When Idols Become the Reason

Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Good. Are you sure? Yes. I'm doing well. Nervous, but I'm doing well. God is good. God is good. And all the time. All the time. Amen. Amen. Well, I made it. I didn't pass out. This morning, I thought I might. I am here and I'm blessed. I stand before you as a person totally unworthy but for the grace of God. Amen. Amen, amen. So this morning we're going to talk about something that's a little different when we talk about singing. It doesn't think— you don't think singing and Talking about idol worship is the same thing, but we're going to get there, right? So I'm going to start us out by first saying thank you for allowing me to be here. I want to thank my pastor, Pastor Rich, who's not here, but I just want to thank you and thank you for all the prayers. Some of you are praying for me all the time. I need it. So thank you so much for praying for me. It's just a wonderful thing to have people praying for me. Amen. Uh, so praise God. We're going to start out first by reading our passage for this morning. It's found in Psalm 115, verses 1 through 8. I'm not going to ask you to stand, but you can read along with me, okay? Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Why should the nations say, where is their God? Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak, eyes but do not see; they have 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. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. Amen. Amen. So God's word is already blessed, and so we say Let this word fill our minds and flow through our hearts as we are free to live as the beloved children of God. Amen. Amen. Our sermon topic today is When Idols Become the Reason Why We Sing. Our main idea is God is always at work on his plan to form us and to bring us closer to him. One of the ways he forms us in this passage of scripture is to connect or highlight the inward struggle with idol worship. God is committed to healing us inside and out. Let's pray. Gracious and loving God, help us to see you in your words to us today. Help us to understand your ways and embrace the truth. Help us to live lives that fully please you, allowing for our inside desires to match our outside observances of your will and your way. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. So this month we have enjoyed some time just celebrating and learning more about what can make us sing. And it is important to note the things that should bring joy and involve us in a celebration of the goodness of God in the land of the living. Our world is complicated. At any given moment, we can be caught in life-changing decisions, or experience the stress of unexpected situations. In general, we can be stressed out often and unexpectedly. Our scripture passage for the day is a reminder of things that should not be forgotten. We sometimes forget, but should not, that the Ten Commandments are real and had purpose for the children of Israel and can still impact our lives today. Some of the do-nots from the law: do not murder, do not lie or bear false witness, do not steal, do not covet or lust or place desire on someone else's spouse. We overlook the importance of the commandments and think of them as outdated or obsolete. But as mentioned, many of those commandments are still enforced and overlooking them, overlooking and thinking they are not real can cause real consequences. Oh boy, I lost my place for real. It's okay because I told my sister that the reason I brought my iPad was because turning pages is a problem. So is using an iPad. Okay. There you go. So we're just going to skip to here. I believe our sermon series this month was meant to capture the essence of worship. Yes, worship is an outward show meant to reflect our inward practice. We can worship in church and worship daily because of the connection and relationship we have with a holy God. We can worship God as a reflection of the blessings bestowed or given to us. We have our health and strength, our families are well, and our job is doing eh, but we still can live good lives even in the midst of the chaos around us locally and globally. We can be described as being in a good place. Amen. In God's continuing work of forming us, he will often introduce a challenge. He will show us places around us and within us that may need a little bit of tweaking. He may show us things that are going well, and yet we need a little more commitment to trusting him in one place in our lives or another. And he can also upset the whole apple cart and show us a revelation about ourselves that we are not aware of. This revelation may demand more of our attention to detail, more intentional work on our parts to work to align with God's intentions for revealing this truth. I believe the passage of scripture for today is bringing us to a greater understanding Of what God does when he reveals truth. God wants to form us around the truth of idols in our everyday life and what cherishing, honoring, and holding idols in our heart can do to damage our relationship with our holy God. So let's take a look at the definition of an idol, okay? I like definitions. I used to read the dictionary. Just for kicks and giggles, right? So I love digging into stuff like this, and I could really go deep, but I'm not going to do that with you today, okay? So the dictionary defines an idol as an image or material object representing a deity to which religious worship is addressed. In the Bible, An idol is considered an image of a deity other than God or the deity itself. An idol can also be any person or thing regarded with blind admiration, adoration, or devotion, such as the example they'd use— Madame Curie had been her childhood idol. An idol can also be a mere image or semblance of something visible but without substance, such as a phantom. It can also be a figment of your imagination, a fantasy. And then also it can be a false concept or notion, so a fallacy, right? So idols are not just the little things that people carry around and maybe rub on or hang from their mirrors or any of those things. It can be even deeper than that. It can be things that are lying on the inside of our hearts. So there's a lot here to digest, but an idol can be represented by a created image or thing meant to represent another god that's not God. An idol can also be blind admiration or devotion to to a person. For example, I could idolize someone because I think they are a great teacher or a facilitator of the truth. When I realize the truth of who they are by their actions, because they've done something crazy like killed somebody or something— Crazy, right? Then it would crush my notions of them as this great teacher that I, I idolized. An idol could be physical, but my job could be an idol. I could love and idolize my job to the point that nothing is more important than that job and what I do. I could be so focused on and committed to this job that nothing else in my life, not my husband, not my children, not even my own personal care would be more important. than that job. People idolize other persons and what they have. People can also idolize money and the acquisition of money. To idolize something means that that thing, that image or other deity is more important in their hearts and life pursuit than God himself. So, I want you to let those words rest on you for a minute. An idol can be, but it's not limited to, an object. An idol can be anything that replaces God in the affections of your heart. So, again, let that rest on you as you think about God does not want anything to replace you or replace him in your heart. Nothing. And he actually said so. When Moses gave the 10 Commandments, what was the first one? Let's go to Exodus chapter 20, verses 1 through 4. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt Or the land of Arkansas, or the land of Illinois, or the land of Indiana. I brought you out, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above Or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. So he covered all the bases, right? Nothing on the earth, nothing in the water hiding, nothing, nothing can be more important than he is in your heart. This was the first commandment, and God was serious with them, and he is still serious with us today. Nothing should replace God in our hearts. Not one thing. But idols and idol worship can also sneak into our hearts unannounced. It can creep in slowly, painlessly, without warning. Before we know it, a great love for one thing can turn into a strong affection, and that strong affection can become blind admiration. This is why we need the Spirit of God to be continually on the job, forming our hearts and informing our minds of the realities that lie within us. Praise God in this moment for his continual devotion to forming the hearts of his people. He is relentless in his care for and over our souls, our minds, and our hearts. He wants the absolute best for us at all times and in every way. Amen. Amen. As we make our way toward the end, I want to share with you ways that we should rejoice in the truth of what lies beneath our vision, sometimes beyond the scope of our comprehension. Believe me when I say that God sees so much more than we can see and knows us so deeply that words cannot express the depth of his knowledge of us. In the intimate— in that kind of intimacy and in the love that comes from that, God can show us deep truths and hidden things. He can reveal the very nature of our love for him and his love for us. He loves us more than our comfort, more than our misunderstandings of his ways, more than our understanding of who he is. Amen. He loves us, and it is such a great and comforting thing to hold on to. So here are the 3 ways that I say we should learn to rejoice and to sing because of God's care for our inward being. Number 1, we should sing over the Word of God that brings life and light and truth. It is no mistake Bleh. Okay, I got it. It is no mistake that God announced first and foremost that he wants no idols to replace him in our hearts. That encouragement and commandment given to the children of Israel so many years ago was for us as well. God does not share us with anyone. If God had a report card in school, it would say, does not share with others. Yes. He will not be replaced by man-made things, persons, or desires of our hearts. God also wants us to hear how impotent these idols we create are. In verses 4 through 8, the psalmist speaks clearly about how impotent and lacking idols are. They do not speak, they can't hear, they can't walk, they can't see, And they cannot feel. God does all this and more. He went as far as to be made human through Jesus and knows exactly how we feel and what it means to live in the human condition. It does not get much better than that. God is also about order. He— his order starts with the alignment of our hearts. He wants not just our attention, but our whole being to be focused on him and what he is up to in our lives. For the Sunday-only worshiper, he wants to have your affection and attention Monday through Saturday as well. He is working for you full-time each day of your life, crafting and making his ways known to you. This notion of God's full-time attention on you should not— should help to alleviate the feelings of you don't belong. I have known that struggle. It's not easy to shake it. I have known and can stand here and say honestly that you belong to God. And I belong to God. You are his and he is yours. I find great comfort in that, having felt very abandoned as a child, but it is so good to know that I belong to him and that he belongs to me. That's good. Amen. Amen. Point number 2. We should sing over the goodness of God's presence, the goodness that God's presence brings to our lives. At the beginning of the passage, the psalmist is placing all emphasis on God and his existence in our lives. The psalmist says from the NIV, Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory because of your love and faithfulness. God is attentive to us, attentive to our wants and our needs. God is here. God is with us. Amen. He is constant and faithful in his presence and nearness to us. His attention to the fact that idols can reside within us speaks to his love and his care For his creation. God didn't just create us, throw us down here on earth and say, okay, do the best you can with what you've got. He shows himself to be caring, to be loving, to be attentive to our needs. He is attentive to the places where we are weak. He is concerned about what is in our hearts that could separate us from him. Amen. How can we have an authentic relationship with God that is marred and scarred by a broken relationship with him? It is true that if idols remain in your heart, our relationship with God can become broken. You may have a desire for real peace, real comfort, and real healing, yet your heart is fractured by the idols that you hold on to. In truth, in this truth of idols within us is, and if it is not rectified, you will not get the peace, the comfort, and the healing that you are looking for. I've spoken to so many people over the years who have talked to me about how disappointed they are in God. They say things like, he says he's a healer, but I'm not healed. There are still things I need God to do. And there are many reasons why our relationship with God is not meaningful, but as the saying goes, if you feel distance from God, it's not because he moved. No. God does more than his part. It's the truth. God does more than his part to keep himself close to us. And it is our tendency to wander that causes breaches and limits the access. Consider these things the next time you feel there is distance with you and God, but know that he is still there. But where did you go? Right. God is true to his word, true to his work in you, and true to his love for you. So now point number 3, as God forms us through the removal of idols in our hearts, our worship can increase, can increase our trust in God. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, trust the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him. And he will make your path straight. Can you tell that's my favorite scripture? Increasing our trust in God is never bad, always good. This truth should cause us to sing. Trusting God means our faith grows. As our faith grows, God knows he can trust us to do more with him and more for him. It's all a win-win situation. Trust in God strengthens our resolve within. We can see the possibilities of God's power working in our lives because we express more faith in him. Idol worship hinders so much of what we can do with God and for God. As I speak to you today, I am also encouraging you to trust God with all that you have. Allow God to work for you. Allow God to work in you to form you in his image and likeness. Allow him to express his love for you by molding, forming, and shaping you each day. The process of forming, for those that needed to know this, is not a one-time event, but a continual process. Yes. God will be forming us until we leave this earth. The truth is not meant to discourage you or dissuade you, but to encourage you. God is not done with the work that he is doing in you. He has multiple ways of forming you. He made us as individuals, and as such, his ways with each of us is different. One of the ways God has formed me is by moving me. God moved me from Arkansas to Oklahoma to Ohio, and I'm really hoping that there's not another move in store for me, but he knows if it's his will, I will go. For you, it could be various ways he uses to work on you and to form you. Be open to the ways of God, trust in his ways, delight yourself in the truth, and delight yourself in the path that he has for you and trust that he knows what he is doing. He is God and we are not. Amen. Amen. As we close out this portion of the service, I wanna take us through a small portion of a contemplative moment. I want us to spend time sharing and thinking about some of the things that we've heard today, Talking about idols is not an easy topic, but it is important and it is necessary because of the destructive power that idols within can have on our relationship with God, and it is the most important thing that we have in our lives. As we participate in this contemplative moment, I want you to first spend some time just expecting That God is going to speak to you. Sometimes our expectations are the things that get in the way of what we receive from the Lord. So as you are sitting there in your chair, I want you to start to become comfortable in your, in your chair. Find a comfortable position to be in, and if you feel comfortable, close your eyes. Amen. And the first thing that we're going to work on while we're— while we have our eyes closed and we're comfortable is our breathing. I want you to breathe in through your nose deeply and then out. Breathe in and then breathe out. Breathe in and then breathe out. God is here and he is with us. Keep breathing. You're doing well. As you continue to get comfortable, for those of you that are ready, I want you to open your eyes. We're going to see an image on the screen. I want to ask you a few questions as you consider this image. What do you see? What can you sense about God's intention? For the child? How does his posture, his face, his stance say about what he has for his child? As you're looking at that picture, also think about Putting yourself in the position of that child. What could Jesus have in store for you behind his back? What is it that maybe you're holding on to that God is saying, but I have something that's so much better than what you want? You want to go to the zoo, and I want to take you to Disneyland. You want to travel across the country, and I want to take you across the world.