[SERMON] What Might Be Trapping You? | False Idols

Idols may seem like something from ancient history—golden statues and carved images worshiped in temples. But the truth is, idolatry hasn’t disappeared. It has simply changed form.

In this message, we explore how the human heart still creates idols today—often through things that look good, desirable, or even harmless. Success, reputation, relationships, comfort, politics, entertainment, and identity can quietly take the place that belongs to God alone.

Scripture reminds us that whatever controls our hearts ultimately becomes our god. When blessings slowly become masters, they begin to shape our priorities, our identity, and even our worship.

This message challenges us to honestly examine our lives, recognize the idols that compete for our devotion, and replace them with a deeper love for Christ—because only one throne exists in the human heart.

Transcript

 

Introduction: Idols Ancient & Modern

We are talking about idols now. Uh, I, you know, anybody have an idol in their home that they worship on the shelf, anything. Okay. All right. So, um, just checking. I have, I have been fortunate to go to the city of Pompeii in Italy, which sits at the base of Mount Vesuvius. And in the year 79 ad Vesuvius erupted, surprisingly to them all, they didn't know what that smoking mountain was.

And it buried the city in, in minutes, buried the city. It put ash and pum stone just rained from the sky. Buried at 14 feet deep in POEs Zone, froze the entire city in history. Now they're digging it out and you can see buildings, the, the roofs are collapsed, obviously, but you can see the buildings as they were.

You can see the interior of people's homes. You can see the paintings on the wall. You can see what were graffiti on the wall. You can see all kinds of stuff. And when they dug out these buildings, they, they were, the furniture was still there. Um. The decorations were still there. A large part, like they could, they could tell how people ate.

Uh, they would find all kinds of stuff and that stuff got like taken out to museums. But when you walk through Pompeii, which is a large city, in the ancient world, like a mega city, it takes hours. We, five hours, we walked across this place and got, uh, about a quarter of it in one day, and we walked, I walked the last time I was in pomp and.

Twice. I walked like 11 miles that day and still didn't see the whole thing. It's a huge city, but one of the things you can see is that in the homes they had special alcoves rooms or they had little shelf areas cut out for idols. Yeah, because they worshiped idols, because the ancient world worshiped idols.

This was a regular thing, not just in the Roman and Greek society that we often talk about, but all over the world. Civilizations that never had contact with each other. Worship idols. There's something about idols. People would create a God and do the worship, the God, oh, I wanna worship the God to, to have let us have children for fertility.

I worship, I'll make a God and I'll worship it. I'll make a God and I'll pray to it to have a better harvest. I'll pray to a God that. I have better health. That's just something of the ancient world. People would worship idols and they would often create something out of rock, clay, stone that would be a symbol of a god, a deity, and then they would pray to it and they would worship it.

And so that's been since the ancient times. And then we see at Exodus, God tells Moses as he is leading the people across the desert, he says, Hey Moses, I come up this mountain. I'm gonna give you the T Commandments and you know we're gonna have a conversation. And so when Moses goes up the mountain, he gets, one of the commandments that God gives him is a very famous one in Exodus 

Scripture: Exodus 20 — "No Other Gods Before Me"

23.

And, and this is one of 'em. You shall have no other gods. Gods before me. So Moses goes up on the mountain and when he goes up there, he gets 10 commandments and God gives him one of them and says, you shall have no other gods before me. Because people worshiped other gods. They had other Gods, other civilizations had their God.

And then some civilizations have their God, and then some civilizations had tons of gods. We still have Gods in the world. Do you know that in India they worship over a billion gods? Jesus is one of them. They just worship a lot of them. I have an Indian friend and he, he's like, oh, he would talk to me all the time about Jesus.

Jesus is just one of a billion gods for them. Every ancestor is, every is a God. Like, uh, and so you actually are trying to attain godhood in Hinduism. Like you wanna, you want to cease to be, go to Nirvana, become a God. That's like their whole, whole thing they're trying to do. And so this has been an ongoing issue, not just in the ancient world, but in the modern world that.

There are other gods that people worship. And so Moses on the mountaintop, God says, you shall have no other gods before him. Now what's happening while Moses is on the mountaintop is he's gone a little too long. And so the people that he's leading, they're down below in the, in the valley and like, well, Moses is gone.

Maybe he's dead. There's a storm up there. He probably died. Let's take all of our golden jewelry, melt it down, create a golden calf, and let's worship that. That's what we'd all think if, if someone was gone too long, right? If you like, your spouse has gone too long. Oh, let's create a calf, right? And so they literally created a golden calf.

Now, God obviously knows what Moses is up there. This is happening. And so one of the rules he gives 'em is, Hey, I wanna be your only God, me alone. And by the way, no other gods. That's it. While they're making another God, Moses comes down, sees the golden calf, he's quite upset. He breaks the commandments and then he is gotta go back up and get, get him again.

It's an issue. And so he's gone and people are like, let's just make a God to worship because that's what they did in the absence of a God or the God that they thought Yahweh was a God. Well, obviously. We should create another God in absence of that God. That's what people do and did. And we think, well, that's crazy.

Why would they do that? It's not so crazy because in our world, idols are appearing more and more and larger and larger because they become a status symbol. Here's one of the idols that's out, uh, in, uh, I think this is in Indonesia. This is over a theme park. This is a large, giant golden Buddha. And there's this competition that's going on.

I don't think it's official competition, but it is a competition because they keep different countries and Asia keep creating bigger and bigger golden Buddhists. Now when you're watching movies and they have like, uh, koala Lumpur and all these cities, there's a giant Buddha in the background. They love to like pan around it with the, with the helicopters and stuff, and, and they're just building them.

They're idols. People worship these, they have 'em in their homes. You've probably seen those little, those little Buddhas with the little. Half grin and the big old belly, you could put 'em in your house. People worship those. They're not just a decoration, they're something that people worship. They're idols.

We still have idolatry in the world. Now, when I think of idols though, I think of a golden calf. 'cause you know, I'm pastor. It's, I always go back to that one's thought. But then I also, of another idol, I think of this idol. Anybody know what this is from? Indiana Jones, right? This is it. I think it looks like the rock, but, um, yeah, but this is the fertility idol from Indiana Jones.

He's going to go take the bag of sand and put it down. Uh, we, we had a video a couple weeks ago about our golden pig where Cody did that a few years ago. This is what I think about. It's an idol, right? It comes in movies. We, we see different things that come up for, for those things. Now we have a golden pig in the lobby.

It's a no way related to the golden calf or this, we don't expect you to worship. Do not go out there and bow down to the golden pig. We just had a pig. We thought it'd be cool to paint it pink or paint it gold. And then we recognize, oh, that. That probably doesn't make people think because we talk about it.

It's not. It's not. How don't worship it. It's just a collection of money thing. It's a piggy bank. Literally, that's all it. But it's a no way related idols. But in our current culture, we don't necessarily have none of you admitted, at least that you have an idol on your shelf at home that you pray to, that you worship.

'cause that's not a modern way we experience idols, but we do experience idols in another way. Anybody know how we experience idols today? Huh? Cell phone? Cell? Yeah, definitely. This is, here's the title. You all worship 'cause this is what you spend the most of your time with, right? No, I got a different one.

Here we go. American Idol, right? American Idol. It's a singing show about one person winning and then they become so super famous that they travel the globe and they make millions of dollars and people like cry when they see them walk into the room. They do become an idol. I do. I I've seen, like Kelly Clarkson now has one of the biggest talk shows on tv.

She was the first American Idol. She's mega rich. Mega famous. She has become an idol, right? Whether we like it or not, we like to raise people up in idols. We like to raise things up in idols. That's a human condition. This has been going on since the beginning of human history. Adam and Eve in the Garden created an idol.

They wanted to be God. They were convinced that they just ate at the tree that was forbidden. They could be God. And so they coveted that tree. They wanted that tree. They wanted to eat that fruit. They wanted to be like God, and they ate the fruit. They sinned 'cause God said not to. And they made that thing an idol.

They got cast outta the garden and we've been worshiping idols ever since. As humanity all across the globe, disconnected cultures create idols. That's the thing. And that was my kind of, that was my major. Michigan was world religions. So I studied like all religions and every religion has some kind of idolatry in it somewhere in its past, in its present.

It's just a thing that connects humans. And so idolatry isn't an ancient problem. It's a human problem. It really is. You might think, well, idols are for people in, in antiquity. No, we still have idols today. 

Point 1: An Idol Is Whatever Controls Your Heart

And really an idol is just whatever controls your heart, it becomes your God. Wherever your heart goes, that's your God.

And so we have to examine ourselves often to understand where is my heart? What is my heart for? Because that's my God. And we all are guilty of having idols. I've had idols. You have had idols. Maybe you have an idol right now. You just don't recognize it. Ezekiel uh, 14 three. It says this, uh, it's speaking by idols.

These men have taken their idols into their hearts, into their hearts, the things that we worship that comes into our heart. I, I love how the, the Old Testament, uh, prophet Isaiah talks about idols. He's actually making fun of people when he is speaking about it. He literally says in Isaiah, he's talking to people who are worshiping Idol.

He says, here's the thing, here's the funny thing. You cut down trees. I like the Cedars of Lebanon. You cut 'em down this famous tree, and you take. The wood and you craft it into an idol and then you worship it, and then you take the leftover scraps of the wood and you throw it in the fire and you burn it and use it to cook with.

He says, how funny is that? That the thing you worship, you also burn away. Like there's no value to it. There's no value in that thing. You just, because you craft it into a thing that you pray to, doesn't meet, make it a God, and so he's it. He's making jest of them because for us, we have to recognize that.

Those things that we worship, that we turn into idols, they take over our hearts. And the, and the hard part about idols are idols rarely look evil. They usually look desirable. They're usually crafted out of, uh, beautiful materials. If you go to some of these, these museums and see ancient idols, they're some like, uh, special stone or wood, and they've been carved by craftsmen and they're beautiful, and there's something to look at.

They're, they're not made to look ugly. They're not made to look evil. And the thing in our life, there's idols that we worship that are things in the world that look attractive and they draw us in and idols like, 

Point 2: Blessings That Slowly Become Masters

here's the danger. Idols are often blessings that slowly become masters. This is a hard one.

This is a hard reality. Idols are often blessings that slowly become masters. Some things are good until we make them bad. Yeah, by overindulgence, by allowing that thing to take our heart and become our thing, our passion, our desire, our focus instead of Christ. That's difficult. I'll be honest with you, when I went to Michigan, well, those of you who don't know, I went to Michigan, played football there.

That's backstory. Uh uh, when I went to Michigan, the first thing they did. When I got to Michigan was put into our heads. You are a Michigan man. If you watch anything about Michigan, you always hear that phrase Come up Michigan, man. It was in. It was ingrained in everything. You're a Michigan man. Life's different.

You're a Michigan man. You always be a Michigan man. They can never take that away from you. You're a Michigan man. Repeated over and over and over. It becomes an identity, and then that identity becomes so important. It's a blessing to be a Michigan man. I'm part of a community until the community becomes everything.

And so what happened is after I graduated, I was really too close to football. I knew too much, way too much about football. I get too mad. So I had to actually take like a three year break from watching football games because I would get so frustrated and mad and upset. My heart would race and I would, it would just ruin my, if we lost, uh, this was like in the early two thousands, if we lost, I would, I, it ruined my day.

It ruined my weekend. I was living in Ohio. If we lost Ohio State, it would definitely ruin everything ruined my year and a and a decade of my life. Um. So I just, at one point I just recognized, I gotta stop this. This is not healthy. This is not healthy for anybody, so I would just quit watching the games.

So there's a period of time where like some, the people were like, do you know so and so that played football after you? I'm like, I don't know if there's a period of three years I was really disconnected from Michigan football because I needed to be, I still wanted 'em to win. Still got frustrated if they lost, but I just disconnected.

So I don't really know some of those players. And then when they're in NFL, I'm like, oh, I didn't know that guy went to Michigan. I forgot. And because I needed to take a step back. Not that I don't like being a Michigan man, but I don't like being a Michigan man to that degree. I don't want it to be become my master.

Make sense? And so we have to be careful and when we look at Colossians three, five, Paul's writing the Church of Colossae. He's saying to 

Scripture: Colossians 3:5 — Put Idolatry to Death

them, put to death. Therefore, what is earthly? Earthly in you? Covetness, which is idolatry. It's one of the list of things that are idolatry. But coveted. This comes all the way back to the Adam and Eve in the garden.

The coveted being like, God eating the tree. That was forbidden. So that was became an idol to them. We do this a lot in life. We raise things up to become idols coveted. This is an easy one. I want that thing that I don't have, that someone else has. I want it. I'm gonna strive everything I can to get it.

It's an idol. It becomes the thing that you're living for, that you're focused on. And Paul's telling the church put that to death. That is not. The way that we're supposed to live, and when you recognize that something is elevated to that degree in your life, you have to put it to death. That's why I had to pull back from watching Michigan football games.

I had to recognize this is not good. This is taking way too much of my energy, my focus, my heart. I gotta pull back. Doesn't mean I can't be a fan. I just need to be, I had to figure out, I actually would tell people the time. I just need to figure out how to be a fan and not a football player anymore. And until I figure that out, I need to take a step back.

'cause as football player, Kyle, I was really, really upset about those games. I need to go back. Just being a fan who it didn't really change. If it went, they win or lose. That is a change. And see idols promise life, but quietly steal your soul. That's the problem. A lot of things that we love in life become an idol for us, but in reality, it starts stealing away our soul.

Little by little starts leaking away until you're, you don't recognize who you are anymore, and that's, that's scary. And I know we all say I don't have idols. I know worship, you all worship idols. I worship idols. You worship idols. We've had idols in our life. It just depends on are they on the shelf or have they come down from the shelf and you've put God up there.

And that's it. Because we all get sucked into things that take our attention, those blessings that become the burdens that steal our soul away. We all, we all are at risk of it. We're human. It's part of the human condition of being flawed and broken marred by sin. In the Old Testament in Psalm, the Psalmist wrote one, uh, Psalm 1 15, 8.

This is about idols. Those who make them become, become like them. So do all who trust in them. Idol adultery is not good. It sucks us in. It twists us, it shapes us, it changes us. That's not where what's supposed supposed to be done. We're supposed to be changed by God. We're supposed to have a heart for him, not a heart for all these things.

And so what you worship really does shape what you become. And we'll all say, well, I don't worship anything but the Lord. I go to church and I go to hard legs and I worship him. But church and the Lord is probably what you spend some of the least amount of time in your week doing. Right. That's why you all said this.

This gets the majority of your life attention and focus. I, you know, it'd be really fun. Just have, we should just have you start chant chanting out how much screen time you've had this week and then how much bible time you've had that week and try to compare. Right. Right. Anyone have over 12 hours of, of, uh, Bible time this week?

Some of you have that screen time per day. Right. And you're supposed to be working, but I'm scrolling. Right. Well, you worship shapes what you become, what gets your time, your tension, your energy, your resources, your money, your heart. That's what you become. And you wonder why we're all miserable, we're frustrated, we're anxious, all these things.

It's because our heart has been pulled into shaping us to become something different, not what God intended us to be. And you'll always reflect what you revere. This is scary. You will always reflect what you revere and that thing that becomes the most important in your life, it's gonna change you and it's gonna start reflecting in you, and people are gonna see it.

That's why the best people in my life that tell me if I have an issue are my children who are brutally honest and my wife. And what happens? Here's what happens to me. I don't really need someone to tell me something. I just need to, I just need someone to say something and I'm really good about self-reflecting.

And so if I hear something a couple times, I'm like, maybe I need to listen to that comment. Maybe that means something. And so I try to regularly like self-reflect, alright, why did, why did she say that? Why did Patty say that maybe I'm spending too much time with this thing or doing this or on this or whatever.

And it's, I'm not saying you can't enjoy stuff in life, it just becomes, what's your focus? What's your focus? For me, uh, I had a, I had a big issue. About, I know about five years ago, maybe six years ago. Well, Michigan got really good again after, uh, you know, two decades of bad. Um, we had, I got Big 10 

Key Illustration: Michigan Football & Misplaced Priorities

championship tickets.

The first Big 10 championship game Michigan had been in, it was on a Saturday night. I had already made a commitment months before, before Michigan started winning all these games to be at the Christmas party at the church here, that same Saturday night. But I, I got the lottery of tickets to go. And so we had lots of discussions at home over priority, over what matters more.

And I kept telling Patty, well, you know, the church will be okay with it. We've, we've been really bad for 20 years. They'll be all right. That won't, that won't miss me. And what was, what was trying to do is I was trying to say, um, my value, what I ultimately decided is I let my family in Ohio go to the game Michigan won.

It was amazing. You know, it was like, I missed it. But I, I kept my commitment here. I could've got outta the commitment. Nobody would've cared. People even said, yeah, you should go. You should go. But what I was recognizing in me, it wasn't about what people would allow me to go, what mattered was where is my heart at?

Where is my focus? Yes, I could've went to the game. But it would've been because my heart was so pulled in that direction, so I stayed, I didn't go. And then next year we changed it to be a Friday night event, back to what it used to be, so it would never conflict again. And I went next year to the game. So, yeah.

But that's the truth. I walked through a whole bunch of my life about my priorities and where my heart was at in that moment, and I said, God is where I want to be. I need to give this thing up. And that's why Michigan won the championship the next year. 'cause God rewarded me. No, I'm just kidding. No, you're all welcome.

Michigan fans. Uh, no, I'm just kidding. But like you've gotta wrestle with these things. Like these are real world things. What's the idol? Is it that big of an idol? Like, I don't care about God in this moment. I want to do this thing. No, you have to walk through this. We're all walking. I walk through this on a regular basis.

I try 'em to constantly reevaluate. Are you, where are the idols in your life? You got 'em. You got 'em. We all do. We live in a lake community. People got idols, right? Entertainment idols, leaves, idols. We got it. How are you processing through it? 

Scripture: Matthew 6:21 — Where Your Treasure Is

Matthew 6 21. It's a very famous verse for where your treasure is there.

Your heart will be awesome. If you treasure Jesus, your heart will be with him. You treasure the world. You treasure things. You treasure your time. That's where your heart's gonna be, and that's where your idols will be. And you gotta take a deeper dive in your life. See, modern idols don't live in temples.

They live in hearts. You're not gonna drive through Jackson. You're not gonna drive through Brooklyn and see a big old temple with a giant idol in there. You're just not. And people in there worshiping, bound on the ground, they're not gonna do it. That's not the world anymore. If you go to Nashville, Tennessee, you're gonna see the Pantheon, which is a replica of the, of the actual Pantheon inside.

There's a 75 foot tall idol. I've been there, seen it. Anybody been there? Nope. Okay. Well, nobody goes to Nashville. Okay. Um. But there's a 75 foot idol. The idol is holding. Uh, I forget it's maybe Athena. I forget who. It's who it is. But it's, the idle is holding its handout in the hand is another, uh, idle. The idle is six foot tall.

I think it's six or seven foot tall. Uh, it's, and you can walk. They have it down on the ground. Yes, I see it. Six or seven. They actually have the idle. You can walk by it. It's, it's massive. But, and when it's holding it up 75 feet in the air, like, it's like this tall. And people would go in and they would worship these massive things.

You guys should go to Rome in the heart of the Roman, uh, forum, in the middle of Rome where all they had all these temples and idols. They had 90 foot tall ones, a hundred foot tall ones. People go in and worship. We don't have that anymore. We just have things that we were worship ideas, concept sports teams that we worship, and those things live in our hearts and we have to be careful about.

If it takes too much of our heart, it becomes a bad thing. See, our idols may not be carved in stone, but they are carved into our priorities, what we do, what we think about. That's our priority, time, talent, treasure, we talk about all the time here and people, you know, I, I know when we say those things, oh, I just want my time, want my money as church?

No, because the Bible talks over and over and over again about how you spend your time, how you spend your money, and how you use your talent. It shows where your heart is. If you're giving your money to creative things, that's where your priorities are. Forgiven you, my Lord. That's where your priorities are.

If you're spending your time on all these created things and not with the Lord, that's where your priorities are. If you're using your talent for all this stuff, but not for the Lord, that's where your priorities are, and the problem is where your priorities are. That's where your worship is. We're all worshiping something.

And we all, here's the, here's the thing I know by default, the answer is always Jesus. Right? For Christians, whatever question is answer Jesus, what's two plus two? Jesus, right? It's just the way people are like, and I always have to say, I know the answer by default's always Jesus. Let's not use Jesus as the answer.

Gimme the real answer. Right? Where are your real priorities? I know everyone say Jesus, but the truth is you could look at your phone usage and probably figure out your priorities are not really Jesus. Where are your real priorities? And think about what are you then worshiping? Lemme give you 

Point 3: Modern Idols — 38 Ways We Worship Today

some, some idols that we have in our modern culture.

I think there's 38 of these. We're gonna rush through 'em. You guys can read the list faster than I can go through it. So you can read. I'm gonna hit a couple identity idols from reputation to approval to to, uh, this one here being right intellectual superiority or theological pride. Christians are the worst because, ah, I'm right.

'cause the Lord said I'm right. Right? Like, I don't care what you think. The Lord says, no intellectual superiority. This is why we have in our culture of honor, the statement, you might be right, but is it loving? 'cause intellectual superiority does not make you right. It's an idol. You don't have to be right all the time.

You don't. You can be wrong. It's fine. You can, it's fine. It's fine if you know the person's wrong. Just keep your mouth shut, right? Becomes an idol being right all the time. You just become a jerk and you worship that rightness more than anything else. Security idols. This is a big one in our society.

Money, education, political power control. Are you suffering from security idols? And your life. Are these the things that you're living for something on this list, and that's where your heart really is? Toward. What about comfort? Idols? This is a tough one. Comfort, hobbies, food. Anyone got a food idol? Yeah.

It's not a good thing though, right? It's not a good thing sometimes. Here's a big one. How about that? Personal time and leisure. We live in a leisure community. 52 lakes within 30 minutes of, of Brooklyn. It's a leisure community. People literally come here to leisure, right the rest of their life. Now, I'm not saying you can't drive around on a lake and that's not, that doesn't mean it's an idol just 'cause you have a boat, you drive around a lake.

It's, it's that your, all your focus, all I want do is just have leisure all the time. That's my focus in life or is Jesus your focus? And that's just something that's part of your life. It's really where is your heart towards. None of these things necessarily is bad on the list. It's is that becoming your focus?

Is that your heart relationship? Idols? This is a tough one. Children are children. Idols. Family. What about romantic relationships? Does that become all your you want in life? What about this one down at the bottom? Fear of disappointing others. That's a hard one. And that don't let people down. Guess what?

You can let people down. You can let people down. Is that becoming an idol in your life or achievement idols. Striving for success, wanting to win awards. What about ministry? Success? Success. This is a hard win in my line of work as a pastor, because this is a, I got a pet peeve for me. I think pastors should be called pastors because God wants a pastor and put them in a place where he can use them.

I don't think pastors should become pastors to climb the career ladder. And the my big frustration, a lot of pastors, they just wanna go from one church. They wanna grow it and they wanna bounce their church and they wanna grow it, and they wanna bounce in their church and they wanna go from a church of 200 to 400 to 800 to a thousand, to 2000 to 3000.

Here's why they wanna do that. Pastors don't make a lot of money. So when you go to a bigger church, you get a bigger paycheck, you go to another bigger church, you get another bigger paycheck. You keep going up and you get bigger and bigger. Paychecks and churches. There are big churches. I've worked at some mega churches.

Uh, you, they have resources, a lot of it, millions of dollars and they could pay their staff really well and they got benefits, which would be nice. And they have all these things. They got big budgets. We, I had a budget. In 2014 of $50,000 just for children's ministry. When I came to this church 10 years ago, our entire budget was $140,000.

That's the difference for our entire church. That was with pay paying staff and everything. There's just a difference in resources, and when you get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger churches, you make more money up. You can get a plane, right, because some of these guys have private planes, private houses.

It's an idol. The pastors that we hired here, they're great. They get job offers all the time to go somewhere else. They do. We, we have a fantastic staff. The reason we're all here is 'cause we wanna be, and that's how it should be. Are you where you want to be? Because you should be, not because you're trying to, to make something an idol and strive your heart towards that thing.

It's okay to be content, spiritual idols, biblical knowledge, church traditions. Being seen as spiritually mature. Here's the thing, there's a lot of people who just like, ah, this church didn't have this thing. And so like, they don't love the Lord. There's a lot of things that we make idols like crosses.

When I came to this church, um, I took two crosses down in this room. They were on the walls. Uh, that caused a lot of headaches for me. So I counted all the crosses in this room. At the time, there were 68 crosses. In this room, there are still a bunch, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, but we had pews. Every pew had two crosses on each one On each end, all the light fixtures had three crosses on each one.

There were 68 crosses. In this room, I took down two, and you thought the world was gonna fall apart. That's an idol. That's idol. I don't even like the cross as a symbol because Jesus died on the cross. Personally, I don't like it. I don't like to glorify the cross. It's, that's where Jesus put to death. But it's an idol 'cause it's a church tradition.

Some people make community an idol. They didn't have community church. They don't love the Lord. I'm not going back there. It becomes an idol. So we have to be careful. What are we making idols? The things that don't matter that we elevate to, to mattering for ourselves. Culture idols. Self-expression, personal identity, health, fitness, politics.

This is a big one in our culture. All this identity politics and all this identity stuff. It's just idols. It's just different forms of idols. What's my focus? I had somebody drive by church the other day and had church, all this stuff outside, and they're like, Hey, is that the, is that, why is that church have all that stuff outside?

That's not about the Bible, about God or anything, because that's become an idol. They've made that thing become an idol. Because what should be the focus of worship is Jesus and only Jesus, not any other thing that's going on in the culture of the day. That's what it is. We don't talk a lot about politics here 'cause politics is an idol.

Sorry. It is like you can vote how you want. We only recommend read the Bible, have a relationship with Jesus, pray about your voting, and then vote the conscience of the Bible in your life. And now we believe it'll all work out. That's the way it works. I don't care what kind of, what side of the political spectrum we're on, that's between you and the Lord.

So what if we make culture idols? Because today's idols look a lot like, less like statues and a lot more like lifestyles. Some of our lifestyles have become idolatry. They can, they have, the way we live is what we worship. You just have to ask yourself, is that me? Am I living in a way that I'm worshiping something?

That list of 38 things is one of them. Yours, two of them. Yours, 12 of them. Yours, 38 of 'em. Yours. And so the most dangerous idols are the ones we've refuse to em. Admit, exist. We're, if I asked you if, like if I, if I just come over and say, Hey, are you worshiping? I always be like, nah, I don't. The truth is we all do at times.

It's. Are you gonna be honest about it? I, I know what some of mine are. Brownies have been one before, so we quit having brownies now they've come back recently, but I'm much better with brownies now. I don't need to eat, eat 'em all. So, yeah. Nutty buddies. Yeah, that's, where's Chris Moffitt? Yeah, that's, yeah.

You gotta, you gotta admit you got idols. Some of you, it's a sports team. Guess what? There's a big game today, right? Anybody know what game it is today? Michigan State versus Michigan number three versus number eight. Basketball. I know a lot of you don't care 'cause that's not your idol, but you got other idols.

It's a big deal for people. How is it gonna affect your afternoon if your team loses? Right. If you bleed green, it's gonna be rough. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. Nah, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Yeah. Is it gonna ruin your week? Is it gonna ruin your day? Mm. Might have a little bit of problem. You can watch it, enjoy it, and still walk away and not ruin your, your life.

Yeah. Idols. See, the idol you deny is the idol that controls you. I think the best thing we can do as Christians, you recognize, I do have idols that I struggle with. We all do. There's things that my heart gets pulled to that I begin to worship because of my time investment, my talent investment, my treasure investment.

I need to figure out what my danger zones are, and I need to be aware, and the people in my life need to know that and be aware of that. And love me enough to, to help me, keep me accountable. Some of you got the, the, the rib nudge during the, the list, right? That's you, that's you, that's you. Some of you're gonna go home and have to have a rib plate.

Yeah, that's the truth. So don't, don't deny you have idols. Recognize what they are and get a plan to, to remove those from a place of worship. And put Jesus back where he belongs. That's the key. Corin. First Corinthians 10 14. Paul's writing to the church in Corinth where he lived for two years. He was a tent maker, means he had a business in the community.

I've seen where he, where he made tents in Corinth. I've been there. He was right in town with all the people. He loved these people. This was his, one of his churches that he helped build. He's writing to them this church that he loves. He says, therefore, my beloved flee. Flee for idolatry. He's not saying You guys don't have idols, you have idolatry in your life.

Not just idols in town you can go pray to, but idols in your own heart. Flee from it. That's the best advice he could give to his, these people that he loved. And my advice to you is people who I love flee from idolatry. I don't think any of you, maybe you have a little Buddha home you pray to, but we don't.

We don't have idols in that way as the ancient world, but we all have idols. Flee from 'em. Recognize what they are. And when you do take steps away and get a plan to replace it with Jesus, even if you've gotta miss a big game, even if you've gotta miss an event, even if you've gotta change your focus, change it.

Because if something becomes your identity, it's already competing with God. It's already competing with God. Doesn't mean you can't have fun, doesn't mean you can't enjoy life. Doesn't mean you can't go on trips and do things. It just becomes, if it's all you do. Is it competing with God? You gotta figure it out because anything you cannot lose without losing yourself may be an idol May, and you gotta figure out what that is for you.

Application: Recognize & Replace Your Idols

So what does this mean for you? Why are we talking about it? The real question question isn't, do I have idols? It's really where are they hiding? Where are the idols hiding in your life? If you don't know, ask somebody, Hey, what do you think I have any problem with like idol worship in my life? Is there something in my life that you think that I worship more than Jesus?

And let people answer it. You may not like the answer. They may say Which one? Right? Which one of the dozens and every believer must regularly search their heart for competing loves. Now, I'm not saying you can't have hobbies. I got lots of hobbies. I love hobbies, but I'm constantly making sure that Jesus is more important than the hobby.

Like for me, the stuff of Jesus is gonna trump the stuff of the world, which has been very inconvenient for me at times in my life. And there's hobbies that I would like to excel at that I really don't get excel at because they would get in the way of Jesus time-wise. Like if I do something, I'm gonna do it extremely well.

That's just the way it is. But at some point, when you do something extremely well, it gets in the way of Jesus. So you can be good at things, you can be talented, you can enjoy things. You can have leisure, you can study and learn. You can do all these things as long as Jesus is still your focus. Jesus is still your focus, and he's not competing with some other 

Scripture: Psalm 139 & The Cure — A Greater Love for Christ

love.

Psalm 1 39 says, search me oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, thoughts, and see if there'll be any grievous way in me. You need to pray this regularly. You ask the Lord, the Holy Spirit lives in us. If we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, say, Lord, is there an issue that I'm having a struggle with, with worship where I'm worshiping some other thing?

And if so, show it to me so I can fix it. I do this often. I do, and I encourage our staff to do it often. I know Cody and Matt and Mark, we, they do this often and you gotta reevaluate and you gotta re get a plan. 'cause you don't defeat idols by removing them. You replace them with Jesus. Those things that draw you are still gonna always keep trying to draw you.

It's is Jesus gonna be your singular focus? And then everything else is ancillary. See, the cure for idol is idolatry is a greater love for Christ. That's what it's, you wanna not worship other things. Worship Christ. Worship Christ. If your worship is this, put it away. Our whole culture right now is fighting these things, like they're trying to get 'em out of businesses and schools and everywhere.

'cause we all know how detrimental these things are, but they're attached at the hip. Literally, you replace it with a greater love for Christ. 'cause only one throne exists in your heart. So you gotta make sure Jesus is on it. That's the truth. Um, John, his, his, his letter first John, he ends it with this, I love this, I love this statement, little children.

He's talking to his, his kind of followers, keep yourselves from idols. His last plea as he's closing the letter is this, keep yourself from Idols. He ends his entire letter with this warning because idolatry is the most persistent spiritual threat in human history. There has been idol worship since the garden, and it continues across the globe in every culture, with every creed, every nation, people of worship idols, and we're still doing it today.

It's dangerous. You are exposed idols. You create idols. You, you raise them up, you take them down, you put another one up, you take it down. It is a persistent spiritual threat. How are you evaluating? How are you figuring out and how are you moving forward? Some of you're sitting here today and you recognize, aha, I got an idol.

I asked people my first service was like, oh, I got a lot to think about. I got a lot to do this week. Thinking about how I'm gonna deal with some of this stuff. Like I know some of you're probably wrestling, it's okay. Been there. Doesn't mean you're a horrible person, doesn't mean you don't love Jesus. It just means you need to reevaluate.

You need to refocus, and you need to get a better plan for Jesus as the king of your heart and the focus of your life. If you're struggling, here's what we can do for you. We can pray for. As a church, if you know that you got an issue with an idol, write down idol. I'm not gonna call you. I could care less what your idol is.

We all got 'em. So, um, put your name on it so we know who we're praying for, but we will pray for you. We will pray that that verse is true, that you'll be able to search your heart and your thoughts this week, that the Lord will help you through his spirit. Make it known to you. What's the center of your heart?

Where are you worshiping? And that you gonna reevaluate that Jesus is there and there's other things need to be moved down and you may need to make some decisions. I had to step away from Michigan football for three years. Really step away so I could reevaluate. Some of it may take time. You may have to make some changes.

May have to make some changes so that you can be the better version of you who worship Jesus the way you want. But it w if you write your name, write idle down your name. I'll pray for you this week. Just pray that the Lord will help you. Search your thoughts, make it clear to you, and give you a path forward.

That's it. We'll pray for your staff meeting. We'll pray for you after the week and see if we can help you. But we wanna be a church where Jesus is the focus of our worship. Not created things, not idols, not culture, not all that stuff, but Jesus, let's pray 

Closing & Prayer

Heaven. Father, Lord, we just, we pray, Lord, as we, we worship you today, that we truly worship you.

That Lord, I know some of us probably have had some gut checks this morning. We recognize, uh oh, I got some idols and I just, anyone here who Lord needs to deal with some stuff, I pray that they can search their, their thoughts, their heart, their mind, Lord, you make it known where the issues are that they're struggling with, where their worship really is.

And Lord, make it clear that the steps they need to take to put you back at the center of their heart and their life in the center of their worship. And we pray that we can be encouragement to each other, not not judging each other, but walking through the reality that we all got idols and that we all need to, to refocus at at times to focus on Jesus Lord, you are the center of everything.

You're our creator. You're wonderful. You gave us Jesus to give us forgiveness and hope through it. Is death on the cross. Lord, we thank you for that. We can pray that we can be a church where we stand on the foundation of your word and ultimately, Lord, we worship you and your Son and spirit and truth, Lord, we just pray all this in Jesus name.

Amen.