Sermon Tone Analysis

What is idolatry, why does it matter?

(CSB)

4 Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth.

Idolatry is more than worshiping a statue.

It is a condition of the heart.

(CSB) 4 Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth.

Illus: Let’s be clear.

Idolotry is far less about whether the object of your worship is a statue or a hobby.

If your hobby, your job, your friends, your habbits, or whatever keep you from serving God, and worshiping him fully, you are in idolotry.

One of the greatest idols we face in our world today is self image.

We love to worship ourselves.

We define ourselves by a number on a scale, a waist size, or by how we compare with other people.

One of the trends of our new age is to pretend that that we don’t grow older.

It is a form of vanity.

hear me out, there is nothing wrong with taking care of your body.... there is a whole lot wrong in becoming obsessed with your looks and body.

Men work out, buy fancy clothes, worry, become obsessed with their self image and end up worshiping themselves.

Ladies, spend immense amounts of money attempting to look younger than they actually are.

They dye their hair, wear clothes which hide what you don’t like and accentuate what your do, spend a good portion of thier lives in front of the mirror all in an attempt to hide the fact that they are slowly growing older.

It is the worship of their own self image..

Sadly we as parents have encourages this love of self.

Where we once encouraged our teenagers towards modesty, today we enable them and encourage them to wear clothes that should make us blush.

BTW, it seems our love of our self has only grown greater and with each generation.

Frankly weddings today are not a covenant to worship of God, but instead a display of opulence and worship of the bride.

We experience the world through taking selfies, where we take 5 or six pictures of our face because we think our chin looks fat in the first 5 attempts.

Here is the truth, we have an idol problem.

Our idol problem is not that we worship a statue.

Our Idol problem is that we have made ourselves an into an idol and we bow and worship it every day.

(CSB)

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.

24 Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves.

25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever.

Amen.

26 For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions.

Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

27 The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another.

Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.

26 For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions.

Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

27 The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another.

Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.

28 And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right.

29 They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness.

They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice.

They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, untrustworthy, unloving,, and unmerciful.

32 Although they know God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die,—they not only do them, but even applaud, others who practice them.

Idolatry comes down to worship?

What do you give your heart to?

(CSB) 4 Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth.

Illus: If we really looked deeply into our lives, I think we would all realize that we fail in Idolotry .

We have idolatrous hearts.

We do not find our fulfillment in God, or purpose in serving Him.

We find life in serving ourselves, worshiping the image in the mirror.

Almost every decision we make is for our own comfort, vanity, security and happieness.

How is this way we live life not idolatry.

(CSB) 20 Then God spoke all these words: 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

3 Do not have other gods besides me.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

20 Then God spoke all these words: 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

3 Do not have other gods besides me.

Do not underestimate God’s jealousy.

(CSB)

3 Do not have other gods besides me. 4 Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth.

5 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ iniquity, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,

What is God jealous for?

5 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God,

Illus: Even in the way we have approached worship on Sunday Morning we are self worshippers.

Think through the song we sang this morning.

I asked matt to sing it purposely.

He is Jealous for me.....

He loves me.

When God is jealous in the bible, it is not saying he is some hopeless lover who needs our affections.

God’s jealous for his glory.

God does not share his glory with anyone.

Here is the funny thing, when we sing HE loves me… we can be worshiping God… or we can be worshiping ourselves.

I would venture to say that often when we worship, our worship is far more about whether the style pleases us, whether we are moved by the emotion of the song, and whether we like the song.

Sadly we have even become idolatrous in the way we worship God.

(CSB) 8 I am the Lord.

That is my name,

8 I am the Lord.

That is my name,

and I will not give my glory to another

or my praise to idols.

God’s jealousy will either lead to repentance or to judgment.

5 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ iniquity, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me,

Illus: God does not take our idolatry lightly.

When we live in worship of ourselves, we can be certain that God’s wrath will be poured out on us.

Sometimes, it is God’s passive wrath where he will allow the object of our worship to be our god removing his hand of benevolence from us and allowing us to know the full consequences of our self worship.

Other times God brings his active judgment into our lives where we feel the full weight of God’s power because of our sin.

Why, so that we would repent and turn to him… but if you don’t the light and momentary punishment of this earth will turn into the full and unending wrath of eternity.

(CSB) 5 Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.

6 He will repay each one according to his works:, 7 eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but wrath and anger to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness.

(CSB) 5 Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.

6 He will repay each one according to his works:, 7 eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but wrath and anger to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness.

5 Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.

6 He will repay each one according to his works:, 7 eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but wrath and anger to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness.

Can you keep God’s commands?

(CSB)

4 Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth.

5 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ iniquity, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, 6 but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.

We can love God and keep his commands because God first loved us.