Idols 1
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
Students!
We are starting a new series tonight called “Idols”
We are going to spend 4 weeks talking about Idols
Idols are something that are prevalent everywhere
I mean look at this:
Show pictures of old idols
Buddha
Shiva — Supreme god
Buddha
Durga — Hindu goddess
I mean this is something we see in the book of Acts:
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship,
Man Paul is showing something that we see just by looking at our past — idols that we worship and bow down to
But lets be real today — none of us are bowing down to idols
I mean I don’t
I don’t think you do
So you may be sitting here thinking: Idols? I can check out
But listen to what Jesus says:
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Talking about where we store up our treasure — where we look to for joy, our heart is with our treasure
Our desire and worship is with out treasure
So what do we treasure and care about? Worship?
Show pictures of modern day idols
So in this series we are going to talk about idols
Something we all struggle with
Lets pray:
The Set-up
The Set-up
Today we are going to look at the passage that started the talk of idols
3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You may be familiar with this — or maybe not
This is the first two of the ten commandments that God gave to Moses for the people of Israel
God told Moses two key things here:
Have no Gods before Him
No image above God
Both commands get at the same idea:
Love God, worship God, nothing else
Our devotion, time, the thing we spend the most thought on — it should all go back to God not others
Lets be real here — when we think about these commands in that context it seems quite apparent that we all have idols
We all have things that we are spending more time and thought on than God
This series is going to force us to identify those things
Specifically it will force us to see four different idols that pull our eyes away from the Lord
Today we are talking about the idol of Image
Just like in Exodus when God says we shouldn’t have any carved image or likeness that we worship — that same thing fits with our image and perception of our self
Image
Image
See our image is something that every single person thinks about
“What do people think about me”
“Am I cool?”
“Do they like me?”
“Hows my outfit? Did I pop that pimple? Is it obvious?”
Man we care about our image!
Here’s some stats for you if you don’t believe me:
94% of young people engage with social media on a daily basis
4 out of 5 of Generation Z’s favorite ways to spend time include screen-based activity
92% of children in the U.S. have a “digital footprint,” meaning 92% of people your age have entered some information about themselves somewhere on the internet at some point in time.
In a study done in the 1950s, teens were asked if they were a “very important person.” Less than ten percent said they were. Fifty years later, more than 80 percent of teens said they were.
What does this show us? There is an epidemic that deals with image!
We care about how many likes we have, how many unopened snapchats we have
Or we care that we are seen as the person who “doesn’t care about that stuff”
We care about being the person that people look at as the one that “doesn’t mess around with social media”
We put our time into how other people see us to the point where it causes us to be obsessive
Remember what Jesus said at the beginning:
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Where your treasure is — what you are focusing on — there your heart is
And we are called to love God, not others
So I want to challenge us today to stop looking at our image as our God by giving two reasons
Our image fades
Our image fades
The first one is simple:
Our image fades
Listen to what Isaiah says:
6 A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
Man Isaiah tells us that we are just like grass
It fades, we fade
The image that we are seeking to build — the thing we are trying to hang our hat on will leave
Isaiah tells us that only God will stand forever
So when God is telling us that we should only love and worship Him, its not because he hates us — its very simply because God knows that nothing else will last except Him
He is the only thing that is worthy of being worshipped, He is the only thing that is unchanging, He is the only thing that lasts forever
So for us today, we need to stop worshipping our image because our image fades
Our image is broken
Our image is broken
The second reason is:
Our image is broken
The image that we are spending time creating — wanting people to see us in a certain light
Its broken
Man listen to these passages
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Then listen to Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
What is this saying?
Its saying we are all sinful — all subject to God’s wrath — all exchanging our worship for a good God and instead worshipping a broken creation
Sin is everything that is against God
Sin separates us from God
It destroys communion with God
We must stop putting our image in front of everything
Application
Application
So how do we do that?
How do we stop making our image an idol?
How do we stop letting what people think about us control us?
Well I want to give you two ways you practically can do this
Stay off social media
Stay off social media
The first thing is this:
Stay off social media
If you want to stop letting your image be an idol you need to stay off social media
Social media is literally designed to create FOMO
Social media is anything you use to connect with other people online:
This is traditional things like instagram and tik tok
This is also things like discord
Snapchat
It is designed to make you desire to be liked
It is meant to show only your good and hide the bad
If you want to stop letting your image, your appearance, be an idol you need to limit your social media intact
That may mean taking it off your phone
It may mean setting time limits on it
But you need to stay off of the platforms that force you to make your appearance and image god in your life
Fear God, not man
Fear God, not man
The second thing you need to do in order to stop your image from being your idol is a litter more difficult
Fear God, not man
If you want your image to stop being an idol you need to fear God not man
Let what God thinks about you be the only thing that matters, not what others think
Listen to what Jesus says:
28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
He warns us not to fear people who can only hurt the body
Instead he says we are to fear God — the one who controls our entire destiny
This means that when we are doing something we need to stop and ask the question:
“Am I doing this for the approval of someone? Or am I doing it for the approval of God?”
When we start to filter our entire life — every choice we have — every action that we do into that filter you’ll be surprised to find out how easy it can be to actually fear God over man
You’ll be blown away when you realize all the things you do during a day that is for how you look
How many things you do so that your friend thinks you’re cool
How many things you don’t do for God because you want someone to like you
Conclusion
Conclusion
Students our image is always going to be an idol that we have to wrestle with
It will always be something we have to stop and look at
We will always desire for people to like us, always desire to put a version of our self out there that may not be the real version
For us that means we must fight against our image
If we are to do that we need to limit our social media
And we must fear God not man by asking the question: “Am I doing this for the approval of someone? Or am I doing it for the approval of God?”
If we do this we will start to fight our sin, fight our idol
And truly follow the Lord when He says “Have no other God’s before me”
Discussion Questions:
Discussion Questions:
What questions do you have from the message?
How does your image become an idol?
How should the knowledge that our image will fade cause us to not worship it?
How should the knowledge that our image is broken cause us to not worship it?
How would limiting your social media / screen time help with stopping you from worshiping your image?
How can you start to fear God instead of man?
