SPEAKER: TIM KELLER
SUNDAY SERVICE 21 JULY 2013
The background text to this week’s message is Romans 1:18-25. This portion of Scripture points to humanity’s sinful nature that wilfully ignores the Creator in favour of the created. This is what the Bible calls idolatry.
Idolatry is therefore anything and everything that takes the place that only God should occupy. “An idol is anything which is more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, or identity.”
“Whatever controls us is our Lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the lord of our life.” Rebecca Pippert
If we want to know what our idols are, Keller says we need to ask: “What is my worst nightmare? What thing, if it were absent, would take away my desire to live?”
Whatever that is, even if it were a good thing that God has created or given, if it becomes our ultimate thing, it has become an idol. At the moment when that thing - person, status, possession, emotion or sensation, family, etc - becomes the thing we pursue or cling to at all cost instead of God, that is our idol.
What then should we do to put away idols?
We need to make Jesus our overriding passion. Keller compared this passion to the love Jacob had for Rachel in Gen 29. So great was Jacob’s love, he willingly submitted to 7 years of labour to win her hand. The years simply 'flew by' because Rachel was Jacob’s overriding passion.
The lesson for us is to always keep the Gospel in view and constantly examine ourselves as we do the following:
Repent: put those things to death (recognising and leaving behind idols)
Rejoice: set our mind on things above (what we have, who we are in Christ)
May God help us to keep away from idols and their devastating effect on life and living.
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