the field. On the court. But then as he gets a little older.
He begins to realize that chasing women. Is a good way to feel powerful. And that he proves his power. And his dominance. With every conquest. But as he begins to grow.
And he gets older. He begins to realize that one of the best ways to have power. Is through civil service. To be a politician. To serve the community. Because you get to actually affect change.
At a much larger level. So he completely quits chasing women. Comes very chaste. Very pure. But what he loves.
And what he's pursuing. Hasn't changed. And then he finds out. You know what? The ultimate power is found in. Jesus.
And the best way to have power. Is to be a Christian. Because Christians are the only ones that have truth. So he devours scripture. He's in your community group. And he just crushes people with Bible verses.
He has more knowledge than anybody. Because it's a way to have power. And at no point has his heart changed. Although his behavior has changed all along the way. It's a big deal for us to begin to look at. What is it that our heart believes.
Will fill us up. Will make us whole. Will complete us. So here's how this works. Our deep idolatry. A lot of times is going to be answered.
It's going to be how we answer the question. What does heaven look like? What would heaven be? What is it you daydream about? Oh if I could just have this. I'd be good.
I'd be set. Wouldn't be worried anymore. Wouldn't have problems anymore. What is it that you're looking at and saying. This will fill me up. This will make me complete.
This is when I'll be at rest. And then our surface level idolatry. Is whatever we think will get us there best at the time. It's our functional savior. It's what will take us from where we are. To where heaven is.
It's what will step in and bridge that gap. What will allow us to get from where we are. To where heaven is. That's a problem. Because we can change our constantly. Change our motivation.
Change what we're chasing after. What we think was going to get us to heaven. But our deep idolatry stays the same. What we're chasing after fundamentally stays the same. So take lying for example.
We all know we're not supposed to lie. It's one of the ten commandments. It's bad. Hurts relationships. So when you lie.
What do you do? You say. Ah. Don't lie. Shouldn't lie. Bad Christian.
Bad mother. Shouldn't lie to your children. Bad. Fix that. But here's the thing.
Why do we lie? That's the question. What is it you're trying to protect? What is it you're trying to defend? Through lying. So some of you would lie about how popular you were in high school.
You'd be in a conversation. And you'd kind of ham up how good you were at sports in high school. How popular you were. Because this person's never going to find out. Unless you're still in high school. Which is going to be a hard sell.
But go for it. No. I'm super popular here. Or you go back to your high school reunion. Or you bump into someone. And you're going to make it sound like your job's better.
Your life's better. Things are going better. And all you're seeking is you need them to approve of you. Even in this conversation with someone you're not going to see. Some of you. You would never lie about that.
You think that's a ridiculous thing to lie about. You straight up tell somebody. No. My life's pretty crummy right now. But you look like you're doing good.
Like you just wouldn't care. But you lie about something else. You'll tell somebody something starts earlier. So they'll show up on time. Oh. Did I say 845?
My bad. It's good to see you though. At 855. Got you here at 9. Tricked you. But you're lying about it.
Me. You call me on the phone. If I am asleep. I'm going to want to tell you I was awake. Doesn't matter. I think that's true for most people.
Like if I answer the phone and people go. Oh I'm sorry did I wake you up. I am going to want to say. No. I was awake. Doesn't matter what time you call me.
It could be 3 o'clock in the morning. No. I was up. I was up. Why were you up at 3? I was working out reading the Bible.
I had to do that one time in the middle of a conversation. We've been talking for about 10 minutes. I said hey man I need to tell you something. He said what? I said I was asleep when you called me. I lied to you when I answered the phone.
He's like it sounded like you were asleep. I thought you were lying. I was like yeah I was. We can continue with the conversation now. I just had to get that out there. Had to confess.
But the question is why are we lying? What are we seeking to gain from that? You see because we've all answered the question. This is what heaven will be for me. And this is what will get me there. Here's the problem.
The Bible says that where God is is where heaven is. That it's in his presence. That we're engulfed in his glory. Which glory just means that it has. It brings to mind the idea that you would look at something. And it would bring you joy.
Just by seeing it. Just by being in his presence. It's like when you're watching a sunset. And you just you get that moment where you're just like. I'm so glad I got to see this. I'm so glad I was driving on this road at this time.
Because it's bringing me joy. Just by seeing it. That's what heaven is. It's the presence of God. That heaven isn't all the nice things that you like and chase after. No heaven is God's presence.
Where we're completely satisfied. Completely fulfilled. Completely made right. Completely known and loved. And Jesus is the savior that gets us there. That it's his work not ours.
That rescues us. And redeems us. And takes us from where we are to where God is. So when we answer the question. This is what heaven is. And this is what will get me there.
We have replaced God. And we've replaced Jesus with something else. Something smaller. Something weaker. And something that will never provide. Never fill us up.
Never make us okay. So our idols and our hearts lie to us. And I want to show that to you. We look at 24. These are the two major issues when it comes to idolatry. What they do to us.
What our idols do. Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity. Let me just tell you this real quick. Some of us are chasing after things. Just so you know. Part of God's wrath is to give you exactly what you want.
What it just said was that God gave them up to their lust. To what they were loving. What they were chasing after. He actually handed them over to what they wanted. That's actually one of the worst things that can happen. Because then we've got our idol.
And we realize it never fills us up. It won't make us complete. It's actually a form of God's wrath. God is actually being very kind to some of us. But not letting us have the thing that we think will make us whole.
To the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Verse 25. Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. And worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. The two things that happen when we chase idols is they lie to us.
And they enslave us. It says they worshipped and served. That they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. And they worshipped and served the creature rather than creator. Your idol is telling you. I will bring you joy.
If you could just have me. Life would be okay. You wouldn't have doubt. You wouldn't have fear. You wouldn't have restlessness. And it is a lie.
And they ultimately. Our idols enslave us. They cause us to worship and serve them. I had a friend of mine who was part of our church family for a while. He's moved. And he was an older guy.
Had been married at one point. Wasn't married now. And was doing some online dating. And just believed in his soul. That what would fix him. Was a perfect marriage relationship.
That that's what would fix him. To the point that even when I was having conversations with him. He like idolized mine and Anna's relationship. And I'd say something about. You know. How we were working on stuff.
Or we were having problems. Or I'd be like. Yeah man. It's not. And he would laugh. Like.
Like. There's no way that was possible. Because I was married. I had to be perfectly happy. Perfectly complete. And it's like.
No. We got. Anna married a sinner. And I married a sinner. And we got stuff. We got to work on.
And grow in. Like. That's normal. That's how. But he didn't see it.
It was. Sometimes it was like talking to. Like. Like he was a middle school girl. Or something. Like he.
He idolized it so much. And so. In his mind. Any girl he met. Any female he met. Any lady he met.
And began to talk to. That was his savior. That was who was going to take him to heaven. Perfect. Married land. So he would meet a female online.
Through talking conversations. And I talked to him. He'd be. I mean. Soaring. I met somebody.
She's special. That's good man. I'm excited. I just. I think. I think we got something here.
And he would begin to. Pursue way too quickly. Up the ante. Way too quickly. Because she wasn't just a female he'd met. And got to have conversations with.
But she was actually who was going to save him. And so. Inevitably. A couple weeks later. That relationship wasn't going well. They weren't talking anymore.
And he would just be. Crushed. I mean shattered. Because what he had lost. Was not. Reality.
Wasn't just a conversation. And a possible relationship with a female. What he had lost. Was what was going to save him. And what was going to take him to heaven. What was going to fix him.
And it was way worse. Some of us. Should he want relationships? Yeah. That's fine. Is getting married a good thing?
Yeah. Does everybody have to get married? No. Is that good? Yeah. But he had put so much else on it.
That it couldn't fail him. Some of us have those. We have something in our life. That this can't fail. Because if it does. I don't just lose this.
I don't just lose this relationship. I don't just lose this job. I don't just lose this amount of money. I don't just lose this position. I actually lose what is going to save me. What is promising me fulfillment.
What is going to fill me up. And take me to heaven. I lose God and Savior. And it's. There's way more tied to it. Some of us are.
Some of you in here. Are chasing after success. You've put in your mind. That if I can just reach this stage. If I can just be successful. If everything I put my hand to.
Can just work out. If I can just have accomplishment. If I can just. And you're. You're believing that. And you're chasing that.
But here's the thing. You become enslaved to it. Because you can't not be successful. It crushes you. When you fail. It eats away at your insides.
Because your God. Demands sacrifice. So you begin to spend more time at work. More time putting your energy and effort into this. When something's not going well. It's the only thing you can think about.
Because your God demands sacrifice. And will not forgive you if you fail. Some of you. You just have this in your moment. There's going to be this day when I arrive. When I no longer have to.
I'm not living paycheck to paycheck. All my debts paid off. I'm just. I'm there. I can rest. I can have peace.
I can just. Bring in an X amount of dollars. Then I'll be okay. But until then. You're a slave. And if you'll look back over your life.
You've bumped up. How far you have to go. Before you'll arrive. How much money you need to bring in. And you're a slave. And your God doesn't forgive you when you fail.
And it demands that you sacrifice. Advice. Some people in here. It's approval. You have to. Have people like you.
So that Facebook and Instagram. Become your temple of worship. It's not just a place to keep up with friends. It's where you. You go to seek approval. It's where you go to post things.
That people will like. It's where you go to get those. Little thumbs up. And little comments. About how your dress looked. Or how good that meal looked.
That you cooked. Or that you were about to eat. It becomes this. This is what I need. This is what's going to satisfy me. This is what's going to fill me up.
Now. Facebook. Until. Until you begin to realize. That you're forever going to be enslaved to that. That's why when a relationship is going poorly.
And you're at odds with a friend. It tears you up inside. You can't have someone not like you. Not because you want those relationships to work out. But because you have to have approval to be okay.
As long as we're worshiping something created. We're never free. We're enslaved. We have to make sacrifices to please our God. And our gods are not forgiving when we fail. What's the solution to this?
How do we get past this? How do we fix this? I want to read a quote from Thomas Chalmers. He was a. He lived in 1780 in Scotland. And he was a missionary pastor.
He says this. The heart's desire for an ultimate object. May be conquered. But it's desire to have some. Object is unconquerable. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is through the expulsive power of a new one.
So I'm going to read that again. The heart's desire for an ultimate object. May be conquered. Which means that you can swap it out for something else. Like you can. You can chase after power for a while.
Or you can chase after money for a while. And then you can begin to chase after a political position. But it's desire to have some object is unconquerable. We're always going to have to have something in that place. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection. Is through the expulsive power of a new one.
And this is why it becomes huge for us. That we always point ourselves and each other back to the gospel. Because as we kept reading in Romans two weeks ago. We saw that it's Jesus that steps in and saves us. My friend is not going to be free. From the need to have a successful relationship.
Until he realizes that Jesus has already provided all the approval. All the love that he'll ever need. Until he realizes that Jesus has stepped in and in his place. Given him the relationship. The perfect relationship with the father. Which is where heaven is.
That Jesus is his savior. Then he'll be free. And then relationships can just be relationships. You're chasing after success. Until you realize that Jesus steps in. And provided success for you.
Made you holy. Made you righteous. Made you blameless. Made you successful. In him because of his work. And that ultimate success is in him.
Found only in him. And that he forgives when we fail. And that he sacrificed himself for us. See our other gods don't love us. Demand sacrifice. And don't forgive us.
And Jesus loves us so much. That he sacrificed himself. And that he always forgives us when we fail. But until we see that. Until we're engulfed in that. We'll be a slave to success.
We'll be a slave to achievement. Until we realize that a rival doesn't come. Through financial security. But that ultimate security has been provided to us. And Jesus will forever be a slave. Until you know that approval has been given to you forever.
Through God who knew you perfectly. And loved you anyway. And through the cross. Gave you worth and value. Facebook will not be a way to connect with friends. It will always be a way to posture yourself.
Make yourself look good. And feel good inside. Your relationships will always be on the needy side. Of having to have someone else fill you up. And make you whole. Until you realize that Jesus has already done that.
Until Jesus becomes the ruling affection of our hearts. We will forever be enslaved. But Jesus didn't come to be served. But to serve. And to give his life as a ransom for many. Ransom means the cost it takes to buy back a slave.
Jesus doesn't enslave us. He makes us free. He is the truth that replaces all the lies. And in Jesus we have freedom. We have a God who sacrificed himself for us. Doesn't demand that we sacrifice to him.
To earn his love. To behave our way into his good graces. But came and lived perfectly on our behalf. And died in our place. To sacrifice himself for us. So that he could forgive us of everything.
Even forgive us of worshiping and loving other things. And thinking they'll fill us up. That's what we have in Jesus. That's why it's crucial for us as a church family. To always point back to Jesus. Because our hearts lie to us.
They deceive us. They run in all kinds of directions. And we need to remember forever. That it's Jesus who saves. It's Jesus who fills us up. It's Jesus who's holy.
It's Jesus who is our king and God. And the ruling affection of our hearts. And only then will we begin to change and be free. Band's going to come back up here. And we're going to make much of Jesus. It's like a man who got sicker.
And sicker. And sicker. Symptom after symptom kept cropping up. And he went to the doctor. And he found out he had cancer. And at that moment.
Symptoms no longer matter. The only thing that has to be gotten rid of. Is the cancer. Even if it causes more symptoms in the process. Our hearts. Are wicked.
Deceitful. And desperately sick. And changing our behavior. Only takes care of symptoms. But when we see that we've begun to love.
And worship something else. Other than our creator. That's when we begin to allow Jesus to work on the cancer. To begin to wreck our hearts. And to make them his. Through his grace.
And through his work. Not ours. We get to trust him. It's not in our ability to work hard. Or to make this happen. We get to trust Jesus.
And his ability to do this for us. To change us. And to begin to take over our hearts. That we're saved through faith. And God's grace. So as we see our idols.
The response isn't. Let me work really hard to get rid of that. No. It's let me begin to love Jesus. See Jesus more. And trust him.
And ask him to become the ruling affection of my heart. To begin to take over. To help me get rid of the lies. And begin to be free. From my slavery. And be free to follow him.
Father. We thank you. For your grace. We thank you for your love. And we pray that you would help us to see. Where it is that we're chasing after things.
That we've begun to believe the lie. That they'll fill us up. That they'll make us whole. That they'll complete us. Where it is that we've begun to. In relationships.
And in our jobs. And in our life. Put more weight on something. That was never meant to carry that. God. Where are we leaning into a good gift.
That you gave us for your glory. And asking it to be God. We ask that your Holy Spirit. Would begin to show that to us. And more than that. God.
We ask that as we see that. That you would show us yourself. That we would see the cross. Where you came not to be served. But to serve.
And to give your life as a ransom. To buy back slaves. And God. As we see our sin. That we would see the cross. Which so greatly outweighs our sin.
That we would so be engulfed. By Jesus. That your beauty. And your glory. Would so fill us up. That we wouldn't look to lesser things.
To make us whole. God. We ask that your Holy Spirit. Would press in. That you would expel idols. And that you would become the ruling.
And reigning affection of our hearts. And we ask God. That you would lead us as a church family. To continuously. Be anchored in the gospel. And pointing one another.
To Jesus' work. At all times. So that we might rest. In the grace that's been provided. That though we fall short. You save.
You always save. You always forgive. That you were our sacrifice. And God. We just ask that your Holy Spirit. Would lead us now.
The spirit of Jesus. In our souls. Would begin to work. You'd begin to cut out cancer. And help us to quit chasing symptoms. We ask this in your powerful name.
In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
Broken Cisterns
Transcript
Alright, if you've got your Bible tonight, turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 2. We'll be spending some time in Jeremiah chapter 2 tonight. My name is Chet Phillips. I get to be one of the pastors here. I'm very excited about being here tonight. We are in the third week of our Idol series, which is where we're taking some time to walk through and see what the Bible has to say about idolatry.
And specifically how idolatry is not just something that people used to deal with or that is something that only takes place in other countries, but that is actually a heart level issue for us. And so what we talked about the first week was that we were looking in Exodus chapter 20 and we talked about how God starts off by saying, You shall have no other gods before me. And so we just talked about what that looks like for us to have always have an object of worship and that we as humans will always have an object of worship. If you don't have a Bible, we actually have some. I forgot to say that.
So Jack and Mitch can help hand those out. If anybody doesn't have a Bible, if you want to raise your hand, we'll get one to you. So and if you don't own a Bible, just take that one home with you. That's our gift to you. So anyway, we've talked about how we always will have an object of worship.
We will always have something that is supreme in our lives. And so we just kind of discussed in week one why we would actually want that to be God. And we talked about how Jesus is the only God who was crushed in our place, who was crushed for us and that all other gods will eventually crush us. Last week, we talked about how we just kind of turned and looked at all of the things we can worship, how God basically says not to take anything and make it into a God and how we are as humans capable of turning anything into a God. And so one of the things we've said is that sin is not primarily us breaking rules.
So that God hasn't laid it out as I am God. Here are my rules. If you follow my rules, then we'll be good. If you break my rules, then you'll be in trouble. That's not how he lays it out. First of all, he rescues before he gives the law to his people.
So he chooses and rescues and redeems and brings them out of slavery before he ever says this is how we're going to relate to one another. And the way he sets up the law is I am God. There are no other gods. And so for most of us, we feel like sin is primarily me just breaking God's rules. But actually, the way he designs it, the way he lays it out is object of worship is first before rule breaking is.
And so Martin Luther actually said that we don't break any of the other commandments until we first broken the first one, until we've taken God and decided that something else is more important to us, something else is more supreme. That's when we'll lie. That's when we'll hate. That's when we'll do all the things that we're not supposed to do because we've actually decided that in this moment something is functionally greater to me than God. And it actually makes sense because our primary way to relate to God is not based off of works. It's not based off of rules.
It's not based off of following rules. I'll give you an example. Let's say that I ran an underground gambling casino out of my backyard in one of my sheds or something, which would be pretty amazing because I have pretty small sheds. It would be hard to get a lot of people in. Let's say I did that.
And let's say that I did not report this on my taxes and I did not tell Anna about it. Let's just say I had some form of income that wasn't illegal because I realize that in my story that's probably illegal and I can't do that. So it wasn't illegal, but I didn't tell the IRS and I didn't tell Anna about it. If I got caught, if the IRS audited me, the way that the auditor would relate to me would be completely different from the way that Anna would relate to me on the same issue. So the auditor would basically be like, all right, you owe us this much money, pay it plus interest or you're going to jail.
That's it. Anna, who I did the same thing, same situation, still money, still didn't tell her about it, she's going to approach me in a completely different way. She's going to be like, why didn't I know about this? Why on earth would you have hidden this from me? The auditor is never going to look at me and be like, an entire year? You kept this a secret for an entire year?
Like the auditor is not going to cry. He's not. He's going to be like, pay up or go to jail. That's something to you. Because the way I relate to the IRS is based off my ability to follow their regulations. And the problem between my relationship with the IRS and my relationship with Anna would actually be much different.
Because Anna and I have a whole lot of other issues that we need to talk about. Trust. We've got to talk about our communication. We've got to talk about all of the times that I told her things that weren't true. Why I wasn't willing to share this with her. And so it actually makes sense that when we feel like sin is just breaking God's rules, that he's going to say, no, it's deeper than that.
And the issue is bigger than that. Because God does not primarily relate to us on our ability to follow his rules. It's not that if we behave, then we're in. And if we don't behave, we're out. God's actually going to look at us and it's going to be that, no, if we're sinning, it's actually indicative of something deeper, something bigger, something greater. And so that's what we're talking about.
That's what we're trying to dig into a little bit. It's trying to understand how not only does our sin indicate where we are a little bit off, but actually how we might have set up idols in our own lives. And so we'll be in Jeremiah chapter 2. I'm going to pray and then we're going to hop in. God, we thank you that you're good. We ask you to speak to us tonight, that you would reveal your truth and yourself to us through your word.
God, I pray that we would grow closer to you and that your Holy Spirit would have free reign in here tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So the prophet Jeremiah, he's going to speak. God's going to be speaking through him. And so basically what God's going to do in this passage, this section of text, is he's talking to the nation of Israel and he's going to lay out two symptoms that they have.
And then he's going to give them their diagnosis. So he's basically going to say, you're doing this and you're doing this, but here's the main problem. So we're going to talk about the two symptoms and then we're going to talk about the diagnosis. I'm going to go ahead, spoiler alert, the diagnosis is idolatry. For those of you who are type A people, you now want to kill me because you know point three before we get to talk about the first two. So you're welcome.
And we're going to go ahead and move forward. So he lays this out this way. He says, The word of the Lord came to me saying, go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord. So this is Jeremiah speaking on behalf of God.
God says, I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest. All who ate of it incurred guilt. Disaster came upon them, declares the Lord. So God starts off by saying, I remember how we used to relate to one another.
I remember your love for me as a bride. And so God over and over in the Old Testament is going to say that he relates to the nation of Israel as a husband to a bride. In the New Testament, we're going to be told that the church is the bride of Christ. And so the relationship stays the same. Jesus is our groom, which I'm a man that's a little weird for me, but OK. It's that there's a real, genuine, intimate relationship there.
And that's why in the Old Testament, it's such a big deal when Israel runs away from God. It's as if a bride had left her husband. And so there's when we talked about in the first week about God being jealous for us, not of us. So God doesn't look down from heaven and go, man, this hipster thing is pretty cool. I wish I could get in on that. And I mean, when, you know, moon shoes came out, he wasn't like, oh, I love a pair of those.
Like that wasn't a thing. He's not jealous of us. He's jealous for us the same way that a husband would be for a bride. And so he fights for that relationship. And it's actually fitting. And he ought to.
So it says that I remember your devotion of your youth, your love as a bride. So then we're going to move down to verse four. Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord, what wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me and went after worthlessness and became worthless? Some other texts are going to translate worthlessness a little different. Some will say worthless idols.
The word there is the Hebrew word, Abel. I don't read Hebrew, but I have a computer program that does for me. It's H-E-B-E-L. I don't know how to pronounce it, Abel. So that's how it's spelled out in English.
If you spell it out in Hebrew, it's some squiggly lines that don't mean anything. But the word worthlessness there is used in the Old Testament for nothing, for vanity, for worthlessness. And it's also used for idolatry. So it will be idols. And so some will translate that as worthless idols. But here's what he's saying.
This is the first symptom he lays out for him. He says, you went after worthlessness and you became worthless. We become like what we worship. So whatever we set up as supreme, we will over time become like that. And we spent some time talking about it the past couple of weeks. So here's my question.
Are we becoming more like Jesus? If he is who we worship, over time, we'll become more like Jesus. That's just how that works. If you look out, if you've been a Christian for a while and you look out over the past three years. I'm not talking about last week. I'm talking about the past, or as long as you've been a Christian.
Some of you haven't been a Christian for three years. But if you've been a Christian, are you becoming more like Jesus? When you look out over the past three years, you've grown in some areas. So we might say, well, I'm in better shape than I was three years ago. Some of us will be like, well, my waistline grew over the past three years. And I now can breathe heavier at the top of a flight of stairs than I used to.
That's kind of where I am. It's like, man, I remember when this didn't make me tired. So I've got to get back in shape. But there's certain things. Maybe we've grown. You could say, ah, my portfolio.
It's better. My net worth is. I've grown in that. And so the question is, what are we growing in? Because we become more like what we worship. So are we becoming more like Jesus?
Do we hate sin more? Are we quicker to repent? More open in confession? Do we care about our neighbors more? Do you care about your neighbors more now than you did two years ago? Do you care about your coworkers more now than you did three years ago?
Because the Bible says that we're predestined to be conformed into the image of his son. And that's a slow, messy process. That's what we say when we talk about being in community groups. We say, hey, come be a sinful jerk with us. Like, come be messed up with us. That's what we're going to do.
You're going to spend your life annoying somebody. Come annoy us. Like, let's annoy each other together in community groups. That's what it is. But over time, we grow to be more like Jesus.
So he says, you went after worthlessness and you became worthless. So I would just have us ask and begin to look at what are we becoming more like. Verse 6. They did not say, where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in the land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that none passes through where no man dwells. And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.
The priests did not say, where is the Lord? Those who handled the law did not know me. The shepherds transgressed against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit. So here's what he says.
He says, I rescued you out of Egypt. And that's where we've been the past two weeks where we've been looking at the Exodus. He says, I rescued you out of Egypt. So I took you out of the house of slavery. I made you my people. And then I walked you through a desert of deep darkness, pits and destruction and despair where no one goes.
And I kept you safe. It's basically like, I walked you down dark alleys in New York and nobody messed with you. That's kind of what he's saying. He's like, I took you into the wilderness where nobody goes. Everyone who goes there just kind of dies. And I took care of you all for years.
And then I brought you into a good place. A place that's plentiful. I brought you things to enjoy. So we talked about last week, we said that God doesn't tell us not to enjoy things, not to love things. He doesn't say, I have created bacon. Now stay far away from it.
He did for a while, actually. But then there's grace and there's some stuff that happened in the book of Acts. And so you should read it. It's amazing. We get to eat bacon now because we're Christians. And so, but he doesn't say, he doesn't not want us to enjoy things.
He just doesn't want us to worship them. So he said, I actually brought you and gave you good things. And then you quit following me. The people who taught from the law didn't even know me. Your prophets prophesied by other gods and you went after things that don't profit. Not only did you chase after other gods, but you went after things that have no life in them, have no fulfillment in them, that will give you no abundance.
You went after things that don't even bring profit. And so what he says here in this section is basically, I rescued you, I made you my people, I brought you into a good land, and then you acted like all the other nations around you. You worshipped their gods and you looked like them. So the second symptom is, he says, you chased after worthless things and you became worthless. And then he says, you went into other nations and you went into, I brought you and made you a people and then you looked like all the nations around you. And so the second question I have for him, I think Jeremiah is pointing it out to the nation of Israel is, do we look like the rest of the Americans we know?
What I mean by that is, we would say, if we're Christian, I would say that I was in slavery to sin. That I could not get out of it, I could not save myself, I could not rescue myself, I was in trouble. And that Jesus rescued me, and that he brought me through my mess, and he's still doing that. And that he's actually blessed me with good things. With life and joy and peace in him. The Bible says that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing.
And so I would say, I know that Jesus is God and that I have an eternity to come that I'll spend with him. But if I view the world the same as everyone else, it doesn't seem like that's true. So what he's saying is, I made you into my people, I brought you through this, and then you started looking like everyone else. So what I'm not talking about is what beverages you partake in or abstain from. What we're not talking about is what rating of movie you're willing to watch. We're talking about some deeper stuff than words you may use or don't use.
What I'm asking is, we're not talking about like culottes. You all know what culottes are? You know what culottes are? Okay. Culottes are great. Because there's certain Christian groups that, I say culottes are great.
I've never really been around culottes. I just, I think the concept is funny. There's certain Christian groups that females aren't allowed to wear pants. So they believe in that. And that's okay. That's fine.
You believe females shouldn't wear pants. But then there's certain things that are hard to do, like run around and play games and do stuff in dresses. So they invented culottes, which are pants that look like a dress. Which is really confusing to me because it's like, what's the goal? To just look like we're doing stuff right as long as it's a secret that we're actually, like, it has more to do with appearances than, and a buddy of mine became a Christian. I met him up at Liberty.
He became a Christian and got a job at a Christian camp. And one of the first nights they were like, they were giving out the rules to all the counselors. And they were like, no, we don't believe in mixed bathing. And that's just a Christian terminology for guys and girls shouldn't swim together. But he'd only been a Christian for a couple of months.
And he was like, uh, yeah. No, I don't believe in that either. He said he was sitting in the meeting being like, I don't know if they know. I'm not sure a whole lot of people think that's okay. That's not like a big problem in society. Now, I know in other camps all the children just get to bathe together.
And so he's like, no, yeah. And he said he found out like a week later they meant swimming. And he was like, oh, I see why that was important to cover now. But he thought it. So that's not what I'm talking about.
What I want to know, and what I think he's pointing out here when it comes to our idolatry, when it comes to how we view the world, do we treat money the same as people who don't know Jesus? Are you thinking about your tax return the same way as your neighbors are? Do you treat relationships the same way? So that you think about marriage or you think about dating the same way that our culture does. Do you think about work? When you get in a conversation with a co-worker, do you talk about work and your boss the same way they do?
Is work just this thing you go to to get a paycheck and your boss is the worst because all bosses are the worst, but this one is specifically the worst because he's a moron. Is that how that works? Because we're supposed to fundamentally be different. Our hearts are supposed to be resting in a different place. Our hope is supposed to be grounded somewhere else. And if everything we do is just the same as our culture, I'm not talking about small stuff, I'm talking about fundamentally, like if we looked at your bank account next to your neighbors, do you all spend the money the same way?
Does your money just terminate on you? Or do we as Christians have places that we want our money to go because we know it's not ours? Places that we know that I've only got a short time here and then I've got an eternity of good things. My good things aren't here. Do we act like that? Do we treat relationships like the goal is for me to find some happiness in it, and once that stops, this doesn't need to exist anymore?
Or do we fundamentally view them differently? So those are the symptoms. He's saying, basically, your hearts are far from me. You're chasing after worthless things. You're becoming more worthless. And you look like all the other nations around you.
You're chasing after that which does not profit. Verse 9. Therefore I still contend with you, declares the Lord, and with your children's children I will contend. For cross to the coast of Cyprus and see, or send to Kadar and examine with care. See if there has ever been such a thing. 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. So God looks at him and says, He says, look, go to the countries around you. No, no, no, go. Go check them out. Nobody does this. No country does the stupid stuff you're doing.
They have gods that don't even exist, and they keep them. I'm real, and you swapped me out for stupid stuff. No, no, go. Go to Kadar. Same God they've had. And they carve that cat into rocks.
Go check him out. It's the same one. I'm real, and you swapped me out for stupid stuff. He says they exchanged their glory. They changed their glory for that which does not profit. I think we get this on small scale.
So let's take it away from thinking about God and other things. Movies where a dad only cares about work, and he has a family, so he neglects his kids all the time. So Hook was like that. The old Robin Williams movie where he was Peter Pan. Elf is like that. The dad doesn't care about his kids.
It's any other movie ever, pretty much. That's how that plays out. If a dad has a job, he loves it and hates his children. And we'll watch it and be like, don't you realize your family is important? And then he finally gets it at the end, and we're like, yeah, tell your boss he can shove his job and go hang out with your kids and figure out how to buy food later. We get that.
We get that on a small scale. I hung out with a guy named Jeffrey at Sears in Lynchburg. He was great. I was a fan of Jeffrey. He was a bigger guy. He had grown up in California and knew Spanish, so he kind of had a Spanish-y sounding voice.
I think his dad was African-American. His mom was Samoan. And apparently having an African-American dad and a Samoan mom makes you look all Hispanic because everybody just thought he was from Mexico or some Hispanic country, and he wasn't. So it was a lot of fun because people would say racist things to him, and I got to discuss it with him, and he was like, what the heck was that? But he was talking to me about it.
Basically, he did three things. He worked at Sears, sold drugs, and played video games. That was all Jeffrey did, pretty much. I assume he slept and ate, but that's pretty much what he did. And when he would play video games, he would come in sometimes and be like, dude, I was playing video games with this guy at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, in the evening, and I could hear this cat talking to his daughter and telling her to go away because Daddy's playing video games. He was like, I almost lost it.
He's like, I can't play with that guy anymore. And so here's a guy who understands that it's dumb to trade out things that have value for things that don't. And so what God's saying is, hey, you've swapped out your glory for something that doesn't profit, for something that at the end of life will have had zero meaning, and we have a real and genuine relationship, and I exist. So that's what he's laying out here. And so he says, I'll keep reading, he says this, Verse 11, Has a nation changed their gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit.
Be appalled, O 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, and have honed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. He looks at the heavens and he says, Be shocked.
Be appalled. Be utterly desolate. And I think he says it to the heavens because I think he may be speaking to the angels that actually know him, that are in his presence. And he's like, Do you see? The angels in his presence, first of all, are superior to us in look and power and that kind of thing. Every time they show up in the Old Testament, they have to say, Don't be afraid.
There's one lady who goes and tells her husband, I met this awesome man, and I bet that made him feel great. He's like, Really, honey? You've got to call him awesome to my face? And then he walked up and was like, No, that was a good assessment. This guy's pretty awesome. I'm paraphrasing.
I'm just kind of helping you all. That's how I read it. So they, in God's presence, praise him continuously because he's worth it. And so he looks at the heavens and says, Be crushed by this. My people have swapped me out. Be appalled.
Be shocked. Be utterly desolate. Be crushed by this. There's some weight behind what we take lightly. He says, My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and honed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
So, okay, what we know is that swapping out a fountain of living water for a cistern is immensely stupid. That's what we know from context. So he says, Be utterly desolate. Here's what they've done. But here's the thing.
When he's bringing the hammer down with this living water cistern analogy that he's explaining this, that everybody in their culture would have been like, They did. What? That hits home with none of us. None of us are like, Oh man, cisterns are the worst. Nobody says that. We don't even know what that is.
Like, What's a cistern? Because we're really spoiled when it comes to water. Like, immensely spoiled. Like, we, even in our society now, so not even just then, but in the world now, we are spoiled when it comes to water because we can get it anywhere. It's free. Like, we complain that water has no flavor.
We'll complain when it's like, What? They're going to charge me 50 cents for the cup? This is ridiculous. I'm getting water. This should just be free. You should be able to get it anywhere you want it.
The only time I've ever had to go without water, Anna and I both grew up in the middle of nowhere on wells. And so when your power goes out and you have a well, you have no water. That's how that works, which is actually kind of funny because now that we've moved here to the big city, when the power goes out, Anna will remind me that we no longer have water. And I've had to explain to her, I think twice now, that we still have water. Like, she'll be like, Power's out, so, you know, no water. Basically, which is like, be careful with how much we use and you can only flush a certain amount of times.
I'm just coaching you up. I just want to remind you. And it's like, no, no, no. We have water. And she's like, no, the power's out. And I'm like, yeah, but like water towers and we don't have a well that runs off of electricity.
But when you grow up nowhere, you only have limited amounts of water. I remember when the power would go out, we would have to, we had a swimming pool so we would take buckets to fill up the back of the toilets. And one time it was really cold but I took a bucket and dumped it on my head on my back porch to try to rinse off because if you go without water, that's the most I've ever gone without water. It was like two days in an ice storm with no water. That's it. And I was really whiny about it.
Like, I've learned that I like water. It's very useful for things. When he says this, what he's saying is, so here's how societies work then. You want to build a city? You need flowing water. Like, you need a river.
That's why all large cities built up around rivers. That's why Columbia is here. We built up around a river. Columbia, West Columbia was built on the fall line to power mills. West Columbia started as all the mill villages that ran. That's why Gervais Street Bridge was built to get all the people who worked in the mills across the river.
But, Rome was on the Tiber. You've got Egypt on the Nile. You've got Babylon and Assyria on the Tigris-Euphrates. You've got, Israel was built on the Jordan. You want a big city, you have to have a river. And that's what living water is.
Living is either flowing, it means living, or running. So it's like moving water. Then you had wells. So you weren't near a river, you dug a well, that's groundwater, that actually wasn't that bad, although those could run dry. And then third, also here, worst, was a cistern. And a cistern was, you dug a hole and it caught rainwater.
And that's, and they were difficult to keep up, like you had to keep plastering them. They didn't have good plaster then, they would cave in, you'd dig them again, and then the water would get really gross. If you had water in it, depending on when it rained. And so what he says is, they traded out a river and built their life on a cistern. And this cistern doesn't even work. And everybody went, whoa, that's dumb.
That's ridiculous. So nobody would be like, I have dug this cistern. And upon this cistern, we will found our city. And we will become a great people. And we will water a plant. And, yes, just one.
And if, and we will have one person gets to drink water every day, if it's rained recently. And soon, as we multiply, we will all die of dehydration or dysentery. Who's with me? Like, you don't, you don't build a cistern, you don't build a city on a cistern. It just doesn't happen. It doesn't support life.
And what he's saying is, they've swapped me out who gives life for things that they have to work on and manage and that will ultimately kill them. That's idolatry. Taking God who gives life, who brings life, and swapping him out for something else that ultimately destroys. I got some pictures because we don't, it doesn't bring anything to mind. This is Caesarea Philippi. That is a, a freshwater spring in Caesarea Philippi.
That's what you can build a city on. That's flowing fresh water that naturally just pops out and turns into that. This is a cistern, a modern cistern, so it's about as nice as they look. This is also, that's in Mount Arad or Arad or however you want to say that or however they say it. And then, the next one is in southern Israel and that's a cistern as well. I work for, my dad owned a swimming pool company, so I worked for that one for a long time.
The best I can picture is a cistern, is a swimming pool that the pump doesn't work and it's just filled up with water. And let me tell you, you don't want to drink that. And that's what we're doing when we swap God out for something else. And here's what he says. He says, they've swapped me out for that which does not profit. He says, broken cisterns that can't even hold water.
What happens when we do that, two things. It crushes us or it crushes the cistern. And ultimately, it'll do both. But what I mean by that, how that plays out is this. If I make money a God, that's a problem. But if I make Anna a God, that's worse.
If you make your job a God, that's a problem. But if you make your children a God, that's worse. Because they cannot provide satisfaction and fulfillment, you will crush them. What will happen is, you ever had expectations for something and then it just didn't work out the way you had kind of painted it up in your brain? So like you just expected this date was going to be great and then it could have been a decent date, but because it wasn't what you had painted up in your brain, it wasn't any good.
I did this some when I have gifts like at Christmas and stuff. I did this past Christmas. Somebody handed me a gift and I was holding it and it just seemed like the right shape and weight to me for some reason. I wasn't really squeezing it or doing a whole lot with it because I didn't want to be like, you know, like a six-year-old. So I was just kind of behaving myself but I had kind of just decided that it was a bag of coffee.
And that means a lot to me because I really love coffee. And so I just decided, I was like, sweet, I think this is a bag of coffee. And then when I opened it up, it was socks. Well, here's the thing. I needed socks and actually have worn the socks. I was very appreciative of the socks.
But when I thought it was coffee and then it was socks, the best I could come out with was like, oh, yeah. Like that was all I could do because it was immediately like, no, this is great. Yes. Like, you know, you just kind of stick your eyebrows up and nod your head a lot. Like, you've given people gifts before and they've done that. They're like, and you're just like, well, I missed on that one.
Like, I don't know what I was shooting for, but I didn't hit it. If you walk through life expecting a relationship to provide fulfillment and satisfaction, if you walk through life expecting your spouse to be that for you, you will live your life going, ah, because they could be a great spouse, but they'll be a terrible God. And you'll slowly steal from them. You'll have to take from them to make yourself feel valued and loved and validated and over time, you'll slowly just be looking at them going, ah, and stealing from them and crushing them. Same thing with your children. Your children will have to be perfect.
They'll have to make great grades. They'll have to always work everything out because your validation depends on it. Your worth depends on it. And when they don't, it'll crush you or you'll crush them. We build our lives around broken cisterns that cannot support life. That cannot bring joy.
That cannot ultimately satisfy and fulfill. This happens prior to being married. This happens prior to entering into relationships. There's a lady at Sears who, I didn't work with her, but they told me about her. That's why she was infamous. She had a list of 50 things that her future spouse was going to have.
The only thing I know is one of them on there was a hairy chest, which, great. Like, not even like character qualifications. It was like random stuff, left-handed. Like, I don't know, like a mole on his forehead. I don't know what she had put on this list. She had 50 things.
They said that she had shown it to them. Spoiler alert, she was still single last I heard. She might as well have been looking for a golden unicorn. She'd have the same chance of finding it. To expect a person to validate and fulfill, she's never going to find that guy and if she ever marries somebody, she's going to destroy them. There's only a few options when that happens.
We can, we can blame the idol. So you can get married and just assume, well, it's this, this spouse. You can just assume my kids are terrible. If I had those kids, this would work out great. You can blame the category. So you can just be like, all spouses are the worst.
Or you can blame, marriage is the worst. Things were great until we got married and that destroyed this. You can blame the whole system. You can blame, you begin to, you can blame yourself. I'm the one that messed this up. But ultimately, as we enter into this expecting anything to validate us outside of God, anything to bring us ultimate fulfillment and joy, it'll be broken and we'll be slowly killing ourselves because it cannot, will not, sustain life.
Your entire life will be Indiana Jones 4. You'll just be slowly disappointed over and over again until it's over. And you'll be glad it's over. If you've seen Indiana Jones 4, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, well done. My favorite part about Indiana Jones 4 was right before it began when I could have not watched it.
So when we build up these expectations, everything will fail because we'll functionally be walking into a relationship and not just looking for a good spouse that we can walk through life together with, but looking for something to be God. Looking for something to give us what only God can give to bring us life and joy and hope and satisfaction. That's how it works with jobs. That's how it works with everything that we can say that, no, this would sustain my life. I can build my life around this. Body image, self-esteem, whatever.
It'll fail. Pleasing your parents, making good grades, being the smartest of your siblings, being the most successful. successful. All of it. What will happen is it will control you because you have to have it. Anything you have to have controls you. And if you get it, it won't satisfy.
And if you fail it, it will curse you forever. I love the quote that C.S. Lewis has on this because a right view of God changes this for us. And C.S. Lewis says this in his book The Weight of Glory. It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak.
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased. See, so often we think that we just have our passions are too strong. What C.S. Lewis is saying is like, no, we are just too easily pleased with stupid stuff.
We just too quickly run to a cistern and say, this will do it. When we are passing up living, flowing, life-giving, water, when we are passing up a God who brings joy and life always, here is what happens. When God becomes God, everything else can just be itself. When God's God, my marriage can just be my marriage, which is really nice. If Anna expects me to be perfect, she's going to be very disappointed. Extremely disappointed.
But if she knows that I'm just a sinful guy that she happens to live with and we're married and we're going to go through life together, then we just get to be friends who are married. We're just a team attacking life together. We get to repent and move forward. And it's really nice. If our marriage isn't going well, that doesn't destroy us. We get to work on it.
Because our marriage is ultimately about Jesus, not about us. If it's not the happiest moments we've ever had, that's fine. If we don't have a whole lot of money, okay. Because it's not about us. Your kids get to just be your kids, which means they can mess up. Your parents get to just be your parents.
They don't have to be perfect all the time. Your grades can just be your grades. Your money is just money. And you can have a lot of it or a little of it and it can... It's just money. Your value, your worth, your life isn't wrapped up in it.
When God is God, everything else gets to be what it is and then it's actually there's a lot of joy there. There's a lot of life there. There's a lot of hope there. Jesus died to rescue us from slavery and to make us his people. He died in our behalf for our idolatry. For the fact that we have rebelled and run from him.
And he's made us into his own. And we get to worship him and have everything else just be what it is. To actually build our life on something that will sustain, will fulfill, will bring joy. Because when we fail him, he forgives. Always. Because our merit and our worth isn't based off of us.
We entered into the relationship with him based off of his merit, his worth. So he always forgives. And when we're doing really well, we don't have to get prideful. We just get to enjoy it. Be a part of it. Because it's always about him.
And then everything else just gets to be what it is. everything else will be destroyed by the weight of glory except for Jesus. He actually was designed to stand under it. He's worth it. The weight of glory does not crush him. It'll crush your spouse. It'll crush your kids.
It'll destroy your job. If you base it off of your success, you'll crush yourself. because you aren't designed to bear the weight of glory. But Jesus is. And he's able to handle it. And he doesn't disappoint. He doesn't fail our expectations.
He exceeds them. So, the band's going to come back up to play. Here's verse 12 and 13. Be appalled, O 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. And honed out cisterns for themselves. Broken cisterns that can hold no water. Some of us are worn out. We're stressed out.
We don't really know where to turn. Some of us have been building our life around a cistern. And we're dying. We've been basing our existence off of something that cannot satisfy us, that does not bring life and never will. The invitation is open and free to come to the fountain of living water where joy and fulfillment and refreshment refreshment and satisfaction and life are found always. There's peace and rest with Jesus.
So we're going to celebrate that that is open to us, that was open to us at God's expense. He paid for it on the cross. We deserve destruction for our rebellion, but He suffered in our place so that we might be able to come to Him freely based not off of our merit but off of His. Jesus died on a cross and three days later He rose again and we are invited to base our life off of a life-giving, running, fulfilling, satisfying, validating God. some of us are exhausted and it's because we've been trying to maintain a pit that was never designed to build our lives around. We've been trying to drink from dry dirt and it's killing us.
But we can come to Jesus and we can have freedom and we can have hope and we can have joy and we can have life forever. God, we thank You for Your grace and I pray that Your Holy Spirit would draw us ever deeper into the life that is in You, that You would fulfill us and You would satisfy us and You would help us see where we have begun to trust in something that will not fill us up, will not make us complete, will never be able to satisfy. God, I pray that You would show us where we've begun to build our lives around something that ultimately we will have to prop up and that ultimately will destroy. We love You and we praise You.
In Jesus' name.