American Idol

 Everybody spoke in tongues – if you don’t… you’re not a Christian

 Problem = He never felt God lead him to speak in tongues… but the pressure was so great he faked it!

 As he grew up, he realized that there were probably a whole lot of other people in the room that were just faking it. In other words, the all knew it wasn’t God… but they followed!

o The idol of the Charismatic Show

Eight Examples…

1. The idol of Money

2. The Open Door idol

3. The idol of Me

4. The idol of Happiness

5. The idol of the Pastor

6. The idol of Big

7. The idol of Security

8. The idol of the Charismatic Show

Eight examples of how we take something culturally influenced, and let it speak to us… as if it’s God

It makes the idol of the Golden Calf look not so stupid doesn’t it?

My point is this… the messages of the 2nd Commandment is…

Don’t make and worship idols!

Put another way…

Don’t let our culture influence our relationship with God, in such a way…

that we no longer worshipping & following Him!

Cause, when we do that… what we’re really worshipping and serving are idols.

Now, if you’ve been here for the past several weeks, I’ve been saying that one of my goals with this series is not just to help you understand the 10 Commandments… but to help you bridge the OT to the NT. In other words, I want to show you places in the NT where these OT commands are…

• Lived out

• Or, maybe further explained

So, flip forward in your Bible’s to the book of John (The 4th Gospel)

John, Chapter 13… verse 33…

Here Jesus is on his way to the cross to die for the sins of humanity, and he’s trying to explain the situation to his closest friends – his disciples. And this is what he says…

JN 13:33 "My children, I’ll be with you only a little longer. You’ll look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going… you can’t come.

Well, imagine what that’d be like… you’ve been following Jesus for 3 years and then he says this:

I’m going somewhere and you can’t come!

I think Peter’s response is pretty normal… verse 36…

JN 13:36 "Lord, where are you going?"

Jesus replied, "Where I’m going, you can’t follow now… but you will follow later."

Admittedly… this is pretty cryptic!

Peter responds…

JN 13:37 "Lord, why can’t I follow you now?

But here’s what I want you to realize… Isn’t this situation somewhat similar to what was going on with the Hebrew’s & Moses at Mt. Sinai?

• God is in the process of doing something…

• But for now, his followers are going to have to sit in the dark and wait.

Well, we don’t like waiting.

Again, look at Peter’s response… verse 37…

JN 13:37 "Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I’ll lay down my life for you."

In other words, think of this… what Peter is saying is…

I can do this… my self!

Doesn’t matter what the situation is… I can take care of it.

I’ll even go so far as to lay my life down for you Jesus!

You see, it’s that idol of me that I was talking about. It’s the idol of self!

Jesus, why can’t I have what I want now?

Why does this process have to take so long?

Why shroud it in all this mystery?