I Put Away My Idols
TCF Sermon
November 15, 2009
How many of you watched the PBS series last month on the National Parks? Besides the fabulous visual images of some of America�s most beautiful scenery, the documentary gave a very interesting perspective on the history of our national parks.
Did you know that Jim Grinnell�s dad has a great uncle named George Bird Grinnell who was part of the original National Parks movement? He also founded the Audubon Society, and even has a glacier named after him in Glacier National Park in Montana. The documentary featured Jim�s ancestor prominently.
The primary instigator of the idea of National Parks was a man named John Muir. He was a man who loved the wilderness, and loved the mountains. As the program quoted him about his love for the great outdoors, I found myself really resonating with some of what he said and wrote.
The first episode was even titled �The Scripture of Nature.� I�ve had several very deeply spiritual experiences in some natural settings � at Beaver Lake in Arkansas, and in the Rocky Mountains, and other places. I do, in fact, feel a connection with the Lord in those settings.
John Muir once wrote this:
A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. John Muir
It made me think of the passage in Isaiah:
Isaiah 55:12 (NIV) You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
It made me think of Jesus telling the Pharisees, who were complaining of the worship Jesus was receiving on Palm Sunday, that if they kept quiet, the stones would cry out in worship of Him.
But while John Muir said and wrote things about nature and creation that I can really relate to and appreciate, he also said some things that are more problematic. These kinds of thoughts were, quite frankly, echoed ad nauseum in the series by more contemporary thinkers and commentators with New Age leanings, so much so that I eventually gave up on it. Too much space on the DVR.
Anyway, John Muir wrote:
We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favored races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shoreless and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all. - June 9, 1872 letter to Miss Catharine Merrill, from New Sentinel Hotel, Yosemite Valley, in Bad�s Life and Letters of John Muir.
Without getting off on a tangent � that�s pantheism.
Pantheism, in a nutshell, makes no distinction (or at most a very unclear distinction) between the Creator and the creature. According to pantheism, god is not transcendent. In practical terms, god is in all, and all is part of god
That thinking leads almost inevitably to a worship of nature. Watching this program, I thought a lot about how natural beauty � God�s creation - can lead to worship. For me, it wells up in worship of the Creator God who made it all. For others, including John Muir, and many people today, it leads not to a worship of the Creator of all the wonderful beauty around us, but to a worship of creation itself. It is, indeed, a form of idolatry.
Idolatry is a word you don�t hear much anymore. When Jim Grinnell spoke a few weeks ago about why they won�t believe, he mentioned idolatry as one reason many people cannot seem to come to Christ.
All these things reminded me of Paul�s explanation of what idolatry looks like, and the inevitable downward spiral that begins when we glorify or worship things, rather than the Creator of those things.
Romans 1:21-25 (NIV) 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
When we think of idol worship, we think, too, of the Ten Commandments:
Exodus 20:3-6 (NIV) "You shall have no other gods before me. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,
So, when we think of idolatry in a Biblical sense, we tend to think of images, objects, golden calves and such. As a result, we find the idea of idolatry easier to dismiss, because we can�t relate to it. Though there are some cultures where literal, physical idols still exist, not too many of us have neighbors who have golden calves they worship. My guess is, however, that we all know people who worship idols, whether they, or we, see it like that or not.
But let�s look at this passage again, and see if we can legitimately apply what Paul is saying here to our day and time. Let me read this from the NLT, just to get another nuance of understanding.
Romans 1:21-25 (NLT) Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn�t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other�s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.
There are a few key phrases here. The first is in verse 21 � �they wouldn�t worship Him as God, or even give Him thanks.�
Why is this important? To worship God is one thing. To worship Him as God is key, because we�re acknowledging His claim to us, His claim to creation, His claim to our allegiance and our obedience. When we worship God as God, we�re proclaiming His greatness, we�re proclaiming His sovereignty, we�re acknowledging His creation, we�re acknowledging His right to do in our lives what is best, whatever He wills.
We�re saying, yes, Lord, you�re in charge. You�re the One who knows what�s good for me and what isn�t. You�re the One I will bow to in every area of my life. You�re the most important thing there is. You�re more important than anything You make, even more important than anything You provide for me to enjoy.
And this worship isn�t just what we do in the first part of our service on Sunday morning. Singing praises to God is only one kind of worship. Giving thanks is an act of worship. A week from Thursday, we�ll be marking Thanksgiving Day � a day set aside to remember that every good and perfect gift is from God, a day to remember that there�s nothing we have that we did not receive.
Paul�s telling us that when we don�t worship God as God, and when we don�t give thanks - when we don�t acknowledge God as the source of everything that�s good in our lives, it leads to foolishness, it leads to darkened minds, and eventually leads to idolatry.
That takes us to our second key phrase, in verse 25, where Paul tells us:
They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself
Note there the words worshiped and served. Interestingly, the word for serve here is sometimes translated as worship.
These words are often synonymous, both being used to express inward reverence and outward worship; Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. (Hodges)
Tim Keller writes: Whatever we worship we will serve, for worship and service are always inextricably bound together. We are �covenantal� beings. We enter into covenant service with whatever most captures our imagination and heart. It ensnares us. So every human personality, community, thought-form, and culture will be based on some ultimate concern or some ultimate allegiance�either to God or to some God-substitute. Individually, we will ultimately look either to God or to success, romance, family, status, popularity, beauty or something else to make us feel personally significant and secure, and to guide our choices. Culturally, we will ultimately look to either God or to the free market, the state, the elites, the will of the people, science and technology, military might, human reason, racial pride, or something else to make us corporately significant and secure, and to guide our choices. Tim Keller
Again, if we tend to think of worship as only the songs we sing to God, we�re missing an important point here. What does worship mean?
It encompasses a lot of things we won�t examine this morning, but one definition says worship is:
Homage rendered to God, which it is sinful (idolatry) to render to any created being
What�s homage? Well, the roots of this word refer to:
1 a : a feudal ceremony by which a man acknowledges himself the vassal (the slave) of a lord b : the relationship between a feudal lord and his vassal
The way we tend to think of homage today is in the 2nd definition:
2 a : expression of high regard : respect �often used with (the word) pay b : something that shows respect or attests to the worth or influence of another
These definitions shed new light on what idolatry is. Worship is paying homage to, ultimately acknowledging the lordship of, someone or something. It�s tacitly or implicitly or explicitly saying to whatever we�re idolizing: You�re the most important thing in my life.
When we sing to the our Great God, the King of Kings, �You are Lord of creation and Lord of my life�� or when we sing �You are my all in all�� that�s explicit, and proper worship, of the only One who truly deserves worship.
But when we devote our lives to something, or maybe someone, or devote our money to something, devote our time to something, more than to God, we�re implicitly saying: you�re in charge. You know best.
We might as well sing to that created thing: you are Lord of my life�. you are my all in all. Idolatry is worshipping or paying homage to, something other than God, something that�s ultimately a thing or a person He created.
When seen like this, it begins to hit home, doesn�t it? This way of looking at idolatry makes it harder to just think it�s something pagans did in the Old Testament, or maybe just something that Hindus do today. That�s why I think it�s not a stretch to say what the ESV study Bible tells us:
The root sin is the failure to value God above all things, so that he is not honored and praised as he should be. Idolatry is the fundamental sin. ESV Study Bible
It�s also why I think there�s truth in what the church father Tertullian said:
The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry
There�s a reason that the very first commandment is that we shall have no other gods before the One true God. This Romans passage, of course, is not the only Biblical passage that warns us about idolatry. The Old Testament is full of stories and warnings about idolatry. But it�s not just an Old Testament theme. In addition to the clear warning we�re looking at in Romans, there are many other passages in the N.T. Let�s look at just three.
Colossians 3:1-5 (NIV) Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
Ephesians 5:5 (NIV) For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
1 John 5:21 (NIV) Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.
Here�s what one commentator wrote about the 1 John passage:
In a world full of alluring objects, there was danger then, as there is at all times, that the affections should be fixed on other objects than the supreme God, and that what is due to him should be withheld. It may be added, in the conclusion of the exposition of this epistle, that the same caution is as needfull for us as it was for those to whom John wrote. We are not in danger, indeed, of bowing down to idols, or of engaging in the grossest forms of idol-worship. But we may be in no less danger than they to whom John wrote were, of substituting other things in our affections in the place of the true God, and of devoting to them the time and the affection which are due to him. The world�its wealth, and pleasures, and honours - we may love with a degree of attachment such as even an idolater would hardly show to his idol-gods. There is practical idolatry all over the world; in nominally Christian lands as well as among the heathen; in families that acknowledge no God but wealth and fashion; in the hearts of multitudes of individuals who would scorn the thought of worshipping at a pagan altar; and it is even to be found in the heart of many a one who professes to be acquainted with the true God, and to be an heir of heaven. God should have the supreme place in our affections. The love of everything else should be held in strict subordination to the love of him. He should be submitted to at all times as having a right to command and control us; be obeyed in all the expressions of his will, by his word, by his providence, and by his Spirit; be so loved that we shall be willing to part without a murmur with the dearest object of affection when he takes it from us; Barnes Notes on the N.T.
How many Americans are defined by their idols? The cars they drive. The houses they own. The clothes they wear. Of course, these things are not necessarily idols. They�re just things. For something to be an idol, there has to be an attitude of the heart attached to it. In and of itself, nothing is really an idol. It�s how we view it, how important it is to us, how much we devote ourselves to it.
Seen this way, we can see how many things can become idols. Even good things.
Mark Driscoll said:
Idols are good things turned into god things and they become bad things.
We, as Paul said to the Romans, exchange the truth of God for a lie. We take things that are in and of themselves good things, or things that can be legitimately used or enjoyed in their proper perspective, and turn them into gods � little �g�.
Of course, it�s easy for us to see idols everywhere in our culture. There are music idols like Michael Jackson or Miley Cyrus. Can you think of any better description of the behavior of of the legions of Michael Jackson fans at his funeral than devotion or worship?
"When his face is on your T-shirt and when you listen to his music for hours, when you give large sums of money to him personally, when his death causes you to go into a steep depression and you have a collection of memorabilia -- I think if you walked in from another culture, you would say that�s a very curious god they�ve chosen." Mark Driscoll
We even have a TV show allowing us to vote on our favorite American Idol. Our idols are not images or golden calves. They�re more likely to be someone or something that occupies the place of God in your life. Maybe not always, maybe just sometime.
An idol gives us what we should only seek, and can only truly find in God - it gives you identity, meaning, value, purpose, love, significance or security.
If you worship alcohol, you can become an alcoholic. If you worship food, you become a glutton. If you worship pleasure, you can become a sex or drug addict. But these words � alcoholic, glutton, addict, don�t adequately recognize the foundation of these issues � It�s idolatry. Something, or someone, is more important, has greater value, in one�s life, than God.
The other irony is that idols will let us down. God is faithful. God is eternal. God is sovereign. But the idols we worship are not. Idols will inevitably let us down. They�ll inevitably disappoint us because they are false gods.
Those who have made money their idols sure have had a tough few years with the lack of faithfulness of their idol. Those who make sexual pleasure their idol are always disappointed because they�re never satisfied. Those who have made power their idol will inevitably be out of power someday.
But there are more insidious, more subtle things, we Christians deal with. So many things that are, or can be, good, in and of themselves, can be idols, too.
We can make a ministry an idol. We can put it in the place of God Himself, making it more important than the author of that ministry.
Work�s a good thing. We can make it more important the One who provides it.
Our marriages are ordained of God and are a good thing. But our spouse cannot replace the King of Kings in our heart�s devotion. Our kids are of great value, and a wonderful blessing. Yet, they cannot be our source of supply or joy, and we cannot be more devoted to our children than we are to our Lord.
So what�s a follower of Christ to do? I think the first thing we must do is recognize that idolatry is a propensity we have, a part of the sin nature that is being put to death as we are being sanctified in Christ.
Paul says in Colossians 3:5, �Covetousness is idolatry.� �Covetousness� means desiring something other than God in the wrong way. But what does that mean��in the wrong way�? Idolatry will destroy our relationship with God, and with people.
John Piper writes that:
All human relational problems�from marriage and family to friendship to neighbors to classmates to colleagues�all of them are rooted in various forms of idolatry, that is, wanting things other than God in wrong ways.
Piper has a helpful list of ways we can determine what makes something we can legitimately enjoy, turn to idolatry.
Let�s consider these:
1. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is forbidden by God.
For example, adultery and fornication and stealing and lying are forbidden by God. Some people at some times feel that these are pleasurable, or else we would not do them. No one sins out of duty. But such pleasure is a sign of idolatry.
2. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is disproportionate to the worth of what is desired.
Great desire for non-great things is a sign that we are beginning to make those things idols.
3. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not permeated with gratitude.
When our enjoyment of something tends to make us not think of God, it is moving toward idolatry. But if the enjoyment gives rise to the feeling of gratefulness to God, we are being protected from idolatry. The grateful feeling that we don�t deserve this gift or this enjoyment, but have it freely from God�s grace, is evidence that idolatry is being checked.
4. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not see in God�s gift that God himself is more to be desired than the gift.
If the gift is not awakening a sense that God, the Giver, is better than the gift, it is becoming an idol. (That harkens back to where we began, with worship of God�s creation becoming idolatry.)
5. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is starting to feel like a right, and our delight is becoming a demand.
It may be that the delight is right. It may be that another person ought to give you this delight. It may be right to tell them this. But when all this rises to the level of angry demands, idolatry is rising.
6. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it draws us away from our duties.
When we find ourselves spending time pursuing an enjoyment, knowing that other things, or people, should be getting our attention, we are moving into idolatry.
7. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it awakens a sense of pride that we can experience this delight while others can�t.
This is especially true of delights in religious things, like prayer and Bible reading and ministry, (or even spiritual gifts). It is wonderful to enjoy holy things. It idolatrous to feel proud that we can.
8. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is oblivious or callous to the needs and desires of others.
Holy enjoyment is aware of others� needs and may temporarily leave a good pleasure to help another person have it. For example, someone might leave their own personal prayer time to be the answer to someone else�s prayer.
9. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss ruins our trust in the goodness of God.
There can be sorrow at loss without being idolatrous. But when the sorrow threatens our confidence in God, it signals that the thing lost was becoming an idol.
And finally:
10. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss paralyzes us emotionally so that we can�t relate lovingly to other people.
This is the horizontal effect of losing confidence in God. Again: Great sorrow is no sure sign of idolatry. Jesus had great sorrow. But when desire is denied, and the effect is the emotional inability to do what God calls us to do, the warning signs of idolatry are flashing.
John Calvin said, Our hearts are idol factories
Augustine said: Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshiped.
So, we must ask the question, who or what is our God? The answer is found in what we love the most. What we seek out most. What we give the most of our resources to. What we care about the most. What we worship the most.
Our gods can be our careers. Our gods can be our bank accounts. Our gods can be the way we look. Our gods can be our position in life, our position in ministry. Our gods can be our education or degrees. Our gods can be our influence. Our gods can be our power.
It can even be something that is considered intrinsically good, yet you allow it to dominate your life more than God � such as your marriage or your family. Your �god� is whatever you allow to control you, to be the ultimate guide to decision making, the place of your supreme loyalty, and the source of your self-worth." James Emery White
Someone once said that
Today�s idols are more in the self than on the shelf.
Don�t we see that? Don�t we see that in our culture? Don�t we wrestle with that in ourselves? We tend to make ourselves our top priority. Not God. In many ways, we can say that the number one idol today is self.
We are the personal agents who vie for the glory that belongs to God alone. We are the ones who foolishly boast of power by which we try to defy God�s sovereignty. (idols) are� merely manifestations of our self-worship. Satan and the world offer, and we selfishly employ, everything under the sun to worship ourselves instead of offering ourselves in generous worship to God. Carlton Wynne
We cannot root out idolatry from our lives simply or only by repentance, though that�s a good start. We can�t do it by simply deciding to live differently, though the recognition of our propensity for idolatry, and the decision to do something about it, is also a good step in the right direction.
Turning from idols is not less than those two things, but it is also far more. "Setting the mind and heart on things above" where "your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col 3:1-3) means appreciation, rejoicing, and resting in what Jesus has done for you. It entails joyful worship, a sense of God�s reality in prayer. Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart, than your idol. That is what will replace the idols of your heart. If you uproot the idol and fail to "plant" the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back. Tim Keller
So this morning, as we close, let�s pray together. Let�s pray that God will help us be honest with ourselves, and identify those created things we might have a tendency to worship and serve. And let�s pray as we decide to put away our idols, put God in His rightful place as the only one worthy of our worship and service, and worship and serve God first, and foremost, and only.
Pray
