Idolatry (Part 5) 

8-1-10

Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way (pain, hurt, idol) in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (toward a better future).

Wisdom helps us to see the connection between our heart, our choices and the outcome of our lives.

Let me say (3) things here:

~ Wisdom literature offers us a glimpse of who we were meant to be and the kind of life that we were meant to experience and honestly confronts all of those attachments which obstruct our pursuit of such a life [it never allows us to conclude that the sin/disorder preventing us from living such a life is somewhere “out there”, but is located in the “heart”].

            ~ It is God’s invitation for us to stop living such self-deceiving, self-defeating, self-destructive lives.

            ~ Both the OT and NT wisdom literature remind us that at the center of foolishness is “deception” and the effectiveness of deception is its capacity to prevent us from seeing what’s really there!

● All of us have these tendencies, these propensities to seek fulfillment apart from/in something other than God. Those tendencies displace God’s love as the source of our deepest desires.

            These pursuits get the best of us: the best of our time, our energy, our budget, our heart… leaving us little resources for others.

● You might notice that “idolatry” is utilized to depict the human dilemma in the OT and “desires” is used in the NT to depict our drift from God.

            In fact, the NT merges the concepts and uses “idolatry” as a metaphor for disorderly, life-ruling desires.

Galatians 5:16 “So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves.”

Ephesians 2:3 “All of us used to live that way, following the passions and desires of our evil nature.”

1 Peter 2:11 “Dear brothers and sisters,…I warn you to keep away from evil desires because they fight against your very souls.”

● Paul understood humanity’s dilemma as “idolatry”… “…worshipping and serving created things rather than the Creator--- who is forever praised” (Romans 1:25) [inextricable link between “worship” and “service”: Whatever we value, attach worth to, we will ultimately attend to].

● It means that, in essence, all behavior is, in some form or another, “religious behavior”; expressions of worship: “Who or what is ruling/motivating my actions?”

 All sin is rooted in idolatry… making something other than God central or of ultimate concern for life.

1 John 5:21 “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” (“…keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.” NLT)

            In actuality, it is indicative of life’s most basic question: “Has something other than God captured your heart and merited your trust and service?” Who or what rules you?”

● What initiated the chaos was humanity’s refusal to worship God: “… their thinking became futile (worthless) and their foolish hearts were darkened” (deprived of light) (Romans 1:21).

Having “exchanged the truth of God for a lie”, the continued denial/suppression of truth causes us to actually create an alternate reality and we become “delusional” (holding onto a false belief despite the indisputable evidence to the contrary).

“How strong are these delusions?”

The exchange is what allows an 85lb. girl to stand in front of a mirror and conclude that she is fat.

We underestimate the power of our desires. Our idols/allegiances are not easily abandoned.

We invest so much of ourselves in them;  we spend so much on them and find our identity somehow so enmeshed with them that it is not surprising that we defend them so vigorously.

All attachments/idols (“nailed to”) have this in common:

►Their ultimate success is in their seductive qualities (“seduce”- to lead astray; to persuade to disloyalty).

►Idolatry is always an “if…then” proposition. It offers us false promises and creates false hopes.

The idols are always incredibly disappointing as we find ourselves seeking fulfillment/ultimate meaning from that which can never make good on its promises.

Proverbs 23:29-35 (read) Even though its destroying them, it views another drink as the remedy.

►They result in self-destruction and then offer themselves back to us as the solutions (i.e. more money, a different sexual partner (better relationships), a stronger drink, etc.)

►They all deteriorate our freedoms and cause us to respond inhumanely... they make us less than human.

The good news is that wisdom is always depicted as being available to us no matter where we are in the developmental process.

                No matter how many times we have ignored it or abused it. It means that wisdom wants to actually affect the quality of your future choices so that you might avoid the unnecessary damage.

COMMUNION: the Exodus story depicts for us, in so many ways, this journey from “folly” to “wisdom”.