Got idols? It’s hard to believe there are perfectly sane people who dress up in elegant dress and then bow and scrap down in adoration toward inanimate objects. How childish and regressive, right? We are so beyond that? Right? Nope. Take a look at the kind of idols we worship and the kind of sacrifices we lay before them. In order to appease of the counterfeit god of wealth we’ll sacrifice family and our children’s future to attain a promotion. To the false god of beauty, we’ll spend incredible sums on makeup, fashion and starve ourselves for the affirmation of friends and family. To the false god of power, we buy more than we need, take more than we should and hoard more than anyone has a right to all in the name of feeding the beast of excess. We still seek life from non-lifegiving sources, don’t we? Shiny things still dazzle and lure us in.
If your life is going to Make a Difference, a real difference, you must first Name Your Idols, those shiny gods that capture your attention, demand your allegiance and suck the life, joy and passion right out of you. Without focus and a direction, you will follow any shiny, marketing scheme, even if there’s a hook attached.
Making A Difference: A Journey of Hope
During the next couple of weeks, I’ll challenge you to do hard things. You will be asked to:
- reject the “shiny gods” or idols that lead you away from God, keep you in debt, and render you ineffective in serving the Kingdom;
- see work as a gift, not a curse, and deploy it powerfully, not just to earn an income but to bring about God’s desired outcome;
- eliminate debt, living simply and within your means;
- fully release all your resources—time, money, and talents—into God’s hands for his purposes.
It’s a long journey from shiny gods to a life well lived and a world well served. It isn’t a journey for the faint of heart, but it is a journey of hope.
Let’s get started.
Sermon Notes 10.06.13 Naming Your Idols
Worship 10.06.13 Naming Your Idols
