Its Deeper Than That

Posted by anointedplace on April 2, 2011 · 5 Comments 

I just finished listening to a sermon by Beau Hughes of The Village Church entitled “Deep Idols“.  He discussed that our surface idols of money, sex, work , family, relationships and the like, have a much deeper idols.  These deeper idols serve as saviors; they are complex and come in the form of power, approval, comfort, and control.  Within power we have the drive for influence, success and achievement.  Within approval, we wonder if we are loved and respected as we look to others to make us feel worthy.  Within comfort, the drive is to experience a certain type of pleasure, quality of life, privacy and a stress free life.  Finally within control we seek out security, self discipline and total control over how our lives play out.

After hearing this sermon a lot of things about myself was revealed.  A lot of things that I kind of knew was a problem was confirmed by the Holy Spirit.  And there were things that my heart had careful hide that are now exposed.  But what really shook me to my core, what really turned me upside down was this…

The minister gave the answer to overcoming these deep complex idols, which is a growing affection for Jesus Christ.  In doing so Jesus replaces those things by becoming our savoir and rightfully so.  He taught that the Gospel provides all that we need and all things are in Christ as well as through Christ.

Colossians 1:15-20 (New International Version, ©2011)

The Supremacy of the Son of God

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Ephesians 2:13-15 (New International Version, ©2011)

¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace,

Then he said the following which builds on the foundation laid by Romans 1.  He said that there are ways in which God deals with us and our idols.  God shows us something more beautiful than what we are clinging to which is Jesus Christ.  When we recognize this fulfillment in Christ we drop our idols.  God will let us continue to chase our idols which is not a good thing because His indifference is not a sign that we won the fight with God.  His indifference shows that either for right now He has taken his hands off of us.  Or His hands were never on us and we are not saved.

Romans 1

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

To live in sin without conviction is not a happy place and nothing to be envious about.  This is way we shouldn’t look at the wicked who seem to have it all and seem to go unpunished….

But it is the finally method that really got to me.  To rid us of our idols God the Father in his infinite wisdom, grace, mercy and love will rip them from our hands.  This notion of having idols or things ripped from me hands sent me into a panic attack.  I will tell you why, all of the things in my past and present that I have lost or felt like I was losing came to mind.  The thought of how destroyed I felt at the prospect of losing those things instantly revealed the hand of God inserting Himself as LORD over my life.  Because I had created a new god in His place.  We all need to repent and turn back to Christ.

We say that God is the head of our lives but that’s a lie.  Christ should be the head and center, without the Son we can’t get near the Father.  God the Father gave us the Son and he has given the Son all power and through the Son are all things created.  Jesus having lordship over our lives means death to the flesh and of selfish hearts.  It means death to our idols as well.  This world makes having those idols a requirement to fit in.  And we all want to fit into society and we all want the American dream, which you can’t have without those idols.

But this is what hurts the most; all those things we think Satan stole.  All those things we have fooled ourselves into believing the enemy has attacked us and ruined our blessings.  Those very things we run to the altar and pray to God to give them back to us… Just think, what if those were our complex root idols and God was and has ripped them from our hands?

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