So many things in this world seem to turn out to be imposters. They promise so much, they look so good, but when you finally sacrifice everything to get that one thing – whatever it happens to be – it almost always disappoints. Have you ever wondered why that is?

Today I want to introduce you to two people who, perhaps more than any other Bible characters, show us how easily you and I can fall into idolatry. How easily you and I can turn our backs on God, and then tell ourselves that what we’re doing is just fine. These two people are like mirrors of who we are, and how stupidly we sometimes behave.  

TURNING GOOD INTO BAD

As I said I want to introduce you to a couple of Bible characters from the Old Testament Book of Judges who in a single chapter, Judges chapter 17, show us how easily we can fall into idolatry. Now these aren’t any of the A list players like Abraham or Moses or Isaiah, these are just two people who only appear this one time whose story in the context and in the whole sweep of Israel’s story told across the Old Testament is frankly pretty insignificant.

And yet God chooses to have their story included in the Bible in a Book that frankly not many of us go to all that often, in fact when I shared a message about these two people at our Church recently my Pastor came up to me afterwards and commented ‘that’s great, it’s good for us to go to Books in the Bible that we don’t go to all too often’.

Well there is a reason I’ve gone to this chapter. We’re told in the New Testament:

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness so that everybody who belongs to God maybe proficient, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16)

Now this particular one is one of those sorts of Scriptures. It’s the story about a woman, we don’t find out her name and her son Micah. Now this is not the Micah who wrote the Old Testament Book of Micah, different guy altogether. So let’s dive in and have a bit of a look at their story. We’re going to Judges chapter 17 beginning at verse 1.

There was a man in the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. He said to his mother, ‘The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you about which you uttered a curse and even spoke it in my hearing, that silver is in my possession, I took it but now I will return it to you,’ and his mother said, ‘May my son be blessed by the Lord’.

Then he returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother and his mother said, ‘I consecrate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son to make an idol of cast metal.’ So when he returned the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith who made it into an idol of cast metal and it was in the house of Micah.

This man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and a teraphim and installed one of his sons who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, all the people did what’s right in their own eyes.

Now it starts off as quite a bizarre story, mum has lost eleven hundred pieces of silver, that was a huge amount of money for them back then, no doubt this was her life savings. There were, of course, no banks with high interest accounts or even with safety deposit boxes for her to secure her fortune in. So she did what everyone else did back then had to do, she hid it.

Nevertheless, it was stolen. Imagine having your life savings stolen, all of your financial security, any sense of a happy retirement is gone. And then all of a sudden it emerges that her son, young Micah, was the thief, her own flesh and blood. He nicked all her money and now, obviously, his conscience gets the better of him and he returns the money.

Now mum should have been outraged, she should have been angry at this terrible act of theft and deceit. Instead she says ‘may my son be blessed by the Lord’. Well of course it’s good to forgive someone quickly but only Freud would have a field day with that one.

And then to celebrate she does what? She goes and makes an idol cast of metal using two hundred pieces of silver which in itself was a huge amount of money. And she consecrates the silver idol to the Lord our God, have you heard of anything as crazy as that? I mean the first of the Ten Commandments:

You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)

The second of the Ten Commandments:

You shall not make for yourself an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them and worship them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God punishing children for the inequity of their parents to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. (Exodus 20:4)

How could they have taken something good, the silver and turn into something bad, the idol? The answer comes in the last verse of the passage that we read earlier: Because in those days there was no king of Israel, all the people did what was right in their own eyes.

And that right there is exactly what we do, we reject authority, we reject the authority of Gods Word and we do what’s right in our eyes. I had an elder in a Church tell me recently that he doesn’t read the Bible because he finds in boring. Really? That same elder has come to the conclusion that he thinks that sex outside marriage is fine.

Well of course he would because he’s rejected Gods Word and that’s exactly what we do when we take something good and we turn it into an object of sacrifice and worship which displaces our worship of God and the rule of God’s Word in our lives. It removes Jesus as the Lord of our lives. We ignore Gods Word and replace it with what seems to be right in our own eyes.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, idols are imposters. They rob us of Gods best. If Micah’s mother had truly wanted to bless God to celebrate the return of her life savings there’s a whole bunch of other things she could have done with two hundred pieces of silver. She could have given it to the poor, she could have taken it to the Levite’s to use in the service of God, hey she could have even thrown a party in honour of God and his goodness.

The one thing she couldn’t do to honour God was to build an idol which by the way then took up residence in Micah’s house to further lead him astray. And just as easy as it was for Micah and his mother to pervert the Word of God, that’s how easy it is for you and me when we reject His Word because we think we’re smarter, we think we’re wiser, we think that our ways are better than His ways.

I see it happen in people’s lives time and time again and I have to guard against it in my own life over and over again. Idolatry is singularly one of the most natural sins that we can commit and we do it at our peril.

DO NOT BE LED ASTRAY

Before the break, we met Micah and his mother who took something really good and turned it into something really bad. They took what was, in effect, a blessing from God and turned it into a curse. Something that you and I, if the truth be known, are incredibly adept at doing. Let’s just remind ourselves of their story:

There was a man in the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. He said to his mother, ‘the eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you about which you uttered a curse and even spoke it in my hearing, that silver is in my possession, I took it but now I’m going to return it to you’. And his mother said, ‘May my son be blessed by the Lord.’

Then he returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother and his mother said, ‘I consecrate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son to make an idol of cast metal’. So when he returned the money to his mother his mother took two hundred pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith who made it into an idol cast of metal and it was in the house of Micah.

This man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and a teraphim and installed one of his sons who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, all the people did what was right in their own eyes. (Judges 17:1-6)

The bizarre twist as we saw in this story is the woman is so overjoyed at getting her life savings back that she decides to take that which is good, the silver or at least part of it and turned it into something which is bad, an idol which then went on to live in her son’s house to lead him further astray.

In fact there’s not a single worse thing that she could have done than build an idol because that’s right at the top of God’s rather small list of things that we shouldn’t do. Why? Because God wants the very best for us and idols fall a long, long way short of that.

God is God, God deserves our honour and our worship and when instead we worship the works of our own hands as it seems we so readily do it’s like slapping God in the face with a wet fish. But right now we’re going to take this idolatry thing a step further because there are those leaders in our Church who not only fail to address the idolatry that’s happening amongst their flock, they not only fail to preach the sort of messages that need to be preached and hold people to account to God’s Word but they actually support and promote idolatry themselves.

‘Impossible!’ I hear you say. Hmm not at all, in fact the very next verses in this story of terrible idolatry that is such a salutary lesson to us, that’s exactly what happens. Let’s take a look, Judges chapter 17 verses 7 to 13.

Now there was a young man of Bethlehem in Judah of the clan of Judah. He was a Levite residing there. This man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah to live wherever he could find a place. He came to the house of Micah in the hill country of Ephraim to carry on his work.

Micah said to him, ‘where do you come from?’ and he replied, ‘I’m a Levite of Bethlehem in Judah and I’m going to live wherever I can find a place to stay’. Then Micah said to him, ‘stay with me and be a father and a priest and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year, a set of clothes and your living.

The Levite agreed to stay with the man and the young man became to him like one of his sons so Micah installed the Levite and the young man became his priest and was in the house of Micah. Then Micah said, ‘now I know that the Lord will prosper me because the Levite has become my priest.

So along comes this Levite, this priest, who should have known better, he was a Levite after all from the tribe who was meant to be, in effect, the priests who served the one true God and minister to God’s people. And this Levite, instead of showing Micah the error of his ways in this idolatry that he was doing, the priest instead joins him in this terrible act of idolatry and becomes an accessory to this crime against God.

And in his failure to correct Micah in his complicity that is idolatry he further leads Micah astray as Micah concludes, ‘All must be good. Now I know that the Lord will prosper me because the Levite has become my priest’. In other words given now that he has the Levite’s stamp of approval in effect Micah is now further convinced that what he’s doing is fine by God and that God will indeed bless him and prosper him.

Listen to me, just because the Church doesn’t stand up and speak against the idolatry of our times it doesn’t make it right. Just because some preacher far from speaking against the idolatry of wealth and deceit and sexual immorality and disunity, they even endorse those things, it doesn’t make them right.

Now please don’t get me wrong most Churches are good Churches but there are also many out there who will lead you astray into idolatry and away from God’s Word. See it’s precisely what Jesus predicted would happen, Matthew chapter 24 beginning at verse 9.

Then they will hand you over to be tortured and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away and they will betray one another and hate one another and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray and because of the increase in lawlessness the love of many will grow cold but the one who endures to the end will be saved and this good news of the Kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:9-14)

In other words, they’re the ones who will tell you that you’re not meant to suffer, you’re not meant to sacrifice, God wants to bless you and make you rich and make your life comfortable. Or others will come along and tell you Jesus isn’t the only way. In fact other faiths and belief systems equally get you into heaven, plenty of those guys out there, there are plenty of those Churches out there.

Just as the Levite, through his complicity, led Micah astray so there are those preachers, teachers, leaders and Churches who will do the same. Be warned. The Churches seal of approval to something doesn’t always mean that it’s right, the only authority for right and wrong, good and bad, blessing and curse is the Word of God and that’s why it’s so vitally important that each one of us should be men and women of God’s Word.

THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM

Right, so you’ve decided to deal with the idols in your life. Something or someone has set itself up in your heart above God, ahead of God. It might be a person or a possession or a position, it might be a loved one, it might be that new car you’ve been dreaming of and you’re prepared to go way into debt and compromise your giving to God’s work in order to get it. Or it might be a career or what other people think of you.

You know in your heart of hearts that this one thing has gone from being something good in your life to overtaking your life, from something that was good for you to something that has enslaved you, from a servant to a master, from a thing to an idol, a little god of some sort that you sacrifice your whole life to.

You’ve realised that and now you want to do something about it but it’s just not easy because you are so used to having that idol in your life. Now what? Where do you turn? What do you do? Are you relating to this? Are you feeling God tugging at the tender part of your heart that’s wrapped around your idol calling you to let it go? You know you should but it’s kind of like, like being addicted to chocolate. You know it’s bad for you but man, I just want one more piece, right? It tastes so good, right?

So where do you turn? To God of course, to God’s Word. And that’s why we’re going to spend a few minutes with a man who had exactly this same problem, not just any man but one of the Bible’s A list, his name of course was Abraham. Called out of his comfortable wealthy existence by God to head off on a hair-brain twenty-five year journey.

He and his wife were childless and they were already in their mid seventies but God promised them a son and called them onto a journey to the so called Promised Land that Abraham’s multitude of descendants would inherit. Huh, like I said a pretty hare-brained idea.

Cut a long story short, Abraham and Sarah went on this tortuously long journey, they honoured God, believed in God and eventually having even laughed at God over this stupid, ridiculous promise of becoming parents, father and mother to a multitude of descendants at the age of a hundred. God gives them a son and tells them to call him Isaac which means in Hebrew ‘he laughs’. In other words God’s great sense of humour, God got the last laugh and of course he who laughs last laughs best.

But as times go on this wonderful son Isaac, you can imagine how Abraham doted on him after all that had happened. Isaac starts to displace God in Abrahams heart. So God decides to put Abraham to a test, Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 to 8:

After these things God tested Abraham. He said, ‘Abraham’, he said, ‘Here I am Lord’, he said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. He cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out and went to the place in the distance where God had shown him.

On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘stay here with the donkey, the boy and I will go over there, we will worship and then we will come back to you’. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘father’ and he said, ‘Here I am my son’, he said ‘The fire and the wood is here but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God Himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.

Hey it’s pretty scary stuff, isn’t it? But there’s more, it goes on, Genesis chapter 22 verses 9 to 14.

When they had come to the place that God had shown them Abraham built an altar and there he laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached his hand out and took his knife to kill his son. The angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham’ and he said, ‘Here I am’, he said ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

And Abraham looked up and he saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son so Abraham called that place ‘the Lord will provide’, as it is said today ‘on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.

Listen to me. God loves you too much to let you continue in your idolatry. If He sees your heart straying away from Him He will put you to the test, He will bring you to a binary decision point, in other words a place where there are only two options, either to lay down your idol or hang onto it and keep worshipping it. To keep heading on into the wrong direction or to give up your idol as much as it may hurt and turn your life back to Him.

The whole point of today’s message is to tell you this one thing, God loves you and if an idol has seduced your heart He will test your heart and give you the opportunity to turn back to Him. He won’t force you but He’ll test you and He wants you to know that and be ready so that when the test comes you’ll know what’s going on.

Oh by the way, would you like to hear how Abraham’s test ended, what God said to him? Here it is, Genesis chapter 22 verses 15 to 18.

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, ‘By myself I have sworn’ says the Lord, ‘because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will bless you and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and of the sand that is on the seashore and your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessings for themselves because you have obeyed my voice.

It kind of makes you want to pass the test, right? Of course it does because the whole point of letting go of your idols, that person, that possession, that position, whichever it is is so that God can give you His very best for your life. God does want to bless you but like any good father that’s something He can’t do when His child is haring off in the wrong direction away from Him and towards destruction.

He will pull you back, He will bring you to that decision point and with all my heart I want you to be ready for when that happens because passing that test, making the right decision is how we get hold of God’s promises and blessings for our lives.

It of course sounds so simple as I explain it to you, doesn’t it? But let me warn you I know it’s much harder to do than it sounds and because it is, I’ve made a decision in my life, I hold onto God’s blessings loosely. I want to be ready, if God wants to take something away from me to give it up to Him willingly because if that’s how I look at my blessings. If that’s how I treat my blessings they’re far less likely to wrap their tendrils around my heart and become my idols.

An idol is something that you won’t let go of for God’s sake. It’s something that displaces God as your Lord and King and invariably it’s something that leads to a world of pain and hurt no matter how much of a blessing it may have seemed to you. You can’t argue that Isaac was a huge blessing from God to Abraham but even God’s blessings have to be put in the right place in our lives.

Lest they become idols, lest they lead us astray, lest we turn our backs on God and make gods out of our blessings. When that test comes you’ll know it and I pray that you will have the courage to lay down your idols and discover God’s very best for you.

The mistake that so many of God’s people make, is that they think that their relationships with other people can fill the deep void within, a void that’s been designed so that it can only be filled by God Himself. And so they spend their lives getting second best, when all along, God’s very best is staring them right in the face.  

GIRLS

Over the last week we’ve been chatting about laying hold of God’s very best for our lives because there are so many imposters out there that claim to be able to give us what we’re looking for, that they lead us astray. An imposter is never as good as the real thing.

I remember once I was travelling in South Africa and I wanted to bring home a special gift for my daughter. I was shopping in a mall in Pretoria and I wandered into a handbag store. I spotted a Louis Vuitton handbag and I thought she would really, really like that. Yeah it was pricey but I thought no she would really like it so I bought it for her.

I was right, she loved it but about eighteen months later the catch that keeps the bag closed came apart. Well not a problem, I thought, this is a Louis Vuitton handbag. So I looked it up on the internet and found the authorised Louis Vuitton repairer here at home and took the handbag into them.

The lady behind the counter took one look at it and she informed me that it was a fake, a knock off and as much as she’d like to help me she was unable to do so. Well I was pretty angry I have to tell you, not with her but with the person who sold the bag to me because I quizzed them over and over again to make sure it was the real thing. And that’s the thing with fakes, they look real, they pretend to be real but they simply can’t deliver what you’re looking for.

I remember when I was studying at Bible College, a good many years ago, one of our lecturers, Dr Barry Chant, gave a class on the things that lead ministers astray, that get them caught up in sin that ends up tearing their ministry apart. And he said something along these lines.

It comes down basically to three things; girls or in the case of women guys, gold and glory. Those are the top three things that lead men and women of God who are called to ministry, astray. That’s always stuck with me – girls, gold and glory. Pretty simple really and when you think about it, it applies not just to people in ministry, it applies to all of Gods people because those three things, girls or guys, gold and glory are pretty much the three main categories of idolatry today.

In this day and age most of us don’t think much about idols. In western countries we don’t see many physical idols and in eastern countries where there are so many religions that use idols routinely, you get to the point of being oblivious to them. I know when I first started travelling to India regularly the number of idols I saw hit me in the face but now I almost don’t notice them.

An idol is an imposter, it’s anything that we set up as an alternative to the one true God, the One who sent Jesus, His Son, to die for you and me. And we take these imposters and we worship them as though they’re real, they’re not of course but we treat them as though they are and we worship them and we sacrifice our lives to them.

So let’s start off by talking about this whole ‘girls and guy’s’ thing. It’s one of the most natural things on the planet, girl meets boy, they fall in love and they want to spend the rest of their lives together. And if you’ve been through that you’ll know how compelling and intoxicating romance is. It plays to our emotional desires and to our physical desires and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Until we start imagining that this is it, this is what I’ve always been looking for and we start expecting our mate to make us happy.

We start expecting this one relationship to give us all the contentment and joy and fulfilment that we’ve been looking for for all our lives. And then all of a sudden we’re heaping expectations on this girl or guy that they simply can never meet up to. The truth of it is my wife, as wonderful as she is, simply cannot fill the void in me that only God can fill. And if she looks at me to do that for her she too is going to be sadly disappointed.

Remember the first Commandment in the Ten Commandments, Exodus chapter 20 verses 2 and 3:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me.

The moment we take something, even something as sublime and as wonderful as this pinnacle of human relationships, the exclusive relationship of one man and one woman in the lifelong relationship of marriage and we elevate that above God then we’re committing idolatry and that goes straight to the second Commandment, Exodus chapter 20 verses 4 and 5:

You shall not make for yourself an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them and worship them for I am the Lord your God and I am a jealous God.

Of course some people take this one step further, they decide to focus on the physical side of this boy/ girl thing or into same sex relationships and end up turning sex into their idol as though somehow sexual gratification will give them what they’re looking for, that too becomes idolatry, Colossians chapter 3 verses 5 and 6:

Put to death therefore whatever in you is earthly. Fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed which is idolatry. On account of these things the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.

Listen up, it is good for a man and a woman to fall in love and to give themselves completely to one another for the rest of their lives, that’s certainly God’s plan but when we take this good thing and we elevate it and place it above God or when we pervert this good plan and sleep around hoping to find gratification, it’s just like that fake Louis Vuitton hand bag I was telling you about earlier. Eventually it will break and we’re left with nothing because there’s a hole inside you and a hole inside me that only God can fill, it’s just the way we’ve been made.

In the long run idols, imposters, as attractive as they may seem can never deliver what we’re looking for, as attractive as they may appear.

GOLD

Gold is a symbol of wealth and it’s one of the main things that draws us away from God. Think about it God/ gold, only one letter of difference between those two words and how easy is it for us to substitute one for the other. Even more so because in this world we’re told wealth equals success.

Who among us haven’t dreamed of striking it rich, of being able to live in a big house, a mansion with all the comforts and pleasures that money can buy. A great view, lots of rooms, lavishly furnished, a few high and luxury cars in the multi car garage, flying around the world first class of course or even in your own jet with everyone kowtowing to you because you’re such an important person.

That’s a dream, a fantasy that many people churn over inside themselves over and over again. It’s so seductive that many people are intoxicated by it and they can’t let it go. So here’s what they do, here’s what I did for much of my early adult life, they sacrifice their lives to it. They throw themselves into the pursuit of earning as much money as they can.

I’ve seen some of the houses that people build for themselves, not far from where I live, live some of the wealthiest people in Australia, houses that sell for upwards of thirty million dollars, one recently just went for fifty million dollars. Hey that’s a ridiculous amount of money and these mansions are so big, so ridiculously huge they must be cavernous.

I was having a room in my apartment painted not so long ago. I’m a hopeless painter, best to get a professional in to do it and the painter, Stan, was telling me about a job that he and his brother completed recently in one of these mansions not far away. He said the place was just enormous, three levels plus a fourth for the basement and garage, it has an elevator because the occupants were an elderly couple, obviously very wealthy. Now the middle floor they never went into, it was essentially vacant.

These two people weren’t happy at all, in fact they were pretty miserable. Now stand back and think about that for a minute, that right there is idolatry. With so many people in this world who don’t have a roof over their heads, who don’t have enough to eat, who don’t have even clean drinking water, here you have these two mega rich people occupying a property that they don’t need, that’s way too big for them and that isn’t making them happy.

Psalm 135, verses 15 to 18:

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but they do not speak, they have eyes but they do not see, they have ears but they do not hear and there is no breath in their mouths. Those who make them and all who trust in them shall become like them.

Isn’t that the perfect picture of the futility of idolatry, of setting up the things of this world as our little gods? I think that passage applies so aptly to the picture of that wealthy couple in their golden prison, the emptiness, the loneliness, the futility of it all and yet so many people sacrifice their lives to this idol of gold, of wealth, of what other people will think.

How about you? How much do you dream of being wealthy? How much do you sacrifice your life to the futility of wealth?

You may have heard me tell this story before but I’m going to tell it again. For the first thirty-six years of my life wealth was what mattered to me. It was important to me that I drove a car that would impress other people. It was important to me that I lived in a house that people would look at and think, ‘Wow that’s grand, he must have a lot of money, he must be successful’.

And that constant need to have more and more and more drove me although the more I had the less satisfied I felt, the more I filled myself up the emptier I became, the more that other people looked at my obvious wealth and success the more desperate and empty and lonely I became.

This idolatry, sacrificing your life to gold, to wealth is such a terrible scourge. You’ll understand then how gobsmacked I was when finally I stumbled across this Bible verse, 1 Timothy chapter 6 verses 9 and 10:

But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

Right there was a picture of the first thirty-six years of my life which culminated by the way in me becoming so desperate that I came within inches of taking my own life. Idolatry doesn’t work, these imposters lead us to ruin and destruction. That’s the marque of a idol in fact, it looks so good, it speaks so smoothly, it draws you in so seductively and then it plunges you into ruin and destruction. And gold, wealth, it’s the very worst of all.

We kid ourselves that we can pursue wealth and love God but it simply isn’t possible. This is what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6 verse 24:

No one can serve two masters for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and wealth. You just can’t and when we give up the pursuit of wealth, when we put money back in the place where it belongs there is such an incredible freedom in that. Money is a great servant but a terrible master. Let me say that again. Money is a great servant but a terrible master. I didn’t read that in a textbook. I discovered that the hard way and the best way, the only way in fact, to break this idolatry is to start becoming generous and giving lots of it away.

You don’t have to be rich to do that, rich or poor we can idolise wealth, rich or poor we can give sacrificially and allow God to set us free from that. Let me say it again, just in case you missed it, let me say it again, money is a great servant but a terrible master.

GLORY

Some people, to be honest, are recognition junkies, they live to receive a pat on the back, they live to have other people tell them how wonderful they are and whilst in small doses that’s not a bad thing, once it takes over your life it’s a terrible thing.

The Bible tells us that we all have different personality types, that might surprise you since ‘personality type’ is a contemporary term that you don’t actually find in the Bible but if you go to the Book of Romans chapter 12 verses 4 to 8 you’ll discover there what theologians refer to as motivation giftings. In other words natural giftings which are hard-wired into our DNA. There are actually seven listed have a listen.

For as in one body we have many members and not all members have the same function so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually we are members of one another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, prophecy in proportion to faith, ministry in ministering, the teacher in teaching, the exalter in exaltation, the giver in generosity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate in cheerfulness.

Actually if you look at any of the contemporary personality typing systems they all pretty much revolve around those seven motivational giftings. A few years ago I co-authored a book about the motivational giftings or the personality types found in Romans chapter 12 called My Personality GPS. It was about locating or discovering your God-given gifting.

In the course of writing that book I interviewed one person from each of the personality types on this program and asked them all basically the same questions and I was completely gobsmacked at how different each one of their responses were. One of the things that I discovered is a few of those personality types really like recognition.

If you’ve ever worked at a place where there’s been a sales team you’ll know that the best sales people are highly motivated by targets and bonuses and awards and rewards, that’s what makes them such good sales people. So the point is that we’re all different but we’re all, to some degree, more or less, motivated by recognition. As I said in moderate amount that’s not a bad thing but in a world that rewards success it’s all too easy for us to become recognition junkies.

Imagine Jesus as He wandered around with kind of rock star status, pulling the sorts of crowds that no one had hitherto dreamed of. Often when He came to a region He pulled crowds of several thousand which given the small populations back then meant that towns and cities basically closed down when He came to town.

There would have been nothing easier than to let that adulation go to your head, would there? But have a listen to how Jesus reacted to all that, John chapter 5 verse 41.

I do not accept glory from men.

And again, John chapter 8 verse 54.

If I glorify myself my glory is nothing, it is my Father who glorifies me, He of whom you say, ‘He is our God’.

And when He preached Gods truth without fear or favour, we’re told in John chapter 6 verses 66:

That because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.

Did He go chasing after them? No, because He wasn’t interested so much in the opinions of people because He knew that public opinion was a fickle and irrational thing. In fact in John chapter 2 verse 24:

Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone for he himself knew what was in everyone.

When Jesus said that the time is coming for Him to be glorified what He meant was that He was soon to be crucified. If we are always pandering to the opinions of other people then we’re going to be slaves to their irrationality, their variability, their unreliability and their sin.

Now that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have a few trusted advisors whose opinions and sound judgement we pay attention to but if we’re continually seeking glory for ourselves then we become people pleasers and from experience again I can tell you, that’s a terrible way to live because you’re always marching to someone else’s drum beat and all too often you find yourself with different people pulling you in different directions, you literally end up being torn apart.

In my life I’ve observed a number of people who are addicted to recognition, the old fashioned term is vainglory and it’s a tragic sight. I used to be there too always worried about what other people thought, what other people were saying, what other people might be whispering behind my back. This is a form of idolatry because we end up putting our reputation above God’s glory and God, as things turn out, doesn’t share His glory with anyone, Isaiah chapter 42 verse 8.

I am the Lord, that is my name. My glory I give to no other nor my praise to idols. See the former things have come to pass and the new things I now declare before they spring forth I tell you of them.

So here’s a tip, if you’re someone who is constantly being hurt by the opinions of other people then that’s a really strong indication that you have made an idol of your reputation. You know the pain that it causes you, you know that you don’t want to keep living like this. It’s time to give up your recognition and your reputation to God. It’s time to stop living your life for other people and start living your life for God.

Our reputations are an incredibly addictive and powerful idol and like every other idol in this world reputation will end up destroying you. Keeping up appearances is exhausting and constantly straining for glory means that we’re working against God because God doesn’t share His glory with anyone.

As I look back on my journey of rehabilitation, from someone who was so fixated on what other people’s thought and said about me to someone who, these days, doesn’t really care, what I see is how God led me through this in His power. Addictions are something we need help with and God is ready and willing and able to help you if you’re making an idol out of your reputation.

The more I read my Bible the more I wanted to live my life for Jesus and the less I cared about what other people thought about me. Yes I have some close trusted advisors who keep my feet on the ground and who tell me the truth about myself. They are so important but when it comes to the opinions of people out there, don’t take this the wrong way but I simply don’t care.

I’ve decided that I’m going to live my life for an audience of one, Jesus, that’s it and when you do that people are going to criticise you and shun you and pull your reputation down, I’ve simply decided to stop caring. This is how the Apostle Paul puts it in Galatians chapter 1 verse 10:

Am I seeking human approval or God’s approval or am I trying to please people? See if I was still pleasing people I would not be a servant of Christ.

That pretty much sums it up for me. If I was still pleasing people, the people who told me I shouldn’t leave my consulting career to go and preach the Gospel, the people who told me I should focus on myself and my financial future and my retirement, the people who criticised me, if I was still pleasing those people I would not be a servant of Jesus Christ.

So let me ask you, who are you pleasing? Who are you serving? Who are you living your life for? Are you really living out God’s very best for your life, I mean really?

You know the saying: “no man is an island”. None of us can go it alone. We all need help, wise counsel, a bit of muscle from time to time. The question is, who or what do you turn to, to get that help when you need it? When it comes to getting help, sometimes, we do the craziest things.

THE STUPIDITY OF IDOLATRY

There used to be a game show on television called Who Wants To Be A Millionaire where they asked you a whole bunch of questions and if you got them all right you would end up winning a million dollars. Well not surprisingly not all that many people won the million.

One of the rules of the game was that you had three lifelines when you ran into a difficult question, you could ask the audience, you could do a 50/50 where the computer removed two wrong answers out of the four multiple choice items or you could phone a friend.

The ‘phone a friend’ always intrigued me. The contestant would run into a difficult question and choose to phone a friend, they would give them a thirty-second call with a friend of their choosing. Sometimes the friend was able to help with the question, other times not.

I wonder when you run into a difficult question in life where do you turn? What option do you take, ask the audience, 50/50 or phone a friend? It seems that often what we do is we try to build ourselves an insurance policy in life to provide a safety net for those difficult times.

Some people try and get a financial buffer by earning lots of money, some people try to build a social relationship safety net so that they have friends and family in place when the difficult times hit. That’s not a bad thing. Other people invest in their career and their reputation as though that somehow is going to make a difference when the tempest hits.

Whatever your safety net is it’s something you’ve had to work hard to build, it’s been an investment. Now there’s nothing wrong with a bit of sound planning, it’s good to have a network of family and friends, it’s good if you can to have some savings to fall back on and if there’s still such a thing a secure job and a career path. Nothing wrong with any of those things until we put all our trust in them as though they’re going to be able to save us when a tsunami sweeps across our lives.

Over the last few weeks on the program we’ve been talking about idolatry. My favourite definition of an idol is anything that we place above God in our lives. We have a innate desire to worship something, that’s how we’ve been made and the crazy thing is that often we worship the wrong things and in so doing we miss out on the very best that God has ready and waiting for us, that God has ready and waiting for you.

Idols are always imposters. Idols can never deliver what we hope they can deliver. So in your life what are the safety nets that you’ve been investing in and building that you put your trust in?

One of the things we can so easily do is to work hard and save hard for a home of our own and when we finally get that we start behaving as though this home is a ‘forever’ thing, that it’s safe and permanent and inviolable. I happen to own a small apartment only several hundred metres from the ocean. We literally live at sea level and as safe and secure as this home feels, hey should a tsunami hit we’re done for.

Why is it that we behave as though the things of this world have the power to withstand the tsunamis of life? When we do that it’s called idolatry because we end up worshipping those things with our lives, we end up placing our trust in them and when you stand back from that behaviour and you evaluate it objectively it’s just nuts and not surprisingly that’s exactly what God says in His Word, lets take a look, Isaiah chapter 44 verses 9 to 20:

All who make idols are nothing and the things they delight in do not profit, their witnesses neither see nor know and so they were put to shame. Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good? Look all its devotee’s will be put to shame, the artisans too are merely human, let them all assemble, let them stand up, they shall be terrified, they shall all be put to shame.

The ironsmith fashions it and works it over the coals, shaping it with hammers and forging it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry and his strength fails, he drinks no water and he’s faint. The carpenter stretches a line and marks it out with a stylus, fashions it with planes and marks it with a compass. He makes it in human form with human beauty to be set up in a shrine.

He cuts down cedars or chooses a Holm tree or an oak tree and lets it grow strong among the trees in the forest. He plants a seed and the rain nourishes it then he can use it as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes some bread, then he makes a god and worships it and makes it a carved image and bows down before it.

Half of it he burns in the fire, over that half he roasts meat, eats it and is satisfied, he also warms himself and says ‘ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire’ but with the rest of it he turns it into a god, his idol and bows down to it and worships it, he prays to it and says, ‘Save me for you are my God’.

They don’t know, they don’t comprehend, their eyes are shut so they can’t see and their minds as well so they cannot understand. No one considers nor is there knowledge or discernment to say ‘half of it I burned in the fire, I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted me and I’ve eaten, now shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood? He feeds on the ashes, a deluded mind has led him astray and he cannot save himself or say ‘is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?

Hmm, isn’t that great? There was Isaiah talking about physical idols, statues but they’re no different to the idol we set up in our lives today, the physical things that we build to worship and place our trust in. I love how he unmasks the stupidity of idols. That’s exactly what we do with the physical things that we turn into idols.

One half of them we consume and enjoy like money or a nice house or friends or our careers, whatever it is that we’ve set up above God in our lives. And with the other half we sacrifice to it and we trust in it as though somehow it has the power to save us like some god.

Even our relationships, good as many of them are, have you ever been in a difficult spot and used the ‘phone a friend’ option and found there’s nothing your friend can say or do to help you? Of course you have. Have you ever asked the audience, gone out there for help and found that there was no help that could withstand the tsunami? Of course you have.

Right at the end of that passage that we just read from Isaiah, the prophet leads us to the right question to ask, the question we should be asking of the idols in our lives, ‘Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?’

And the right answer to that question, the only answer to that question is ‘of course it is, dummy’. When earthquakes and tsunami’s hit your life who’s going to save you? When you come to that final barrier in this life, your physical death and you’re staring down the barrel of eternity let me ask you, who can save you?

Do you see how ridiculous it is for us to set up idols in our lives and to worship them and to sacrifice our lives to them and to put our trust in them? The more we invest in them, the more we trust them, the more deluded we become imagining they have the power to save us. They don’t have that power, listen to me, idols are frauds, they’re imposters and at the very best they’re nothing but second best.

When something or someone who you trust leaves you in the lurch, when your life is crashing down around you that sense of betrayal and disappointment actually makes things worse, that’s what idols do however attractive or reliable or secure they may appear. However much you’ve sacrificed your life to them they are nothing but a fraud and that is the God honest truth.

GOD’S VERY BEST FOR YOU

One of the enduring memories of my childhood is being bored absolutely to tears at Church on Sunday mornings. I was an inquisitive energetic lad as you might imagine, precocious, always on the move, always asking questions, always trying to explore my little world and get the most out of it. Anyhow I digress, back to Church as a young lad.

The things I remember most about Church are the terrible droning sound of the minister’s voice, the boredom and the frustration of not be able to get out there and get on with my life and how incredibly hard those wooden pews were on my backside. I was one of those kids who’d stand up on the pew facing people behind me and making faces at them trying to make them laugh, oh man I pity my poor parents. I remember getting more than just the odd hiding from my father after Church. It wasn’t just the pews that gave me a sore backside.

But can I tell you as adults this remains the experience of many people’s Christianity, a Sunday ritual that for some reason they feel obligated to live out week after week. A droning minister, a sense of duty and boredom mixed in altogether and it’s no wonder that so many of God’s people have set up idols in this world that they worship above God because their experience of Him simply isn’t anything to write home about.

Over the last few weeks on the program we’ve been talking about how easily we fall into idolatry and exactly how that damages our lives. All those things of this world that appear to be so attractive, so reliable, so trustworthy that we invest in them and put our trust in them above and before God and yet they always fail, they never deliver. Nothing in this world can ever deliver what we’re looking for and that’s why grabbing hold of Gods very best for you is so important.

So what is Gods very best for you, what does that look like? Well here it is, just sit back and soak it in. I’m reading from Matthew’s Gospel chapter 27.

As they went out they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon and they compelled this man to carry Jesus’ cross and when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means place of the skull) they offered him wine and drink mixed with gall but when he tasted it he wouldn’t drink it and when they had crucified him they divided his clothes among themselves by casting lots.

Then they sat down there and kept watch over him. Over his head they put the charge against him which read ‘This is Jesus the king of the Jews’. Then two bandits were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads saying ‘you who would destroy the Temple and rebuild it again in three days, save yourself. If you’re the Son of God come down from the cross.

In the same way the chief priests also along with the scribes and the elders were mocking him saying, ‘he saved others but he can’t save himself. He’s the king of Israel, let him come down from the cross now and we’ll believe in him. He trusts in God let God deliver him down if he wants to for he said, ‘I am God’s Son.’ The bandits who were crucified with him also taunted him the same way.

From noon on darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At about three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani’, that is ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it they said, ‘the man is calling for Elijah.

At once one of them ran and got a sponge and filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick and gave it to him to drink but the others said, ‘wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him’. Then Jesus cried again in a loud voice and breathed his last. (Matthew chapter 27 verses 32 to 50.)

There it is, God’s very best for you – Jesus. This Jesus who came into this world to show you exactly what God’s like, this Jesus who suffered so terribly to take the punishment that you and I so richly deserve so that we can have a real, intimate, dynamic, powerful, tender, lifelong, eternity long relationship with God.

That’s the whole purpose of what everything Jesus did for you and for me, to open up the door to that tender intimate relationship with Him. Gods cry from the beginning of the Bible to the end is His desire to be our God and for us to be His people. He wants to dwell in our midst and for us to be with Him and to behold His glory and to enjoy His presence and to worship Him in a way that is completely divine.

Right towards the end of the Bible in the Book of Revelations God repeats His cry, a cry that we hear over and over again through Scripture but this time it is the fulfilment of His deepest desire, it is our glimpse into the future to see how all this ends, Revelation chapter 21, verses 1 to 7:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more and I saw the Holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and I heard a loud voice saying from the throne, ‘see the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them, they will be his people’s and God himself will be with them, He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more for the first things have passed away’. And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘see I am making all things new’. Also he said ‘write this for these words are trustworthy and true.

Then he said to me, ‘It is done, I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things and I will be their God and they will be my children.

That’s Gods very best for you, eternity with Him through Jesus His Son and that’s not something that begins when you die, it’s something that begins, is meant to begin, was always ordained to begin the moment you believe in Jesus. Why does so many of Gods people try to find solace in the things of this world when Gods very best, God Himself is ready and waiting now.

Listen to how the Apostle Paul put it in his letter to the Roman Church, chapter 14 verse 17:

For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The Kingdom of God isn’t about the things of this world. Sure God’s blessed us with those things but the things of this world are temporal, they’re here today and gone tomorrow. I hope that my wife and I grow old and dotty together, really I do but either she or I could get run over by a bus tomorrow. Nothing on this earth is forever and when I’m travelling and we’re apart as much as we can chat to each other through the wonders of the internet today, she’s not there with me but God is, Jesus is, the Holy Spirit is.

God never departs and as things turn out He is the only one that can ever give me His righteousness, knowing that I’m forgiven, knowing that I’m washed clean from my sin, knowing that as far as the east is from the west so far He has removed my transgressions from me through Jesus.

He’s the only one who can give me the peace that I need amidst the busyness and the pressure and the turmoil and the demands of life and He is the only one who can fill me with the joy unspeakable irrespective of what’s going on around me. And He does that by pouring His Holy Spirit into me, into you, into anyone who puts their trust, their faith, their complete life in Jesus.

Righteousness, peace and joy granted to us because Jesus, delivered to us through the Holy Spirit. There, right there is Gods very best and nothing in this world, no idol, no possession, no relationship, no position, no recognition, no amount of money even comes close

TURN YOUR LIFE AROUND

Back in 604BC a Chinese philosopher by the name of Lau–Tzu observed that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. In fact, nothing that we ever plan on doing, happens unless and until we take the first step. And that’s why I asked you that rather awkward question just before. What are you going to do about it?

If you’ve been able to join me over these past few weeks, you’ve probably figured out for yourself that there really are some idols in your life, something or someone that you’re putting ahead of God. Something or someone that you’re putting all your trust in, to the exclusion of God.

The problem with letting go of your idol is, well, it’s a bit like being a chocoholic, and giving up chocolate. You just want one more piece, right?

The thing with idols is that although they don’t, in and of themselves, have any innate power, the fact that you’ve invested so much in them, the fact that you’ve put your trust in them, means that they have their tendrils wrapped around your heart. And letting go isn’t easy. Letting go, in fact, to start with, can be quite painful.

But unless and until you take that first step, nothing is going to change. You’ll keep on settling for second best, and missing out on God’s very best. That’s the bad news.

The good news is this. As hard as it is to let go of your idols, God has all the power that you need to make it happen. He can break their hold over you in an instant, or He might choose to do that over the coming days, weeks and months. He knows what’s best for you. The first step, is deciding that you’re going to make a change here and now. That you’re going to do what the Bible tells you to do, which is this. Romans chapter 12, verse 2:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Are you prepared to do that right now? To lay down your idols at God’s feet and give them up for Him? Well if you are, then it’s time for the second step, and that second step is to lay hold of the only power in the universe that can set you free – God’s Word.

God’s Word says that:

For freedom Christ has set you free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

In other words, you have already been set free by Christ. So right now, I want to pray that freedom over you. Are you ready?

Father God your Word says that in Christ we are already free. Free from the slavery to sin. Free from the power of idols that we have set up in our lives. So today, we are going to claim your Word for ourselves, for our lives. We are going to step out in faith, away from our idols and towards you, believing that Jesus has already set us free. Lord I pray your power on every person listening today whose heart it is to be free from idolatry and completely surrendered to you. Pour your Holy Spirit upon them, that person, right now in great power, in a double portion and do what only You can do – make the freedom that Christ has purchased for us a reality in their lives right now. Right now I pray, In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I’m believing that if you prayed that prayer with me, God has done precisely what we asked Him to do. I know that over the coming days and weeks God is going to make things happen in your life to make His freedom a reality for you.

As your idol is torn away from your heart by the very power of the Holy Spirit, the same power that raised Christ from the dead, God will replace it with His very best for you, His righteousness, peace and joy through the Holy Spirit. And that right there will bring healing to you, and open the door to an amazing future, of God’s very best for you.