SERMON “Idol Chatter”

1 JOHN 5:13-21 [NLTse]

13 I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life. 14 And we are confident that He hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases Him. 15 And since we know He hears us when we make our requests, we also know that He will give us what we ask for.

16 If you see a fellow believer sinning in a way that does not lead to death, you should pray, and God will give that person life. But there is a sin that leads to death, and I am not saying you should pray for those who commit it. 17 All wicked actions are sin, but not every sin leads to death.

18 We know that God’s children do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them. 19 We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one.

20 And we know that the Son of God has come, and He has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and He is eternal life.

21 Dear children, keep away from idols, that is, anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.

SERMON

We are finishing up our year-long reading of the Bible. This past week we finished Hebrews, and read through James, and First & Second Peter. This reading from 1 John that Elder Roger Casey just finished comes from next week’s readings. I’m a week ahead of us because next Sunday – Christmas Eve morning – the Service will largely be led by the kids and teens of the church, including the Message. So, as I believe the Lord wanted this Message preached, since I won’t get a chance to preach it next Sunday, here I am preaching it today. J

During our prayers this morning I asked us what we were praying for this Christmas: What we were asking God for… With that on my mind this past week as I was preparing for this morning I got wondering what God might want from us this Christmas: What He’s asking us for… And the very end of this reading caught my attention: John’s final words of the letter, “Dear children, keep away from idols, that is, anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.” (5:21)

For those of you reading along with Roger this morning, if you were reading along in our pew Bibles – the New Living Translation – you saw that I inserted the word “idols” into our reading. Its translation simply says: “Keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.” If you’re reading along in some other translation – the NIV (the New International Version) or the New King James Version or the growing-more-and-more-popular ESV (English Standard Version) – your translation simply read: “Keep yourselves from idols.”

Of course, both translations are correct because when the Holy Spirit (through John) is calling us away from “idols”, he’s not just telling us to not worship God by bowing down before or praying toward statues made of wood or marble or gold that represent God or other gods. No. “Idols” and “idolatry” in the Bible include anything we might worship other than God (through Christ): Anything that might take God’s place in our hearts.

You see, the Bible makes clear that as far back as Genesis chapter 3 – which records the first sin – that human being’s root problem is that we don’t want to let God be the center of our lives. In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve trusted the devil more than they trusted God. In Genesis 4, Cain went along with his jealousy instead of going along with God. By the time of Noah, the people of the earth had ignored and distanced themselves from God so completely that Genesis 6 tells us, “Everything [human beings]

thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.” (v. 5) And by Moses’ day, the peoples’ of the earth were so mixed up about right and wrong and love and hate and rightness and injustice that God had to give Moses the Ten Commandments (and over time a bunch of other so-called “laws”) to help people get to know good from bad again!

Yup, like Adam and Eve trusting the devil, and Cain giving in to his jealousy, and even the Israelites wanting a golden calf they could see and touch to worship instead of a God Who couldn’t be seen or touched, human beings have always chosen created things to worship and be our “gods” because we don’t want God to be in control of our lives: We want to be in control of our lives.

So, wealth, work, family, and wanting others to like us can all become “idols” when we look to them to help us feel good about ourselves and acceptable to others. A property, a possession, an activity, or an institution can all become “idols” when we need them in our lives in order to be happy. A hope, an idea, a pleasure, even a hero can become “idols” when, if ever threatened or taken from us, would cause us to turn our backs on God. Yes, even the good things God has given us and the good callings He has on our lives can become “idols” when they become the real goal of our day-to-day living instead of Almighty God Who gave them…

Several years ago I shared with you all the story of a time when my wife, Amy, and I were making our way through a crowded movie theater parking lot and Amy, having looked both ways, had then dashed across the traffic to the other side. (Only, Amy hadn’t seen a car that I could see coming up from behind us!) In that moment when I thought I was going to lose her I had one of those “life flashing before your eyes” conversations with God: Begging Him not to take her. And in that same moment God showed me how, if I didn’t surrender Amy’s life and welfare to Him – how, if I always demanded He keep her safe and healthy – how Amy

would always be vulnerable to the wicked plans of the Evil One. That is, if my love for God and my trust in Him depended on whether or not He took good-enough care of my wife, how the devil could then always hurt me and cause trouble between God and me by hurting her or even taking her from me. God taught me in that moment that the safest place for my wife to be was not in my hands or in my plans for her and us, but in His hands and in His plans for her and us. I needed to worship Him alone.

God shattered another potential-idol of mine years later when our first child was born. Amy was exhausted after a long night of labor made all the more draining on account of her having been given a large dose of sleeping medicine by accident just as her contractions started. She literally didn’t have it in her to push Noah out. And he was stuck. And the nurse hit that dreaded blue button, and the coding announcement went out over the hospital loud speakers. And as the crash cart came in and I was pushed out of the way, it became clear that my wife and my son were going to die as I helplessly watched. And I told God in that moment, with tears pouring down my face, that He could have her and I would still love Him, and that He could have Noah, too, and that I would still love Him…

And God was merciful to me as those little stone sculptures fell from the altar of my heart and smashed on the hospital floor at my feet. He had mercy on us in that Amy is here today and in that, God willing, Noah will be home for Christmas break later on this afternoon.

But how do we know when the Lord is rightly and solely enthroned upon our hearts and when something or someone has become an “idol” that we’ve placed there?

First of all, there’s always competition for the throne of our lives. The devil hates that we’re saved and is doing everything in his power to break up our relationship with the Lord. So, the question is never,

“Is there something or someone competing for God’s place on the throne of my life?” the question is always, “What is competing for God’s place on the throne of my life?”

And we get the answers to such questions by honestly answering other questions. Questions like:

u “What gives my life meaning? What gives my life worth?”

u “What is my greatest nightmare? What do I worry about most?”

u “What keeps me going? That is, what – if I failed in it or lost it – would cause me to not want to live anymore?”

u “What do I rely on when things go bad or get difficult? What do I comfort myself with?”

u “What preoccupies me? What does my mind think about when I’m not doing something else?”

u “What prayer, if unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?”

u “What gives me the most self-worth? What am I the proudest of?”

u “What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?”

The common-thread answers to these questions will make absolutely clear to you what has become too important to you… u

Once we’ve identified our “idols”, how do we go about smashing them and removing them from the throne of our hearts?

First, let’s realize that having an “idol” or “idols” alongside or in God’s rightful place in our lives is like saying to God, “Lord, it’s good to have You in my life, but there’s this other thing that I must have or I’ll never be happy and my life won’t be meaningful. You are not enough, Father. I need this, too, in order to be fulfilled. In fact, if you take it from me I’ll turn my back on You, because I like having You in my life, but I need this!” (Does anything or anyone come to your mind as I said that? Well,

that’s your “idol” or at least one of the “idols” competing for God’s place in your life.)

So, acknowledging what having an “idol” in our lives says to God, we repent and seek to smash the “idol” by coming against its place in our lives in two different ways:

First: We meditate on the sin of our idolatry in order to hate the sin of our idolatry. And, second: We meditate on the grace of God to us in the work of Jesus in order to love the grace of God to us in the work of Jesus.

So, hating the sin of our idolatry… If we are the Bride of Christ then by allowing this “idol” we are having an affair! If we are the sons and daughters of God then by allowing this “idol” we are rejecting the Dad Who has given everything for us and Who has everything for us! Our Husband in Heaven is the One Who has declared us innocent of sin, not this “idol”! Our Father in Heaven is the One Who has saved us from the power of sin and the fear of death, not this “idol”! Jesus is the Way, not this “idol”! Jesus is the Truth, not this “idol”! Jesus is our Life, not this “idol”! He’s the One Who’s saved us! He’s our Lord! We will no longer be controlled by this “idol”!!!

And, loving the grace of God to us in the work of Jesus… We admit to our Beloved: “Lord, I’ve been trying to earn my own salvation and set up my own righteousness through this “idolatry”. But Jesus is my salvation! I am righteous only in Your Son! You accept me because of what Jesus has done on the cross! All my problems come because I am forgetting how loved, honored, beautiful, secure, rich, respected, embraced, and free I am in Jesus! Help me, Abba-Father, to be so captivated by Your love for me that no other love can ever control me again!”

We meditate on the sin of our idolatry. We meditate on the grace of God to us in the work of Jesus.

“Merry Christmas, Jesus! We give our hearts to You afresh and unchallenged this morning. Please, help keep us from idols, that is, anything that might take God’s place in our hearts!”