All right, we are going to be continuing today in our Saints
and Scoundrel series talking about Jacob.
We're going to be in Genesis 29, verses 31 through Genesis 30,
verse 24. If you do not have a copy of the
Bible with you, there are Bibles under your chair.
If you do not have a Bible, we would love for you to take this.
It's our gift to you. But it'll be on pages 22 and 23
of the Bible under your seat. If you're using a different
Bible, I cannot possibly tell you what page number that it's
on, but it's close to the beginning.
First book of the Bible. For those of you who might be
new to church, new to reading the Bible, the big numbers are
chapters, small numbers verses. So when we're saying we're
reading a certain part of the Bible, first numbers chapter,
second number is verse. So we're going to start in
Genesis 2931. When the Lord saw that Leah was
hated, he opened her womb. But Rachel was barren, and Leah
conceived and bore a son. And she called his name Reuben.
For she said, because the Lord has looked upon my affliction,
for now my husband will love me. She conceived again and bore a
son, and said, Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he
has given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon.
Again she conceived in Bora's son, and said, Now this time my
husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three
sons. Therefore his name was called
Levi. And she conceived again in
Bora's son, and said, This time I will praise the Lord.
Therefore she called his name Judah.
Then she ceased bearing. When Rachel saw that she bore
Jacob no children, she envied her sister.
She said to Jacob, give me children, or I shall die.
Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel.
And he said, Am I in the place of God, who is withheld from
you, the fruit of the womb? Then she said, Here is my
servant Bilhah, go into her, so that she may give birth on my
behalf, that even I may have children through her.
So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife, and Jacob went
into her, and Bill ha conceived and bore Jacob a son.
Then Rachel said, God has judged me, and has also heard my voice,
and given me a son. Therefore she called his name
Dan. Rachel's servant Bill ha
conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.
Then Rachel said, with mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with
my sister and have prevailed. So she called his name Naftali.
When Leah saw that she had cease sparing children, she took her
servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.
Then Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son.
And Leah said Good fortune as has come.
So she called his name Gad. Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob
a second son. And Leah said, Happy am I, for
women have called me happy. So she called his name Asher and
the days of wheat harvest. Reuben went and found mandrakes
in the field and brought them to his mother Leah.
Then Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's
mandrakes. But she said to her, is it a
small matter that you have taken away my husband?
Would you take away my son's mandrakes also?
Rachel said then he may lie with you tonight in exchange for your
son's mandrakes. When Jacob came from the field
in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, You must come
in to me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes.
So he lay with her that night, and God listened to Leah, and
she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.
Leah said, God has given me my wages because I gave my servant
to my husband. So she called his name Issachar.
And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son.
Then Leah said, God has endowed me with a good endowment.
Now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six
sons. So she called his name Zebulon.
Afterwards she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah.
Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened
her womb. She conceived and bore a son,
and said, God has taken away my reproach.
And she called his name Joseph, saying, May the Lord add to me
another son. This is the true word of God.
What's going on? Port City family and friends.
How we doing? Good.
My name is Tanner. It's a joy to be with you and
the lead pastor here. I really enjoyed Pastor will
sermon last week. I hope you did too.
If you didn't get to hear it, go listen on Spotify or Apple
podcast y'all. And I want to just point
something out that you've probably noticed by now.
I'm not the only one who preaches here.
I preach about 2/3 of the time and y'all I don't need a break.
I'm just trying to be honest like this is this.
I'm just trying to be honest with you about why we do what we
do. Y'all need to hear from people
that preach to you on Sunday and then on Monday are dealing with
risk management. Y'all know what I'm saying like
people that are are in the trenches just like y'all.
My calling is full time, full time vocational ministry and and
I'm proud of Cam Newton, Joe Rogan.
These dudes don't know nothing about walking with Jesus and we
need to be full of the spirit doing iron sharpening iron stuff
in this church. And you have access to men in
this church who love Jesus and want to walk with you.
So it's the summer and to the young man, I just want to call
you to like take advantage, like take a guy out to lunch, ask him
to invest in you. Ask him to tell you some advice,
things they've seen in your life and and give them the keys to
speak in and to the Alderman in the church.
Let's look for those young guys. We can we can invest in.
In my experience, our sisters in Christ are better at saying they
need help and doing life together than the men are Amen
somebody I heard a Amen and looking at Amen.
So I don't want to be a podcast discipleship church.
I want to be a like people discipleship church.
Amen. So I pray that encourages you
and and we do life together here.
OK, we'll pray with me and then we'll dive into the chaos that
is the scripture we just had read.
OK, our Father, we love you God, that really is just my my heart
is that life changes when we really rub shoulders with
people. God, you know, I love podcasts
and listen to a lot of them, but God and just the the the culture
of some toxic masculinity in our culture and then just some
absent masculinity. God, we need real men who are
living life in front of us and want to just help one another.
So I pray that over the men in this church, may we not be too
proud to ask for help. May we not be too passive and
just sit back. I just teach us a spirit
empowered humility to ask for help and and may iron sharpen
iron in this church for your glory.
I got so thank you for this time.
Thank you for your word. What we know not right now,
would you teach us. What we have not, would you give
us who we are not? Would you make us and let the
words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be
acceptable in your sight? And everybody you agree with
that said Amen. Y'all have you ever?
Not known something had a name, but you knew what it was before
you knew the name to it. You know what I'm talking about.
Like kids, you might not know what the word stalling means,
but you do it every night at bedtime.
Your water is not full. You didn't get tucked in right?
You were not kissed. Whatever it was.
That is what we call stalling. OK, we all in.
Today's text, There is something happening that you have seen
your entire life and you didn't know there was a word for it.
There's a fancy Bible word for what we're going to see.
You saw it maybe for the first time.
And y'all, I'm not judging. The situation's about to tell
you. I'm just saying something we had
a word for. Something's off here, OK?
When somebody gets a 98 and they're crying because they
didn't get 100. When a coach is berating their
players in front of the parents because they're embarrassed of
their team's performance. When a kid getting 30 points a
game gets 20 and their team loses and he's in his feelings,
like what is going on here? Something is not right or?
A grown man thinking that marrying a beautiful woman will
satisfy him, or that if I have another baby, the woman thinks
that'll make my husband happy. Baby after baby after baby.
Or if I can have a baby like my. Sister, I'll be happy y'all.
The big Bible word for that is a word called idolatry.
Somebody say idolatry. Idolatry is when we seek things
to fulfill and satisfy and make us feel safe other than the Lord
God Himself. God is not bad to want to feel
safe and to feel satisfied. In fact, you were created to
feel those things and experience that.
It is the. Source You go to y'all.
We were meant to find that in the Lord God Himself in a
covenant relationship with Him through Jesus Christ on in
today's text, but in everyday life is the insanity of
idolatry. It is insane we do these.
Things and it's not just the people in this text and it's not
just those examples we saw. Insanity comes from idolatry
because, and this is what's important in the moment, the
pool to do that which you see done by that coach or by that
person or the serial dating middle school person, right, who
just has a boyfriend 5 minutes after the last one.
They don't even realize how compulsively the need feels to
satisfy that itch. And what's insane about it is we
can logically remove ourselves and say, well, that's not going
to fulfil you. But then in our own lives, we do
the same thing, right? And we do it over and over and
over. So my prayer for us is that we
walk out of here trust in Christ, not idols.
We walk out of here killing idols, OK?
And to get there. We're going to talk about the
fruits of idols, then we're going to talk about the roots of
idols and then the end of idols. OK, if you're ready, let me hear
you say I'm ready. OK, let's start with the fruits
of idols. Y'all, it's one of those things
we know it when we. See it?
OK, so let's just walk through the text where we're seeing it
because we know it when we see it. 4 evidences of idolatry in
our text. The first one is going all
outgoing, all out. Jacob in chapter 29, verse 10
went all out for Rachel. This is what is said now.
As soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of Laban his mother's
brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, Jacob came
near and rolled the stone from the well's mouth and watered the
flock of Laban, his mother's brother.
Then Jacob kissed Rachel and wept aloud.
Later it tells us this after his time he promises Laban to to be
with Rachel says. Then Jacob said to Laban, give
me my wife that I may go into her from my time is completed.
You know the first evidence of idolatry is when you're going
you're not even like thinking. It's like an almost like animal
like all out pursuit for something that you think will
satisfy you. That is Jacob here.
You know Jacob. Is on the run.
We know from earlier in the story that Esau was preferred.
By his dad. So Jacob did not have his dad's
favor. He had his mom's favor.
And then he was kicked out of the house.
OK. And we got to be careful when we
psychologize the Bible. But I want to be clear.
That a lot of times the reason we run to those idols.
To make a safe. Is rooted in our story OK, so
when you can't get the approval of somebody in your household,
you tend to look for it somewhere else now listen
carefully just because that makes.
Sense, and you understand it, it does not excuse your idolatry.
It makes sense of your idolatry, OK, as you grow in awareness
over where you go to make you feel safe and satisfied.
It's God's way of inviting you to reality, not to excuse the
mess you keep making. OK, so we don't go sit in the
counselor's chair to get people to feel sorry for us.
It's to help us. I'm in counseling for years, is
to understand the mechanism of our heart and what we're doing.
And God through that process is inviting you into reality.
OK, But Jacob, he's on the run. He's on exile.
He's exiled, so to speak, from his home.
And he sees a beautiful woman and he thinks being with her
will make me happy to the point that he promises 7 years of
service to Laban. That's an exorberant price to
pay, so to speak in this time period.
It says that he kissed her when he first saw her and wept.
It's like he was like like he just, he was taken aback by her
beauty. And he promises 7 years and then
he basically tells his potential father-in-law, let me have your
daughter so I can go be with her.
That's pretty bold to tell your father-in-law.
OK. And then look what happens in
the text. Famously, he gets duped in verse
22. Laban ain't no fool.
Laban gathered together all the people the place and made a
feast, but in the evening he took his daughter.
Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went into her.
Laban gave his female servant Zilpa to his daughter Leah to be
her servant. And in the morning, behold, it
was Leah. And Jacob said to Laban, What is
this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for
Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?
Jacob was going so hard and probably drank enough that night
that he played right into getting fooled.
He didn't even know who he was laying next to.
Okay. And y'all, this sentence right
here that he went to bed thinking it was Rachel and woke
up and it was Leah is what idolatry does to us in a
nutshell, is it not? You go to bed.
Think of this one thing and you wake up and realize it is not
what you thought it was. This is what we call over
promising and under delivering. He thought he would be fulfilled
and he realized he was duped. Y'all?
That is what idolatry does to us in a nutshell.
It promises just one more. Or just get that thing.
Go all out and once you have. It you'll be good.
And the wake up feeling is I've been duped y'all.
That's it. It's buyer's remorse.
Anybody remember the first time you bought something as a kid
and you felt that feeling? I remember I was at the dollar
store buying a pellet gun with $1.00.
I thought I literally would play with this thing until Jesus came
back. I will never have.
No, I will have fun every second for the rest of my life.
Within like 18 minutes, I'd shot all six of them little things
and I was like, man, what in the world?
And y'all buyer's remorse is just a tiny little sting that's
meant to show us a bigger truth, right?
Some of us feel buyer's remorse with a political candidate.
Some of us feel it with that next boyfriend or girlfriend in
high school. We feel it with the next job
promotion. We can feel it even with the
weekend. You can live Monday, y'all.
You walk around your office, people on Tuesday are already
living for Friday. I heard you say that last week,
y'all. And it's not a bad thing to live
for, you know, to want Friday to come.
But do we hear the insanity, right?
And the insane thing would it be to do it again once you realize
you're duped, right? So let's talk about the.
Second, evidence of idolatry, which is to keep going to the
same thing over and over again. We see this primarily in Leah
for Leah verse 31. When the Lord saw that Leah was
hated, he opened her womb. But Rachel was barren.
And Leah conceived and bore a son.
And she called his name Reuben. For she said, Because the Lord
has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me.
She conceived again and bore a son, and said, Because the Lord
has heard that I'm hated, He has given me this son also.
And she called his name Simeon. Again she conceived and bore a
son and said Now this time my husband will be attached to me
because I have borne him three sons.
Therefore his name was called Levi.
Yo Leah, it's a sad, it's a sad tale right?
Leah wants the affection that Rachel gets for her beauty
through Jacob and then she gets the kids that Rachel craves.
But neither of them are content or happy and thinks if they had
what the other had they would be.
Y'all see that? And y'all, we've talked about
this all throughout the series. The Bible is not prescribing
polygamy. And some of the things we see
here. We have talked about the mess ad
nauseam, OK, and we'll continue to.
We're focusing particularly on the idolatry here.
But y'all and Leah, we see her thinking just one more, right?
One more. Kid and he'll see me y'all.
She thinks. If my husband smiles over me,
looks at me the way he looks at her, I'll be happy.
Is it a bad thing? To want to be smiled over by
your spouse? No, that's not a bad thing.
Which is important to note about idolatry.
It's not that the thing itself is evil, it's the weight we
give. It which is what's killing us
it's not that it's bad to want jacob's smile it's that thinking
that smile is the smile you really need we've.
Given that smile, too much weight and it's not going to do
what we think it's going to do. Does that make sense?
So she thinks, one more kid and we see.
We're like, oh, poor Leah every. Time, she says.
Like this time we'll be a test. Like No he won't, girl.
We see OK, and that's what's crazy is with idolatry.
Everybody else can see how crazy you look.
We can all see and can't we run like we can see that person
crazy and they but idolatry makes us all a little crazy.
This is normal life to us. The third.
Evidence of idolatry in our text comes from Rachel chapter 30,
verse one. When Rachel saw that she bore
Jacob no children, she envied her sister.
She said to Jacob, Give me children.
Or I shall die, The third evidence of idolatry.
Is envy and rage isn't interesting, She says give me
kids or I'll die. She's not going to die if you
don't have a kid. But idolatry can make you feel
like if you don't get what you've convinced yourself you
need, you will. It's so interesting because we
know her family lineage right? Like Rebecca and Sarah were
barren for years between the two of them. 45 years plus and they
walked through their barrenness alone and in a way hers is
unbearable because she has comparison.
Isn't that interesting how envy makes her Baroness feel?
It's like. You're in the lineage of
Baroness being a good thing girl, but she can't see that
because she's consumed with envy and rage.
I also find it interesting if you remember Isaac.
What did Isaac do when Rebecca was Baron?
He prayed nonstop for her and she ended up like giving birth.
What does Jacob do? He tells his wife the truth.
He says, who am I in a position? He says, woman, who am I in the
place of God who is withheld from you, the fruit of the womb.
So he tells her the truth, I'm not God.
But notice how Jacob didn't do what his dad did, which was
enter her pain. He told her the truth to avoid
entering her pain. Has any man ever done that?
Hello don't we or dads to our kids we.
Tell the truth so we don't have to enter the pain.
Anybody. Hello.
We can do both. You earn the right to tell the
truth when you enter with pain. It's not that he's wrong that
he's not God. It's that you're saying that so
you don't have to get on your knees and pray you.
See what I'm saying? So we see in the text that her
rage is evidence that she is not well, she's not sober minded.
It can make you think, I have to have this thing or I'm going to
die. It's like, girl, you ain't going
to die, but in that moment it feels so central to your well.
Being to have that thing that it's as if you will if you
don't. 4th evidence of idolatry in the text is control of
outcomes. It gets crazy now don't it?
Once we take matters into our own hands.
Verse 3 Then she said, here's my servant Bilhah go into her so
that she may give birth on my behalf that even I may have
children through her. So she gave him her servant Bill
as a wife and Jacob went into her and Bill how conceived and
and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said God has judged
me and has also heard my voice and given me a son.
Y'all gets crazy and we could read it all the mandrakes become
involved selling your husband for some mandrakes which
mandrakes are you know popular lives by Harry Potter.
There's so many layers to this, they were convinced this will
help. She thinks y'all listen, think
about this. Rachel was seeking the mandrakes
and willing to sell her husband because she thinks she can
control her giving birth because she had convinced herself this
plays into fertility and all this stuff.
And so she gets the mandrakes and don't have a kid, Leah,
because the husband has a kid. It just gets crazy and they
control their outcomes, which seems insane to us, but this is
what we do. And again, it's worth mentioning
y'all in the. Sovereignty of God, the just
amazing mind blowing economy of God.
Every kid born to the servants to Rachel d'elia constitutes the
12 tribes of Israel. How mind blowing is that?
Here, take my servant, the use of a servant to you.
Go have my kid and the idiom in Hebrew as you go have a kid on
your knees and it's almost like you're birthing.
I'm going to sit here. That's my kid that you just it's
it's insane, but God uses their insanity and idolatry in his
Kingdom masterpiece. Isn't that just amazing That
doesn't green light try idolatry, but it is to say God
is up to something bigger even in the midst of it.
But the control. Of outcomes is where things just
get wild. They get crazy.
Idolatry, y'all. It makes us crazy.
We think these people are crazy. Recently my wife was at a
baseball game for one of our kids and adjacent to it.
So the field right here is AT ball game.
OK. And one of those like videos you
see a parent's about to throw down and punch each other over a
kids t-ball game almost happened right in front of her.
OK. And the cops had to get called.
OK. I don't think any of those men
and I know it was men even though I wasn't there.
Amen. I know no moms are about to
throw down for their kids honor over AT ball game.
None of those dads woke up thinking I'm throwing down
today. Somebody look at me wrong over
Johnny not getting a hit. I'm a throw down if that umpire
calls a strike that. I, you know, nobody wakes up
thinking that whatever it is they're idolizing is going to
make them do something stupid. But in the moment, it feels like
you can't help it. It feels like you're gonna die
if your value becomes attached to your kid and you're at a game
where something's happening. The way you're calling strikes,
the way that coach didn't put my kid in the way this guy said
this, or even the craziest thing.
And I know this, 'cause I'm an idolatry who's done this, I can
begin to hate a parent of another kid who's a cool kid and
just got a hit, but I want people.
It's just insane what idolatry will make you do.
And it's not like you cosign, you're not like I agree to this
idolatrous moment. You're just in the moment,
driven by a value that has become so disproportionately
large it feels automatic. We gossip about our best
friends, don't we? Students?
Hello, we tech. I remember one time in high
school, I listen, listen, this is a true story.
I wasn't in Christ, but don't let that make you think that
something like this couldn't happen to one of you who are in
Christ now. I sent a narrative talking trash
about my friend named Taylor to another friend in our friend
group. We were all best friends.
Then I had the audacity once caught to say, oh, I was talking
about this guy with one letter name difference at a different
school and my friend went oh all good.
I remember when I sent the text and he sent it back, my body was
like in shock and like shivering.
I was sweating but I could sneak my way out of it.
But in that moment, we don't wake up thinking I'm going to
gossip about a best friend today.
But when your value is on the line, you'll do it.
If it's about me being cool, I will.
I'll put down a friend. Behind their back.
Won't we do that? Idolatry makes us a little
insane. It just does.
And this is deeper than any psychology can take you.
This is the level of like, it's almost like a God is telling you
to obey. The idea is you do what your God
tells you to do. And if your God is your value
system around how you're viewed in the moment, it feels like you
cannot say no. That's how it works now that
we've seen the examples. Of idolatry, Let's talk about
the roots of idolatry. The roots of idolatry.
Let's get the mechanics a little bit first.
Idolatry feels natural because we are.
Fallen. OK, God made us in his image.
Idolatry was not His intent. OK, He made us to worship him.
Think. About it like this, OK.
You were. Created and at the center of who
you are. Let's use the analogy of an
engine. OK?
If your soul is an engine that was made to operate a certain
way, you're made to operate on gasoline, all right?
Loving God focused on others, serving others, naked and
unashamed purpose, all the stuff.
And when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, their
deception? You didn't go from being an
engine to like being a house. You're still an engine, but now
you think you run on Maple. Syrup.
OK, so here's what's crazy about the image of God in you.
Some things are still going to go well, it's crazy.
God is so kind, common grace is so good that the wheels won't
always fall off. You're going to be full of
purpose. You'll even be praised for your
life running on Maple syrup at times, which makes it really
confusing because you're still capable of great beauty and
great purpose, and you can love people and do kind things
because that's a testament to God's image in you.
And running on Maple syrup all the while driven by what people
think of you. You're getting praise like you
love people when in reality you're using them to make people
think that you're a good person or whatever it is.
And the idea is it's Maple syrup.
Like this is insane, right? This is crazy.
This is not how I was meant to run.
I was meant to run on gasoline. But you so normalize life in
Maple syrup, you begin to think I was created to run on Maple
syrup. Does that make sense?
Second. Thing idolatry is an exchange.
It's a foolish exchange. Somebody say exchange.
So this gasoline Maple syrup thing is the exchange of true
worship for false worship. You need to hear this.
The conversations we have in this leopard carpet print room
are human conversations, not religious conversations.
Because if you take what I'm saying today.
And you try to categorically reject it and say that's that
Christian religious talk you're going to leave here and think
you're a human being that exists outside of these categories, but
it's not. True.
Your soul's an engine. You're either on Maple syrup or
gasoline. Whether you think I'm crazy or
not. Are you with me?
What I'm saying is true because God made you in his image.
So if you want to go run on Maple syrup, you go for it.
But don't try to categorically reject the conversation just
because you want to call it spiritual.
This is human stuff. Does that make sense?
And so the exchange that has occurred is we've exchanged
worship of God for worship of other things.
OK. This is how Romans one talks
about it. I'm about to quote from a song.
Kids, if you can quote this song to me next week in The Way the
Artist. Quotes it.
I'll go Pastor Will on them and give you a candy bar.
OK, you're not going. To be able to do it, it's going
to take a lot of practice. This song is called Messiah by
Beautiful Eulogy. Beautiful Eulogy.
Go look it up. Hey, the album is called Worthy.
The song is called Messiah, and I'm going to say it slow.
Then I'm going to say it how he says it.
He says when a good God gives good gifts, we generally tend to
twist the list. And take the good list that God
tends to give and make a general God out of gifts.
But he does it really fast. He goes when a good God gives
good gifts, we generally tend to twist the list.
And take the good list that God tends to give and make a general
God out of gifts. Listen.
The idea is in exchange has occurred that you did not know
you made but then in your sin Co signed and volitionally
submitted to over and over and over, which is God went from the
giver of gifts. He is gift who gives gifts to.
He is subservient to the gifts. When a good.
God gives good gifts. We generally tend to twist the
list and take the good list, good gifts that God tends to
give and make a general God out of gifts.
So now we ask God. We either say he doesn't exist
or we let him continue in our orbit.
But he only serves the purpose of helping us chase after the
gift that. We want more than him.
So you can play a role. You can make me feel good about
my conscience and my morality if I'm having a bad day.
God becomes primarily your consoler.
This is what I see all kinds of times in young people who really
just want a comfortable life, a person to love them, all these
things. And God becomes primarily your
consoler. But you could still grow up your
entire life in a religious environment.
No Bible verses and he's still. Serving the gifts, He is your
servant as you chase what you want more than him, but He is
there to make your conscience. Feel good as you do it.
And that's what religion is. It is a system where you have
convinced yourself you're in. But really, God is a part of
your system. He is serving the gift with you.
He's there to console you. It's a great exchange.
So y'all some of what the preaching the gospel.
Does is it's just to awaken your heart to this dynamic that is
Maple syrup? Does that make sense?
Even the greatest gift, spouse, kids, whatever it is, if it
takes on God like governing authority in your mood and
behavior, it's Maple syrup. Does that make sense?
That's all it is and you're invited.
Watch this. What if getting saved?
What if aligning yourself with reality and putting God back in
first place is actually as simple as just living in
alignment with reality as it really is?
What it? Putting gas in the car is just
how life works and the ease of life.
There is a burden lifted when you stop asking things that are
not God to govern you. Life just gives way easier when
you live in alignment with God in first place and who he is and
let a good gift be a good gift but it's not a good God.
Does that make sense? And life gets a lot easier once
you're saved just because things take on their proper
proportional size and part of what makes your life.
Miserable is that you're being governed by things that are bad
governors. That make sense?
They're good gifts, bad gods, good gifts, bad governors.
Which leads us to the third root of idolatry.
Idolatry. Can become the means by which
God invites you to reality. Isn't that amazing?
Once you realize this Maple syrup, you almost feel like
you've been tricked. You mean to tell me that's why
my my life is miserable? And y'all I don't want to over
sanitize once God goes in first place.
It doesn't make every second a party of reality.
Please just listen to all of our.
Other sermons and read the Psalms.
Amen, somebody. I'm just telling you that in
general. Yes, the false size of the false
gods is what's making you miserable, and you have an
opportunity to get out of that rat race.
That's what's amazing. And that false chase, you're
like, oh, so the category of worship.
Isn't the problem. My object of worship has been
the problem? Yes, that's what I'm telling
you. Here's how CS Lewis famously put
it. I I'm reading this from
Counterfeit Guys by Keller. You need to read it.
Somebody like I read that back in college.
Read it again. Don't we do that, y'all?
We think we learn things, then we don't go back to them.
Read it again. Let me.
See if I can find it. If I find in myself a desire
which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most
probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
What CS Lewis was saying so well, and the reason we keep
reading him is he's helping us understand the categorical
issue, which is that. Worship is not the problem.
Your desires are not the problem.
It's not bad that you want that smile.
It's not bad that you're craving that thing.
It's where you're going to get it that is the problem.
Does that make sense? And getting tired of the rat
race can be part of the means by which God invites you into
reality. Let's talk about the end of
idolatry. The end of idolatry.
We understand the fruits. We see it in action at T-ball
games and in our life. We understand the mechanics of
the roots. Let's talk about the end of it
first. We are invited to see Jesus
Christ as the source of life itself.
Amen, somebody. We're invited to see Jesus
Christ as the source of life itself, y'all?
When we look. At the cross.
We are not seeing merely an example of love.
What? We are seeing is God begging us
to see that He alone is the one worthy of our worship.
That's part of what it is. There's a great.
Exchange going on. Where y'all the Bible message is
not If you stop idolizing things, God will love you.
OK. The message of the Bible is that
there is a God so good, so loving, so kind, who made you
the engine that you are, gave you all the good gifts you've
ever had, and has watched you suffer in the misery your own
sin created. And instead of demanding that
you figure it out, stop loading your tank with Maple syrup and
trust him. Then he'll love you.
He's the God who comes and lives a perfect, sinless life.
Though you're an. Idolater and dies as if he was
the idolater in your place. That's the gospel.
The gospel is not. If you get it together and stop
idolizing, God will love you. Is that when you were blowing
it? When you went to partner after
partner after partner? When you trusted candidate after
candidate after candidate. When you think the next
promotion, the next promotion, next promotion will satisfy you
instead of God, When you keep yawning at God and thinking that
can govern your life in that moment, Christ.
Died for you? That's what the Bible teaches.
That's the gospel that will actually break the hold idols
have. I love preaching at summer camps
with students because they get some things within seconds and
they're honest about things. Adults just, well, I didn't like
that stuff about Jacob and those women and let me go Google some
stuff. I didn't.
It's like adults just have this ability to go like, and I'm
like, look, we could talk about all that man, but can I take you
to summer camp where like a handful of like 16 year old
girls are just honest within seconds?
Here's what happens, OK? They come in.
I'm generalizing and I'm encouraging the young women.
OK, Thank you, John, he said we get it.
Listen. I go to camp, I preach Christ
can satisfy you in ways other things can't and I just see in
their eyes are like, I hope what you're saying is true.
And by the end of the week, they believe it's true.
And by the end of the week, they dump their boyfriends.
Not all of them, but every once in a while this happens.
OK, one of them will want to talk to me and my wife.
Hey, can I talk to you? Then eventually they're and
they've got some objections and some struggles and by the end of
the week they're ignoring us. And I remember one time one of
them had a conversation with my wife.
I just feel like if I say yes to Jesus, I have to dump him.
And listen, I did not give a talk on how you need to dump
your boyfriend. That's kind of the point.
The point is immediately. Our souls can recognize only one
gets to be in first place. And actually, you're asking me
to put Johnny down on 2nd, 3rd, whatever.
And I've so attached the essence of what it means to be me to it
being 1st that I don't know who I am without Johnny.
See how that works? So I'm scared to lose my idol
because to lose my idol is to lose me.
We've become so attached to these things, what people think
of us or whatever it is for you, that our sense of selfhood has
wrapped itself up with something else.
And guess what? Like Rachel said, give me
children or I die. We think, give me Johnny or I
die. Give me the next candidate or I
die. Get the liberals out of here, I
die. Get the conservatives out of
here, I die. And we begin to be driven in our
behavior by that thing. Does that make sense?
And what I'm trying to tell you is that's not that this, this is
a crazy thing. They're right in a way.
It will feel like death. I'm not here to tell you it
won't feel like you're dying to get rid of Johnny or your sense
of selfhood being attached to that thing.
The point is, there is somebody who took a death that when you
see that, it allows you to get over the fear and the pain that
it is to lose your false self, to find your true self.
But I can't tell you it won't feel like dying because it will,
because you've so attached yourself to it that it's going
to be death to lose it. Does that make sense?
So in a way, losing an idol will feel like killing something
precious. But here's the amazing thing.
Is you actually once you trust Christ and receive Christ, you
get the gift back as it was intended to be, not giving you
your value but just playing a role in your life.
Does that make sense? It actually becomes what it was
designed to be, which is a gift, not a God, not a governor.
It doesn't run the shots, it just plays a part.
And that's the beauty of it. But you're going to, I can't
tell you that's not going to be full of fear.
Second thing, we're invited to choose Christ and kill idols.
Over and over and over. Lest you think I'm saying this
is a one time process. Amen Somebody y'all, KB once
said. My idols are mimicking Jesus.
I bury them in three days, they're back again.
His idea was that, as John Calvin famously put once, that
our hearts are idle making factories.
As long as sin still indwells you, you're going to be duped
back into this over and over and over.
So we're not here to shame anybody.
I'm not asking which ones of y'all's got idols.
I know all y'all got them. That's what I know.
I don't know if you know that yet, but I do.
And I know I've got them. OK.
Now for the believers in the room, what I hope the experience
of killing your idols is is less whack A mole and more like a
more like a weekly, daily, you know, more like gardening where
you're just like, hey, I got to pay.
Attention to this thing we were we were looking at the proverbs
earlier and Drew pointed out the one about a little in Proverbs
24 where if you he walked by the field of a sluggard and a little
folding of the hands a little laying to rest and poverty will
overtake you like a like a bandit, right?
There's something similar with idols.
Just like if you are. Not diligent in the idol killing
game they going they going to swarm you.
Does that make sense? If I walk by the field of a man
who doesn't think they have idols and in about 5 years they
going to be governed by them, does that make sense?
So be in the habit of assuming you have them, not shaming
yourself that you do, inviting Christ and community somebody
into the process. Of killing them, because
sometimes there's probably somebody in your life who can
see some insanity in you that you can't see.
Hey, I love you. I just got a question.
You spent like $2000 in the last month and this thing over here,
I think that might be disproportionately affecting
your life. I love you.
Or you could be so bold as to ask somebody, is there anything
that seems to have a disproportionate effect in my
life? That's scary, but I bet your
friends are going to be like you.
Sure. You want me to answer that?
You sure? Because this is what we like to
do. We like to think we know.
I know what idols I have. I know and I know how big they
are and like what we like, what we don't like is the thought of
somebody else. But guys, you need help to be
sober. So sobriety is a community
project as the a, a community models so well for us.
But we in the church just think we're so strong.
We think we can kill idols on our own.
And I've got my idols listing. So let me not propel you towards
pride, towards your own idols. The point I'm trying to make is
to do all of this outside of the context of a local church in
confession and community is insanity and you might be
idolizing your own self and your own brand as being a idol
killer. I don't know.
But the point is you need help. To be sober, it takes a team to
do this and do it with grace when you get handed the mic.
Hey, let me just ask you a question with this one part.
I know your job's big right now, so let's not assume just because
you're giving that a lot of energy, you're an idolater, OK?
Sometimes you have this thing called a deadline, OK?
So let's be careful. Some of you are like, can't wait
for Bob to ask me this because I'm going to tell him they got
an idol. You need to be quiet.
And you do not have authority to tell them that.
OK, third thing, we are invited to trust God with good gifts and
just wait and trust He knows best.
We cannot read this text. A couple of these.
Verses are amazing and hard at the same time.
You probably noticed them. Chapter 29 verse 31 says this.
When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, He opened her womb, but
Rachel was barren. Then later in chapter 30, verse
22, it says this. Then God remembered Rachel and
God listened to her and opened her womb.
You know, Genesis is giving us a God who opens the womb and
closes it. That's hard.
We just got to acknowledge that's hard.
What it does is it helps us realize God is involved in
everything all the time. Contra secularism, which wants
us to think God is here now, but he won't be when you walk out
the door or when you work on Tuesday and you're a plumber or
whatever it is. God is always involved.
But what scares us about that is why doesn't he open every womb,
right? Why doesn't everything go a
certain way? So Genesis is going to give you
a God who hears, who sees. Who cares?
And you can't contain. And that's hard because it says
he saw Leah, he heard Leah, he saw Rachel, he heard Leah, he
saw Rachel, he saw Hagar. Back in in in the early 20s
chapters of Genesis, I just want you to hear I don't know what
good gift it is that you know, competes into God like governing
authority. And I just want to tell you, I'm
sure that's really hard. I know it is and I don't know if
you'll ever get it. I don't know that we don't know
that we know we can trust this God.
We can. The God of Genesis can be
trusted. The God of the Cross.
Can be trusted. He has given you everything you
need for life and godliness. He has given you the abundant
life in Christ. Set your mind on things above it
doesn't mean stop wanting it, but some of it again is our
selfhood gets tied up in while I get that gift and I'm here to
tell you your selfhood. Is not tied to any gift.
Your identity is in. Christ.
And that's where I want to close and we'll be done.
Another way of thinking about this idolatry thing is where is
your identity? Your identity, y'all, is not in
how much money you make. It's not in how much you're
crushing your goals. It's not in how well you attack
the Atomic Habits. It's not how well you control
your destiny. It's not how much people like
you. Your identity is in Christ.
I'm going to be very clear. Jesus Christ is not your
consolation prize when the gifts don't work out, y'all?
Part of the problem is it's hard.
And I get it. I'm a white man, I'm in my 30s,
and I've got a lot of the good gifts people want.
But I'm here to tell you that Christ is gift, not gift giver
only. And what we've got to be careful
of is recruiting God and being enlisted into a mission where He
helps us pursue the gifts. He is the gift.
That's the gospel. We get saved because we want
Christ more than anything. Whom have I in heaven but you?
And then we get into walking with God and through
disappointment and pain, we so, and part of what our culture
wants you to be labeled by is your pain.
Your pain's not your identity. Christ is.
Does that make sense? And I think we so attach
ourselves to anything but Christ.
And that's sort of the issue is that he becomes on trial for
what he is not doing. And hear me say, I understand
that, but that itself is part of the dynamic that has to change.
Does that make sense? Your identity is in him.
It's not even something he gives you from him.
Your identity isn't what he hands you.
It's him. He is your identity.
Does that make? Sense and it's as we are found
in Him, it's as we are satisfied, as we are filled in
Christ that life just becomes free.
And until then, if life still has something it can give you
that you haven't gotten yet, you're chasing it.
That makes sense. And then you can play the game
and do the things differently. Not and listen yo, if I would
wake up at 4:00 AM. To go do the workouts and the
things that high school boys do when they watch a Kobe video and
then go do stuff or whatever it is for whatever version of life
stage you're in where you do that.
You listen to podcasts of somebody, David Goggins, Lord
help us, and then you go try to copy him.
When you do that, OK, and then you get saved in Christ, you're
delivered from that. How much more should we chase
good gifts and things to help build the Kingdom?
I'm not talking about dampering ambition.
I'm not talking about doing away with doing good.
I'm talking about what does it look like to do those things
when I don't actually need it for my value.
You see how that works? How much better should I be when
I'm not a 17 year old boy who needs applause?
But if I went this hard when I was needing you to like me, that
doesn't put me on the couch. Now that I'm in Christ, I don't
need to do nothing. No, dude, there's this thing
called a neighbor that you're called to love.
Now the motivation for why you do what you do is different.
I don't need the bag. I don't need the praise.
I don't need the girl. I don't need the stuff.
I got Christ. Now what is he calling me to do?
Does that make sense? So I want to be very clear, this
conversation is not how Jesus is your consolation prize when your
idols fail you. The goal is that Christ
satisfies that which you think you need apart from him, you
find in him. And once found in him, as as
Paul says, you've been, you found him and then he says or
have been found by him. Now you strain harder than ever,
but not for your glory, his. So don't hear me saying now life
is just chilling. We just, we just chilling.
No, we're not. But the motivation, the goal,
the reason, all of it now is for the glory of God, good of
neighbor, not for my sense of selfhood, which is all good now.
Does that make sense? That's why we kill idols.
We don't kill them when? All else fails, go to Jesus.
No, that's idolatry. I think actually what I'm saying
is. Christ is 1st, and when he is,
these things will. Take their proper place and you
get the joy of killing idols because if you don't, they'll be
killing you. OK, let's pray our Father.
God, I thank you for just that image of somebody hearing this
is so simple and realizing God, they've been on Maple.
Syrup their whole life. Maybe they've been in church
their whole life, but they've never chosen Christ.
First, never repented, never agreed with you that you are the
most satisfying being in the whole universe.
God, I pray somebody would get saved right now.
Looking at the cross, understanding that you are the
satisfying, safety giving, pleasing God, that nothing else
can be or ever will be. We declare you are more valuable
than anything. God, if we have you and nothing
else, we have everything, and if we have everything else but you,
we have nothing. God, may that be true in our
souls. Would you save somebody by the
power of the Spirit right now? Thank God for the believers in
the room. God in all the ways that we are
tempted to just attach our value to the littlest things, God we
find them and God we identify ourselves with our trauma, our
story, everything but God may our identity be in Christ
doesn't erase our story. It doesn't erase these things
God, but it it just changes the conversation.
God wrap us up. Help us to be found in Christ,
rooted in Christ. Please God, please help us to
kill idols once again and may we do this in community well at
Port City. Got to pray more people would
understand what the local church.
Is God just shine light on confession?
Got to pray that even today, maybe before we leave, there
will just be some liberation in this room.
So God help us, we love you. We pray these things in Christ
name, Amen.