Idols

What Stands In Our Way

Exodus 20:3-6

What do you all think of when you hear the word idol?

Your car idling in the driveway? Darn English language!! Lol

Favorite team or player? Dallas, Denver, KC, Vegas, Manchester United, Rockies, Rapids, etc.

In 2014, one of my favorite goalkeepers ever, Tim Howard, of the USMNT produced what remains the best performance by a goalkeeper in the World Cup, ever. He made 16 saves in a game where the US played Belgium and lost 2-1 in what may still be the best performance by any team let alone a losing team ever in a WC.

I have never been that happy to see the US lose a soccer game. One of the students at Rio once I moved here idolized Tim.

What is an Idol?

In word, taken from modern Isaiah 44:9 and Idol is a carved or “graven” image that takes the place of God.

פֶסֶל, Pesel, (peh'-sel)

NT 1 Corinthians 8:4 εἴδωλον, eidólon, (i'-do-lon). “An image (for worship), by implication a false god.”

Holman Bible Dictionary- “Physical or material image or form representing a reality or being considered divine and thus an object of worship”

John MacArthur ~ “Idolatry is worshiping something other than the True GOD in the True Way.”

Charles Spurgeon, an English Baptist preacher, believed that idols “are anything that people worship as if they were God.” He believed that “people could make idols out of almost anything, but that the most common and dangerous ones were: “Self, including intellect, callings, and appetites, Family and children, Great ones, such as teachers, philosophers, and leaders, The idol of the hour, which are ideologies, personalities, and causes that the world says are good.”

David Platt speaks to our culture of Idols. “We live in a culture that is deeply committed to comfort, health and safety which is not surprising. If this life is all there is, then we make it as comfortable, as long as and as pleasure filled as possible. Build bigger barns, better, bigger savings accounts and 401k’s to protect you-just in case. Avoid risk, maximize reward. Live your best life now. This is how we measure success according to our culture. What’s sobering is the way this perspective has penetrated the people of God-you and me, our lives, our families, and the church.”

Today I am going to pick on social media as an idol.

I too spend too much time here, even in a healthy way. Although I constantly work to minimize it.

But let's look at some statistics of SM.

There are 5.17 billion people world wide on social media at the beginning of July 2024. 63.7% of the world population.

282 million new users this year alone.

Equates to 5.8% growth yearly.

Average of 8.9 users every second.

2 hrs 20 minutes each day.

All together, the world population spends over 12 billion hours on social media a year.

Let’s look at what God tells us about the worship of Idols.

Please turn with me to Exodus 20:3-6. READ IT.

This passage of Scripture comes to us as part of the Ten Commandments. Ten things God told the people of Israel to live by. In the list of ten, these are numbers 1 and 2.

God lays this out very clearly, We shall have no gods before Him (v.3)

We shall not make for ourselves any idols of any kind (v.4)

We shall not worship anything other than Him (v.5)

But Pastor Andrew, this is the OT and doesn’t apply to me nowadays.

Aside from this being an incredibly false way of believing, it also tells me the person's view of the Bible as a whole.

One great place we can go to counter this thought, Matthew 22:37-40,

Where Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Identical to this story is Luke 10:27 and a second viewing of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 6:5

The Ten Commandments and Jesus give us the same command. God should be #1 in your life; anything you elevate to being more important than God is an idol.

THE IDOL OF IMAGE

What can social media do to us?

Social media helps rev up our popularity engine!! Much like a gas pedal revs a car's engine. Even if you are attempting to create healthy boundaries around social media, your awareness of it exists, and you’re more than likely keenly aware of how your image is portrayed. Back to Exodus 20:3, “We should have no gods before Him.”

During the Assyrian resettling in Samaria, 2 Kings 17:35 “The LORD made a covenant with them and commanded them,  R26 You shall not fear other gods  R1 or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them,”

In the middle of the 70 years of captivity, Jeremiah 25:6a “Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them,”

***Your image can quickly become the most valuable thing in your world when your whole life revolves around social media, how others see you, and what you want them to think of you.***

Our world tells you that to have influence, gain friends, or be successful, other people need to think highly of your image.

If you buy into that, so much of your time and energy can be spent creating this image of yourself for others to see and judge.

But when you place your treasure and value in your image, your heart brings it into the factory and turns it into an idol. Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Before long, you’ll end up worshiping your image, spending all your time thinking about your image, and valuing your image above everything else. Now, let’s be honest with ourselves. Do you want a good image? Do you want to be desired by the people around you? Do you want people to like you?

Of course, you do! Those aren’t inherently wrong things! But one more question…do you also want and desire these things from God?

Tim Keller says that “every human being must live for something. Something must capture our imaginations; our heart’s more fundamental allegiance and hope. But, the Bible tells us, without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, the object will never be God Himself.”

If the stats from earlier are any indication, the fact that we spend most of our time on screens and not engaging with God means that our natural gravitation will not be toward God but away from Him. We will gravitate toward ourselves and the image we can create.

But, YOUR RELENTLESS PURSUIT OF IMAGE WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU FEELING WHOLE OR FULFILLED?

There are always more likes, more followers, and more edits we can make to our image to make ourselves look better or feel better. Your image will undoubtedly fail you at some point. Sooner or later, someone will disapprove of your image and all the hard work you put into it.

When you’re trying to create or maintain an image, you’re trying to find acceptance from another source that isn’t Jesus. This should take us back to the Exodus 3:20 and Matthew 6:21 verses.

Application

Your aim should be to work back to God through prayer.

So what are you to do? If this topic hits home for you, and you know that you’re someone who values their image above everything else, how can you flip the script?

I think we can do a few things to curb our desire to make ourselves look good to other people.

CONTROL YOUR SCREEN TIME

This may sound a little silly or trivial, but your phone or device is only perpetuating this problem of creating and maintaining an image. It’s only kindling your desire to be liked and accepted by others.

There are apps on your phone, ipad or device etc that will help you track your time spent on SM.

Second, I want you to ask yourself a question.

DOES YOUR IMAGE IN THE EYES OF OTHERS MATTER MORE THAN YOUR IMAGE IN THE EYES OF GOD?

If you answered “yes” to this question, ask yourself why? Again lay that burden at the foot of the cross in prayer.

Lastly, the only way you can escape this desire to be accepted by others no matter the cost, is to come to the realization that YOU ARE ACCEPTED BY GOD.

Gospel Presentation

Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross and took the burden of all our sins so that we could be made right with God. When He rose from the grave and defeated the power of sin and death, He gave us the opportunity to become children of God. All we have to do is repent of (ask forgiveness for, turn away from) our sins, believe that Jesus is our Savior, and give our WHOLE life to Him. And when you give your life to Christ, you don’t have to worry about how other people see you anymore, because you’re considered acceptable to God.

YOU HAVE GOD’S APPROVAL BECAUSE HE HAS MADE YOU IN HIS IMAGE. YOU ARE WHO JESUS SAYS YOU ARE.

Genesis 1:27- “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;  male and female he created them.”

Mark 10:6- “But  from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them  male and female.”

So who does Jesus say you are? When you say “yes” to Jesus, what does He say back about you?

As we walk through these, I want you to think about who you are as a child of God and what Jesus says about you.

Read with me from the screen above.

RIGHTEOUS

2 Corinthians 5:21 – For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

HOLY AND BLAMELESS

Colossians 1:22 – “He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him.”

SANCTIFIED

Hebrews 10:10 – “And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

Conclusion

Those are incredibly life-giving and life-changing truths. But the fact of the matter is you’re going to walk out of this sermon, and the pressure to create an image and all the platforms that existed before this message will still exist.

Maybe some of you have felt a slave to your friends, screens, or digital versions of relationships for a while now. But you have an opportunity right now to leave that behind, follow Jesus, and know for a fact that you are accepted by Him. You can leave behind being a slave to the idol of image and know that how God sees you and what He says about you will never change. Because the bottom line is this: you are who Jesus says you are. Not what culture or society says!!!

Let’s pray.