March 12 2017 Anything You Love More than God is an Idol

Let’s pray – Lord, thank You – we love You and thank You – that we can be in Your presence and that You are at work in our church. Help us to focus on what You are doing and what You have done – to remember all that You have done for us and to look forward to what You are going to do – so make us grateful people, not the grumblers we tend to become – but help us to be grateful, thankful, and appreciative of all You have done.

Revelation 2:12 “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write:

The One who has the sharp two-edged sword says this:

13 ‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.

There is some great language in this, isn’t there?

Jesus carries a double-edged sword – so there is this sense of battle and warfare. We understand that the sword is the Word of God – but this church is in the midst of a battle being waged against them. He says this is where Satan has his throne.

Pergamum was known as the ‘keeper of temples’. The city was filled with temples. A religious center for the Roman world. There were 3 temples just to the Emperor. There was a hill above the city. Some say there was an altar to Zeus there. But what we do know is that there are dark spiritual forces at work in Pergamum. And these forces are out to destroy the church. There is satanic work going on.

Antipas is killed because of his faith. The local government is forcing Christians to renounce their faith. They are being hauled into court and it seems that some have died for refusing to renounce their faith. Thankfully, we are not in that kind of a situation here – not even close. There are those who do face that, but not us.

14 But I have a few things against you,

(and I’m thinking – they are dying for their faith – what can he have against them?)

because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. 15 So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

Balaam and Balak were in Numbers. You can read that there if you would like.

There are two things going on: There are those who are practicing idolatry. The second is sexual immorality.

My opinion – I believe this is biblical – idolatry is foundational for all other sins. Romans teaches that. I think for whatever sin – there is a root of idolatry there. The Bible regularly ties idolatry, sexual immorality, and gluttony together. The root is idolatry. I think this is good news for us – when we struggle with a sin, we need to figure out what the idolatry is, and once we do that, we can get victory over the sin.

We will look at sexual immorality next week with the church in Thyatira. There is a huge problem here in our country with sexual immorality – and that means there is a huge problem with idolatry.

We think of idolatry as worshiping statues – but it is not – it is about worshiping other gods. They are very much the same gods that people in America worship today.

Idolatry was tied to the social, political, economic, and cultural structures of society. Idolatry takes place in those realms. Once we get to the Roman Empire – like today, there is an App for everything – back then, there was a god for everything – reproduction/crops/prosperity/war – you could go on and on. If you worshiped the war god properly – you would win the battles. If you worshiped the reproduction god, you would have lots of children. If you failed to do it properly, there would be failure.

By Roman times, this had worked itself into the fabric of society – so much so that you could not participate in economic culture or political culture unless you worshiped these gods. It was part of the economic and political process. Think about going into vote – and to vote, you must offer sacrifice to the god of the voting booth. In our society, we do the same thing – it is just more subtle.

What I hope to do here – to begin the process of looking at how that happens today.

For them – they would hold these festivals and offer sacrifices – and meat would be offered and there would be cut rate prices – so refusing to be involved with this involved a significant price to pay. Being involved also had its price – you were involved in idolatry – and tied to that was always sexual immorality – and John was writing to say that there are those who were participating in these celebrations – and conforming to the culture.

16 Therefore repent; or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth. 17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’

Jesus says – I understand – this is your food source – I get it – but I still want you to be faithful. I don’t want you participating in meat sacrificed to idols. You may not go to the celebrations, but I have celebrations for you! “But that is where the deals are!” – But Jesus says – you may go hungry by not participating in these structures of society – but to those who are victorious – who refuse to participate – I have a hidden food source – hidden manna – heavenly food.

This is a spiritual and eternal food. Though you may suffer in this world because of your faith, you will not suffer for all of eternity. There is a celebration coming that the others have no idea about. If you are faithful, you will participate in that celebration. So much of that is to have our focus on the eternal, rather than the temporal. How often do we make decisions based on the eternal? We might be good at making them based on the future – 10-20 years from now – but not for eternity.

Jesus is trying to get them to zero in on that.

Just like the Roman world, our idolatries are there but maybe more subtle – they are intimately connected to the structures of our society. The powers of darkness are the powers of this world. They are not just demons and devils – but the leading authority structures of this world are under darkness (Ephesians 6:10-12)

One author wrote: “Apocalyptic literature—the sort you find in the strange pages of Daniel and the book of Revelation—is a genre of Scripture that tries to get us to see (or see through) the empires that constitute our environment, in order to see them for what they really are. Unfortunately, we associate apocalyptic literature with end-times literature, as if its goal were a matter of prediction. But this is a misunderstanding of the biblical genre; the point of apocalyptic literature is not prediction but unmasking—unveiling the realities around us for what they really are. So apocalyptic literature is a genre that tries to get us to see the world on a slant and thus see through the spin.”

A few examples – Materialism and consumerism. Our entire economic structure is set up to support this. Must get the new iPhone! Turn in your old phone – get so many dollars back. Oh wait – mine was too old. It is not just iThings. We don’t even recognize it when it happens.

Fame, celebrity culture, beauty, the selfie-god – there are dark forces in all these things.

Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

We worship what we love and we love what we worship. You cannot serve both. You cannot be devoted to both. This is God and money – but fill in anything else for money – fame/technology/politics. You cannot serve both. You will love one and hate the other.

If “we worship what we love and we love what we worship,“ we must reform our loves. We can do that! We think love is something that ‘just happens’ – but love can be formed and reformed. We must learn how it happened originally. It happens by ritual and habits and celebrations, and education and culture. We must learn to love God above all the other stuff. An idol can be a person. It can be a good person. Like Tim Keller says (and he gets this from Calvin): “an idol is ANYTHING we love more than God. But I just love it a tiny bit more than God! That is an idol.

And you will eventually grow to hate God.

In order to reform our loves, we need to understand how our loves are formed.

Rituals, habits, celebrations, culture

“If you are what you love, and your ultimate loves are formed and aimed by your immersion in practices and cultural rituals, then such practices fundamentally shape who you are. At stake here is your very identity, your fundamental allegiances, your core convictions and passions that center both your self-understanding and your way of life. In other words, this contest of cultural practices is a competition for your heart—the center of the human person designed for God, as Augustine reminded us. “

If you are born in Cleveland to Cleveland parents, most likely, you will naturally, sad to say, become a Cleveland Browns fan. Sorry. There is nothing you can do about it – it will just happen. It will be formed in you – habituated inside of us through rituals. And it may become an idol. For me – put it in the Buckeye camp. How does it happen? You are indoctrinated into it. My daughters-in-law dress their babies in Buckeye onesies. What do you think they will love? They will love Ohio State and hate M*chigan. They’ll be good Christians. (Laughter). And people gather at the temple stadium every Saturday or Sunday – and there is the dip and chips and other foods (sacrificed to idols) –

My daughter-in-law – her first autumn in the US – Saturday is Red Day – everyone is wearing red – for an outsider, it is like what in the world! That is what Revelation is attempting to do. As an outsider, why do you do this? See what you are doing and how much it affects you!

In maybe a less silly way – think of materialism – we grow up being bombarded by these images – we have temples called malls and Amazon Prime – and stores set up to get us to buy. And it captures our hearts.

So what we need to do – we need to change our practices – recalibrate and reorient our hearts toward God. Our hearts are constantly being recalibrated toward idolatry – so we have to take action to reorient them toward God.

A couple practical things – we first need to commit to practices that we do not like to do at first. These practices will be uncomfortable. They will become practices that we naturally do – just like you naturally root for the Browns.

Growing up – the only instrument I could play was a radio. My wife’s family was truly musical – they went to classical music concerts as a kid – I started getting exposed to it – and I thought it was great sleeping music. Then I started listening to classical music more – and it recalibrated my heart. Maybe a more simple analogy is eating broccoli and quinoa and kale! Who does that! No one grows up doing that – but then we recalibrate our tastes.

Working out – is never fun – but it is good for you – and you can develop a love for it in a sense, because it has benefits.

IN the same way – we need to find practices for our hearts – things we must learn to do to move our hearts to God.

First – fasting – oh geez – what a one to give! It IS Lent. Fasting was always a part of the Bible. We think of it as stopping food – but there are other types of fasts. You don’t fast just to fast, but to reorient yourself toward God. Skipping meals for 3 days is of no benefit unless it is so you can spend time with God.

I would encourage everyone – at some point – to do a social media fast – a week – two weeks – thirty days.

BUT BUT BUT!

Just do it.

A news fast. Just turn off Fox or CNN – or whatever you listen to – Turn it off. You can listen to Andre Bernier do the weather – but just turn everything else off! Do you know what it does to your heart? Do you have any idea? Cindy – news would really get her irritated! And stopping it recalibrates you.

When you do go back to it – you can see the source of all of it – and it is not a good source – and we pull it back – and WOW – there it is. We see each of us there behind that curtain – and we don’t want that to be revealed – but once we do – it is a good thing.

1 Tim. 4:7 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ talks; rather, train yourself to be godly.

Train yourself to be godly. Train – gives us the word gymnasium. View Sunday morning church as going to the gym. What He is talking about – training your body – recalibrating – reorienting; this is a gymnasium for the soul. So instead of thinking – what am I going to get out of this today? But how is this going to reorient my heart and soul? How do we do church so our souls are transformed? Same thing with small group. Its purpose is not to get together with friends. The purpose is to change our lives. That is what AA understands. They know how to do this well. Small groups change lives. Transform people. For them – it is related to alcohol – but for us, it is our souls. Recalibrate – refocus.

Let’s pray…