[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com Good morning If you have a Bible turned to Mark chapter 10 and find verse 17 As you're turning there, if you are new to Citizens Hello, my name is Jamen I'm one of the pastors here If you call Citizens Home, it's good to see you
[SPEAKER_00]: Our family lives in Plano, right in the heart of Plano, off of Independence and Spring Creek.
[SPEAKER_00]: We live about a mile from Buckhorn Park where the sweet cleats practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our house was built in 1979.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a 46-year-old home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are things that I love about living in a 46-year-old home.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have really large trees that take time to get as tall as they are and I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The home has character to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't look like every other home in the neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it has come with a lesson.
[SPEAKER_00]: This 46-year-old home has.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what this old home has taught me.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is unattended becomes unhealthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: To attend to something is to pay attention to it, to take care of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's true for most things is,
[SPEAKER_00]: if unattended, without attention, things fall apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things don't hold themselves together, if you will.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a few weeks ago, we have a plumbing problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I call my dad, my dad grew up working for my grandfather who was a plumber in Oklahoma City for 55 years or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so my dad has all those skills, plumbing, electric, painting, all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I call him and I tell him what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's how these conversations usually go with my dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: He talks, makes some suggestions, tells Moody thinks is wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I ask him this question, hey, Dad, do you think it's something I can fix?
[SPEAKER_00]: In most of the time, he's just like, man, I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have so many other gifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad can fix most things.
[SPEAKER_00]: My father-in-law carries dad, built her childhood home with his bare hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I am in between these two able fix anything men.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I'm a good reader.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm like?
[SPEAKER_00]: This particular problem dad thought I could fix the kids shower needed a new valve, so we changed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: My dad told me in the process of trying to diagnose everything he told me to check on the water heater.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I opened the closet where we keep the water heater and there was insulation everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what had happened was at some point since the last time I'd opened that closet, the ceiling above the water heater had collapsed, and insulation got everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a mess.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'd go to get the shop vac to clean up the insulation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the filter was old in the shop vac, and I had taken it out months ago, and forgot to replace it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when I start vacuuming up the insulation, it sprays insulation and everything else is in the shop vac all over the hall.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the youngest daughter turns the corner and she looks at everything and she says, you should call grandpa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Valves break, ceilings collapse, filters get old.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a few examples of a long list of things that have needed to be fixed in our old home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's true is all of that got there because it was unattended.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things don't need help breaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: They need help working.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is unattended becomes unhealthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true for 40-year-old houses.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true for relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a season of marriage for Carrie and I where we just co-existed together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kids were young, lots of change, church was demanding, and we neglected one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: I failed to pursue her.
[SPEAKER_00]: We never went on dates.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't care for one another beyond just trying to meet expectations for the family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of being companions, we operated like competitors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of delighting in one another, we were defensive towards one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because our marriage went unattended, we didn't pay attention to it like it needed and like it deserved.
[SPEAKER_00]: And our relationship with her as a result.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not there now, by God's grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: But without attention, without care, we could get back there sooner than we think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever heard the opposite ever?
[SPEAKER_00]: Gosh, we just haven't spent intentional honest, undistracted time together in months, and we're doing so great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out, neglect is my love language, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, never happens like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's unattended becomes unhealthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so it's true for houses.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true on a deeper level for relationships at the deepest level.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's true for your relationship with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your life as a Christian, if unattended, it will become unhealthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you got him, eight W tozer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says it like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: An unexamined Christian lies like an unattended garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let your garden go unattended for a few months and you will not have roses in tomatoes
[SPEAKER_00]: An unexamined Christian life is like an unkempt house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lock your house up as tight as you will, and leave it long enough, and you'll come back and you won't believe the dirt that got in from somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: An unexamined Christian is like an untot child.
[SPEAKER_00]: A child that is not taught will be a little savage.
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes examination, teaching, instruction, discipline, caring, tending, weeding, and cultivating to keep the life right.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one drifts towards Christ's likeness, maturity, and virtue.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one coasts unintentionally to a consequential Christ-exalting life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't need any helping broken.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has to coach us into being selfish.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has to counsel us into being self-condemning, as Tozer says, the unexamined life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without teaching and caring and tending and cultivating, it's like a garden that once rose, but ends up with weeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is week five of our becoming like Jesus series.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today is love like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ's likeness is the will of God for the people of God, the past, present, and future purpose of God in your life, Christian, is to become like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what this is not.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a how to earn your salvation series.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not looking to our sanctification to prove our justification.
[SPEAKER_00]: We said this last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is way better at being a Savior than you are at being a sinner, praise God.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we've already been declared to be in Christ and what that means beloved is we have to attend to our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not neglect, not excuse, not ignore, examine, and confess, and consider where change is still needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And hear me, one of the most important things that you can attend to as a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the most important things to pay attention to, one of the most important things to examine is your loves.
[SPEAKER_00]: In all the weeks that we'll be spending on becoming like Jesus, I'm not saying that this is the most important.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if the series could only be one week, this is what we'd spend our time talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Loving like Jesus is about having a heart with rightly ordered loves, where God is our greatest love, and everything else in our life is loved best because we love God most.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so loving like Jesus, to say to another way, is about worshiping like Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Disordered love when we love most what is not God is what the Bible calls idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of all that might be diverse in this room right now, diverse stories in background and family and gifts and jobs, whether you became a Christian on the drive to church today, or if you've been following Jesus for decades, what we all have in common is that our loves get disordered.
[SPEAKER_00]: and our hearts fill with idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is unattended becomes unhealthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Left alone, our hearts don't drift towards rightly ordered loves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our hearts don't drift toward right worship of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it needs our effort, it needs our attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: To love like Jesus, we need to deal with our idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're going to give our time to this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two things before we start, this will take us two weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to fit it into one week, but the sermon got long, and no one wants a 60-minute sermon on idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe I just don't want to preach a 60-minute sermon on the idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two, be especially careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: If everything I'm about to say are things you've heard before, there is a difference between knowing about the weeds in your yard and digging them out of the dirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a difference between knowing about the idols of your heart and putting in the work to repent, uproot, and replace them with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Much of this may be familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does not mean that we don't need it like we did the first time we heard it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord protect us from being the kinds of Christians who love to learn but hate to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is idolatry and how do we change?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is idolatry?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we change?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we reorder our loves and write our worship?
[SPEAKER_00]: Mark 10, 17 through 22, we'll walk through this story together, verse by verse.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you was sitting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him and asked him, good teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: What must I do to inherit eternal life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is traveling with His disciples from Galilee to Jerusalem, as He's walking, a man comes running down the road, sweating, breathing hard, gets down in the dirt, on his knees in front of Jesus, and he asks a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: What must I do to inherit eternal life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew tells us, this guy's young, Luke tells us, this guy's a ruler, taken together, regate his biography.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a rich, young ruler.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Money, help, social status.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: A must all wealth back then was family wealth, and so there's not a lot of self-made success.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this guy was born into money, which means wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Money, nice things, is all he's ever known.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being young meant he was likely in his 20s or 30s, so he could just run to Jesus without even having a stretch first.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's some sort of religious leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: People looked to him for guidance and counsel.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew the Bible.
[SPEAKER_00]: He led God's people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He obeyed a lot of God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something's wrong, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sprints to Jesus in a hurry, nice coat, nice sandals, kneels on the ground before Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an urgency to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something unsettled about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew tells us he asks Jesus this question, what do I still lack?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such an honest way to ask the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: but there's lack in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has all these things, but there's a lack that his money and his health and his religious observance can't take away.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's at a loss.
[SPEAKER_00]: He hears that Jesus is close.
[SPEAKER_00]: He leaves his big house, sprints on his young legs, falls at Jesus' feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is a good teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he can help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 18.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you call me good?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus asked.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one's good except God alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is not denying his own goodness.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knows the man doesn't understand the depth of the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just spoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so one commentator said it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is trying to draw out of the man the full implication of his own words.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 19, you know the commandments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is lifting these straight out of Exodus 20, Exodus 20 is where we first get the 10 commandments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus names the ones that I'll have to deal with love of others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 20, He said to him, teacher, I have kept all these from my youth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew tells us this is where his question comes in, what do I still?
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking at him, Jesus loved him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please remember this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said to him, you lack one thing, go sell all you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was dismayed by this demand and he went away grieving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your translation might say he went away full of sorrow because he had many possessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's a Dollar Tree?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the idol in this man's life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ryan's with honey.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had many possessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's so honest and sad about this interaction is that he loved God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had love for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: His love for God was not at zero at the very least.
[SPEAKER_00]: He kept commands.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sought spiritual answers for his discontinence, which is a lot more than most people do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says he went away full of sorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only, this is the only time in all the gospels where someone leaves interaction with Jesus grieving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mostly full of joy, some leave super mad, only this man, only this man leaves full of sorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he loved God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was hopeful that this good teacher, Jesus could help him grow in his love for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he didn't love God most.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that tension in his heart, we see what our Dollar Tree is.
[SPEAKER_00]: The question that brings him to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the question that he asks?
[SPEAKER_00]: What must I do to inherit eternal life?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's not asking about heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is preaching the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kingdom of God is at hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's right now, which means eternal life has started right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so with the rich young rulers asking, on his knees, before Jesus, how do I truly live now?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is life about right now?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says, leave the life you're living and find life with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that changes things for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: What he thought when he thought the option was to keep my things and then add Jesus to them, he was on his knees with open ears.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he realized the option was follow Jesus or keep my things, he was on his feet headed home.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what idolatry is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's when we put something other than God as the answer to the where do I find life question?
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone has something in their life that they look at and say, this is what makes life worth living.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what makes life meaningful.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what gives me worth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when that thing is something other than God, that's called adultery, that's disordered love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans 1 says,
[SPEAKER_00]: They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served what has been created instead of creator.
[SPEAKER_00]: They found life in what was created and not in creator.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I look to something that is not God, that's the thing that gives ultimate meaning in life, ultimate worth in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we change?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we write our worship and order our loves?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we attend to our life so that our hearts are not enslaved by idolatry?
[SPEAKER_00]: Name, expose, repent and rejoice.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are a note-taking type, name, expose, repent and rejoice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, this will take us two weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Name, name your idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to identify what they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tim Keller,
[SPEAKER_00]: All of this is so profoundly influenced by his ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could cite him after every single sentence.
[SPEAKER_00]: His book, Counterfeit Gods, his video series Gospel in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of this this morning is his exact language.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not super insightful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can just copy and paste.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so grateful for him in his ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tim Keller says, you cannot dismantle what you haven't diagnosed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to name our idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you beloved?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you complete this sentence?
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what's so hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost always good things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the pagan gods of the first century, like the Greek and Roman gods, they had temples and statues and rituals and sacrifices and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They represented things that were not inherently bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were good things that pagans deified.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the worship of beauty is deified and they named the idol Aphrodite.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worship of reason was deified and they named that Athena.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worship of money was deified and they named that idol Artemis, beauty, reason, money, all good things.
[SPEAKER_00]: They turn evil when those good things are given God's status.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for people who finish the sentence, sentence saying beauty is what makes life worth living, well, let's give that God a name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's call her Aphrodite.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's build her a temple and we'll make sacrifices to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we deify the same things.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just don't give them names, because we're rational.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're not religious like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, nameless idols are easier to ignore and harder to repent of.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to put words to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to name it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here are some options.
[SPEAKER_00]: There'll be on a slide behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Achievement idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if I'm recognized for my accomplishments and him excelling at my work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Family idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if my children and or my parents are happy and happy with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Religion idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if I am satisfying
[SPEAKER_00]: material idolatry, life is only worth living if I have a certain level of wealth, financial freedom, and nice possessions, helping idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if people are dependent on me and need me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Image idolatry, life is only worth living if I have a particular kind of look or body image.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one, suffering idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if I am hurting or in a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only then do I feel worthy of love or able to deal with guilt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help by Dollar Tree.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if I feel well and immune to physical ailments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Relationship by Dollar Tree.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if the person I love is in love with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we could keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Political idolatry, idolatry of sex, and sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: John Calvin says the heart is an idol-making factory.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can make it idol of anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what we all know.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one says any of that out loud.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have never looked in the mirror and said life is only worth living if I have a certain level of wealth and financial freedom and nice possessions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if the person I love is in love with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have that hanging on the wall of your home.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not your next tattoo, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Our idols don't have names and temples, so here's what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of us heard that and immediately were like, oh yeah, that achievement idol has a hold of my heart and I know it, but others of us are like, how do I know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, if there are good things given God status, how do I know if it's an idol or if I just care the right amount?
[SPEAKER_00]: You should care about your health.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should, you should do your job body and mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did blood work recently and my doctor told me I needed to start taking vitamin D so I got some and keep forgetting to take it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's clearly an idol, but caring about health is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should care about your family.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things you'll hear around here often is your home should get your best.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't give your best at work and offer your leftovers at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should care.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like what's the tipping point then?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're a good thing becomes a god thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keller says you'll find your idols in a few things.
[SPEAKER_00]: How you spend your money?
[SPEAKER_00]: What you dream about?
[SPEAKER_00]: How you respond to unanswered prayers and frustrated hopes
[SPEAKER_00]: What I spend my money on, will tell me what I think makes life worth living, what I dream about, like the future I imagine and long for, what I get mad at God for withholding, and then the emotions I can't control, anger, despair, hopelessness, extreme angst and fear, or even excitement, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I should care about my health, but if I'm spending disproportionate amounts of money,
[SPEAKER_00]: and incessantly dreaming about a healthier me and getting frustrated with God when it's not going my way and experiencing intense fear, anxiety, and anger around my health, it's an idol.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe there's more going on than that, but there's not less going on than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to name our idols, follow our money in our emotions and our dreams to what we believe, not just, not what we say we believe, but what we actually believe makes life worth living.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then,
[SPEAKER_00]: Please lean in and then we need to follow those idols to the idols underneath them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not everyone worships the same thing for the same reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ever notice two people can worship money, but they have a different relationship to money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like some people worship money by excessively spending and buying more and more and more because of the status that comes with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people worship money by saving and saving and saving, and hoarding what they have because of the security that comes with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same idol, but it's a different motivation of the heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: People can idolize their kids, and for some that means putting tons of pressure on them to succeed because my heart needs them to win.
[SPEAKER_00]: Others idolize their kids by coddling them and doing everything they can to keep their kids happy because my heart needs their acceptance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idol is the same, but the motivation of the heart is different.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a complexity to our idolatry that we need to know in name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surface idols and source idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: This will be on the screen behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have many of the idols that we named, money, family, health, career, relationship, image,
[SPEAKER_00]: These are visible.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're shown above the surface, but these idols are driven by deeper idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: These deeper motivations of the heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: The source idols below the surface drive our worship above the surface.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's either power, approval, comfort, or control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living.
[SPEAKER_00]: if I have power approval, comfort, or control.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if above the surface, the idol is money, but I spin and spin and spin, it may be that a source idol of approval is driving my worship of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or if I save and save and save, it may be that a source idol of control is driving my worship of money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Above the surface, I idolize my kids, and that comes out as pressure on them to perform in a chief, because it's my idol of power that needs them to win.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I idolize my kids and it comes out as coddling because my idol of approval needs them to be happy with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the point.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the below the surface source idol that is driving the above the surface worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it will not do to just address what's above the surface.
[SPEAKER_00]: It won't do to just stop worshiping money because then whatever deeper idol that made me worship money will just find something else to give God's status to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keller says it's like changing cars when what we need is a new driver.
[SPEAKER_00]: We wanna read our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: of the weeds of idolatry by pulling them out at the root.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to go to the deepest place where they enslave us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to spend time here and define each of these and share some diagnostic language that's been helpful for me so that we can name what's not just above the surface, but at the very source of our disordered love.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like this, I don't like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I need this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may not like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This may on the screen behind me power.
[SPEAKER_00]: If your source idle is power, you believe life is only worth living if I have power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Success, influence.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to win.
[SPEAKER_00]: Greatest nightmare.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so the price I'm willing to pay is I will take on more.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't mind being burdened by task and responsibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Life's crazy, I've so much to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, then why do you keep on saying yes to more?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if it means success and influence, I have to have it, because I have to win.
[SPEAKER_00]: Greatest nightmare of simulation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Namely, the humiliation that comes from failing it what I worked so hard to be good at, that can't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: People around you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in this category where I had the most conviction
[SPEAKER_00]: People around you often feel used.
[SPEAKER_00]: When my idol is power and success, people become things that serve my idol, not people to love, but objects to manipulate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, a dad, I'm not trying to pick on anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just all around us in our part of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: A dad that is willing to sabotage his relationship with his child to try to make them become the athlete he never was.
[SPEAKER_00]: practice after practice, criticism, pressure, never-good enough, never try hard enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't care about the child as much as he's using him to serve his God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a kind of child sacrifice on the altar of my worship of power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Common problem emotion is anger.
[SPEAKER_00]: why.
[SPEAKER_00]: As powerful as I may become over my life, I'm a limited human being.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I will be confronted over and again with the limits of my power and then I will respond in unrighteous anger because when confronted with my weakness, anger makes me feel like I'm still strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, power can be a good thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It cannot have God's status.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can't be my meaning in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Approval.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if I have approval, affirmation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not from everybody, but from the people who I most admire.
[SPEAKER_00]: The price I'm willing to pay, I will give up independence if it means getting approval.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what I want, I don't know what I think, I don't know who I am, independent of other people telling me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have only learned to see myself through other people's eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I try to become whatever version of me that they will approve of, which means I'm a different person
[SPEAKER_00]: Greatest nightmare's rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will end up all alone and unloved.
[SPEAKER_00]: People around you often feel smothered because the desire for approval is greater than what any human can meet.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I get approval and it's never enough so I keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: The people around me also stop trusting what I say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Approval worshipers always say what they think someone wants to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not always what's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so eventually, my words lose weight in my relationships because my words aren't about loving the people around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My words are about managing the perception of the people around me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can't be trusted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Common problem emotion fear, namely fear of man, cowardice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Afraid I will upset someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Afraid I'm going to miss out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Afraid I'm falling out of favor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Afraid of rejection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you are an approval worshiper, would you raise your hand?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just kidding.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this kidding?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're too afraid to admit it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Approvals a good thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Acceptance and relational safety are good things.
[SPEAKER_00]: They mess us up when we believe we only have worth when we're approved by others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Comfort, life is only worth living if I have comfort.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like a certain standard and quality of life, price-semeling to pay reduced productivity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am really good at not getting anything done.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the slug-ered from Proverbs, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.
[SPEAKER_00]: The greatest nightmare is stress.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to feel overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like the demands of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: People around you often feel neglected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Relationships take work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Deep relationships require being known, and being known requires being vulnerable, and being vulnerable is uncomfortable and comfort worshipers refuse to be uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they have shallow relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: The comfort worshiper will make empty promises all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'll be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll give you a call.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me know if you need anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's a toss-up where they actually mean it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the person who chronically commits to things they don't follow through with, because follow through feels stressful, and that's my nightmare.
[SPEAKER_00]: The common problem of motion is restless.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's ironic, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: They feel restless so they chase comfort, which just compounds the restlessness, because we were not made to make life about leisure.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just weren't.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's why some of us come home from vacation, it's just as restless as when we left.
[SPEAKER_00]: Goodness, the joy of a good meal, and a slow night, and a stress-free piece-filled moment of life praise God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if given God's status, you actually lose comfort, and you just get chronic restlessness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if I have control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if I have mastery over my life, or at least the parts of my life that mean the most to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Price I'm willing to pay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Loneliness.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will do it myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the only one who can do it the right way.
[SPEAKER_00]: My control will take all the air out of a room, so people have to leave to just breathe, and I'm okay with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will isolate myself if it means I get to manage my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Greatest nightmares uncertainty, not being in control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like watching my plans just perpetually meet resistance in fall apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: People around you often feel condemned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Control worshippers live under the crushing standard of I should.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should be doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life should be going this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they try and meet that own standard of should, and they apply that standard critically and uncharitably to those around them you should.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should help me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should do more.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should know more.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should have known better.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should have not done that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should have not done that that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why can't you just be different?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like me?
[SPEAKER_00]: So those around them feel condemned and judged and never enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Common problem emotion, worry, a kind of anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: The dark side of control worshipers is that they will perpetually catastrophize their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're convinced that something awful is about to happen all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're always trying to mitigate worst case scenarios.
[SPEAKER_00]: My nightmare is uncertainty and life is full of uncertainty.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't escape it, so you just worry.
[SPEAKER_00]: And look, control, like a healthy kind is a good thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has given us agency, God has given us gifts to use.
[SPEAKER_00]: When control is what makes life worth living, all that I can't control will eat me from the inside like a disease.
[SPEAKER_00]: Power, approval, comfort, control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good things that we make gone things, but we make them gone things below the surface of our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you see yourself in the others?
[SPEAKER_00]: I meet with a group of men from our church once a month, and this past Wednesday, we walked through this, and I just showed them all these categories, and just asked them what they thought was helpful, what needed clarity, and one of the guys said, is it possible to just be all four?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, you know, in really rare, sad cases, it is possible, it's just good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put me down for approval and control and comfort for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure powers in there somewhere, I just haven't paid attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Approval comes out of my life in my past during every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Control comes out of my home, my marriage, my kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then if I think about what my actual nightmare is, it's to be out of control, stress, rejected, and if all that happened, I'd be humiliated.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all that to say, I see myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you see yourself?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is typically a part of the sermon where maybe I'd ease up a bit, and I need to keep pressing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because naming is not enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: So stay with me, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: Expose them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Name them, expose them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Expose that they fail to be God in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember what happened in 1 Samuel 5?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, I was just thinking about that actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Philicene's captured the Ark of the Covenant.
[SPEAKER_00]: They put it in the temple of their false God day gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have the Ark which represents God's presence and then you have the idol to day gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next day, the Philicene's going to the temple and the idol had fallen down on its face before the Ark of the Lord and they put it back up.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next day they go back, the idol of the false God day gone had fallen again in this time, his hands and his head had broken off of his body.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this metaphor that you did not have the wisdom or the power to actually be a God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they get rid of the ark.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Israel's God would leave their idol alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what happens to all false gods.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every idol is exposed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every idol falls.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what many of us do is like the Philistines, when the idol falls, we do not leave it on the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: We set it back up in our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rich young ruler comes to Jesus because he felt the emptiness of his idolatry, but he was not willing to admit it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was not willing to expose how his idolatry was not working.
[SPEAKER_00]: It left him full of lack.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he left Jesus to go home and to put his idol back up in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: See how the idol is failing you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe one way to draw this out is to say this, the idol doesn't actually protect you from the nightmare.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will not be there for us if and when the nightmare comes true.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you worship power, your idol will not be there for you when you're humiliated.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will not cover your shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will not cover your failure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will keep you on a cycle of performance in shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you worship approval, your idol will not be your companion when you're rejected.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will compound your loneliness.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will turn into crippling, insecurity, and lost identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you worship comfort, your idol will not offer rest when you're overwhelmed by the stress of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will only offer a scape that leads to greater misery of the soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you worship control,
[SPEAKER_00]: When, not if, when you suffer, when the uncertainty of what you fear becomes painful reality, your idol will not be there to rescue you from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will leave you to blame yourself and the condemnation that others feel around you will turn in on you and you will hate yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not working, it's not working, it's not working.
[SPEAKER_00]: The things we worship do not bring freedom, they bring bondage and what many of us do is we watch them fall and we just keep putting them back up in our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's why I said be careful if you've heard all this before because many of us hear sermons like this and truth like this only to not a few times and feel kind of bad, but there's no real change because we don't leave our idols on the ground when they fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of waiting for them to fall on us, we need to expose them and leave them where they belong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Control, power, approval, and comfort are not what make life worth living.
[SPEAKER_00]: Name, expose, repent and rejoice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stay with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So much to say, we'll spend more time on this next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look with me at one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 21, we need verse 21.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus, looking at Him, loved Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, only time in all the gospels, it says something like this, that it describes this affection directly to Jesus about another person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking at Him, loved Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the only God who has this kind of heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus has no rival among all the false gods.
[SPEAKER_00]: This man is in the midst of his idolatry.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't even fully see it, and he doesn't want to give it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus loves him.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that place, in that state, Jesus loves him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is that very love that invites us today to repent and rejoice.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looks at you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the last 37 minutes, all it's done, is it's shown you how disordered your loves are, and how many weeds have filled your life, idolatries hurting you, and it's hurting those around you, and you feel foolish, and you feel stuck, and you feel embarrassed, and you feel overwhelmed, and you're not even sure if you want to give it all up yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looks at you in that place.
[SPEAKER_00]: He loves you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what repentance sounds like, beloved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if I have Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have worshiped what is not God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not pick my idols off the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is only worth living if I have Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And rejoice, because you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is yours and you are his.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looks and he loves.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is way better at being a Savior than you are at being an idolater.
[SPEAKER_00]: rejoice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what you have in Jesus is the one God who will meet you if your nightmare comes true.
[SPEAKER_00]: If and when you are powerless and humiliated, he will cover your shame with his love.
[SPEAKER_00]: If and when you are rejected alone and unloved, your Savior is your friend, you cannot lose his approval because you didn't earn it, it's a gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: If and when you are weary and restless, Jesus says, all who are weary and heavy-laden come to me and I will give you rest, I will be your comfort.
[SPEAKER_00]: If and when your life is in shambles and out of your control,
[SPEAKER_00]: life is only worth living if I have Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pray with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord we love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we need you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know how to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know what I've prayed for for our church and for my own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what we're asking is we're asking that we would see that we would attend to our lives in such a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we see all these places where we need your grace, we need your explosive love, God, to uproot our idols and replace them with a God who never falls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Beloved, would you take a moment to repent and rejoice?
[SPEAKER_00]: to name your idols.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you haven't even felt all the ways that they're failing you yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't wait.
[SPEAKER_00]: Expose them now.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Lord, we're asking would you uproot our idolatry of power and approval and comfort and control?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you help us order those things in our life
[SPEAKER_00]: We repent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to believe, Lord Jesus, that the same eyes who looked on the idolatry of the man.
[SPEAKER_00]: and mark ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at us this morning with love.
[SPEAKER_00]: You love us, Lord Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your love is not contingent on our rightly ordered worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your love is the only means through which we can order our worship rightly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we need you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.