Idol Killer

Usually when people hear the word idol they think of some small little statue made out of stone, placed on an altar in some archaic temple, and located in some third world country.  Pictures of Indiana Jones crawling through some dingy dungeon come to mind.  We think about tribesmen dressed in little pieces of clothing carrying spears and paint covered faces.  They dance around a fire and offer a sacrifice to an idol that represents some deity they've created hoping to appease their god and somehow obtain some benevolence from that god towards them.  We look on actions like these from our superior, westernized, educated and technologically savvy viewpoint with much disdain and snobbery.  WE would never bow to an idol like that.  WE are sophisticated and successful.  WE have no need of making actions like these a part of our lives to obtain some reward or be found in our gods mercies.  WE would never worship an idol!

I disagree.

WE do it everyday!

Sure, we may not have paint on our faces and spears in our hands, but we worship idols nonetheless.  You see - we were created to worship.  God designed us to be worshipers.  The right question is not "do you worship?" - but rather what/who are you worshiping?  Isaiah 43:7 says that we are created for HIS glory.  Which means that every action we make, every word that comes from our lips, every thought that moves through our brain - it is all to bring glory to God - it is all to be an act of worship.  So you can see where the problem arises.  There are many actions we perform and many words that come from our lips that DO NOT bring Him glory.  Therefore, we can conclude that if we are not worshiping God in those moments then we must be worshiping something or someone else.  WE are giving glory and worship to something other than God in those moments.  We are worshiping an idol!

It's in those moments that we might as well pull out a piece of wood and grab our swiss army  knife and start whittling away at our newly created idol.  Well, we don't really need to do that now-a-days.  Our culture has taken care of that for us.  Those idols of stone and wood are a little to obvious and old-school.  We've replaced them with ones that are easily camouflaged and culturally acceptable.  If we could whittle one out of a piece of wood today it would be in the image of a dollar bill, a beautiful scantily clad woman, a diploma, a Lexus, a corner office, our smartphone, or even our kids.  You see - we've gotten pretty smart about how we worship our idols without seeming to be worshiping idols.  We let these things grab the affections of our hearts and turn our gaze away from our creator, the one who deserves all of our worship; we, instead, worship created things!  We let these things determine where our energies are spent, how our time is allocated, and what our affections will pursue.  We will make sacrifices to our idols so that we might gain some benevolence from them.  Some fulfillment.  Some joy.  Some peace.  Some happiness.  But we always end up making greater and greater sacrifices and we find less and less of what we desire.

We've misplaced our worship and our lives are a mess because of it.

The only way to correct this is to worship God.  And by WORSHIP I don't mean having Chris Tomlin show up at your door with his guitar to lead you in Kum-Bah-Yah.  Rather - I mean what the Bible means by WORSHIP.  1 Corinthians 10:31, I think, leaves little doubt as to what WORSHIPING God looks like.  "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."  You see -  God does not receive worship from His people only on Sunday's between 8:30am and 12:30pm.  No!  He EXPECTS worship 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!  EVERYTHING that we do is to be done in an act of worship to Him.  It all can be done to bring Him maximum glory.  And the only way to move your affections from your created idol to the Creator God is to move God to the center of your life and make living out 1 Corinthians 10:31 your daily goal.

I struggle with this on a minute by minute basis as I'm sure most of you do as well.  But we must fight the good fight and not allow the idols of this world, which are waging war against our souls, to come in and steal away the glory that belongs to God and God alone.

Come EVERY week to Clear Creek Community Church during this series, AMERICAN IDOLS, and let's learn how to worship God with our entire lives.