Biblical Principles that Affect the Christian Citizen
“The Principle of Active Involvement”
Rom. 13:1-7
This morning we are going to continue with our series on the role of the follower of Christ in the political process. The last time we looked at this we considered the principle of righteous rulers. We were focusing on the truth expressed in Prov. 28:12 – “When the righteous triumph, there is great glory, but when the wicked rise, men hide themselves.” Or as it is expressed in 28:16, “A leader who is a great oppressor lacks understanding, but he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days.” The principle involved here is that when ethical, just, fair, honest men of integrity come to power, good things happen. The populace rejoices. But when unethical, unfair, unjust, deceitful, selfish men come to power, the people under them suffer. This is one of the principles that God has built into His universe. Our founding fathers referred to these principles as natural law. The point for us was that we are privileged in our country to have a say in who rules us. So we need to be educated and involved in the political process and do our part to have righteous rulers.
The principle I want us to consider this morning is active involvement. To help us get going with this, I want to put the principle to you in the form of a question. “What level of involvement should the gathered church have in the affairs of the state?” And make sure you understand the significance of th e term “gathered church.” I‟m not speaking today of “the church” in the sense of individual believers, but “the church gathered,” a group of followers of Christ. There is a big difference in the two concepts. Right now, we are “the gathered church,” but when we leave this building later, “the church” will be disbursing. So the question is, “What level of involvement should the gathered church have in the affairs of the state?”
As we think about this, I want you to know that if I had asked this question 200 years ago, or probably even 100 years ago, both “the gathered church” and political leaders in general would have answer very differently from what would be expressed this morning. Over the last 100 years there has been an evolution of thought concerning this matter about the level of involvement the church should have in the affairs of the state. We‟ll discuss how that happened later in this message, but for now I want us to consider two points. First of all, we are going toanswer this question from a biblical perspective. Then we are going to consider it from a historical perspective.
I. Biblical Perspective
A. Rom. 13:1-7 “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities (when Paul was writing this – around A.D. 58 – who was his „governing authority‟?). For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil. 5 Wherefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience ' sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.
We are starting with this passage because it sets the stage for the entire question. If you want to know how involved we should be in the affairs of the state, Paul lays out for us four important points. 1) Government has its origin with God – v. 1, 4, and 6. This is huge. As we are going to see in the next passage, the state has a very broad realm and a lot of power, but we must never forget that the state derives its authority from and has its origins in God. As much as I admire Abraham Lincoln, he was inaccurate when he finished the Gettysburg Address by making reference to a government “of the people (source), by (personnel) the people, and for (purpose) the people.” 2) Resisting the state is a serious breach – it is tantamount to resisting God himself and will bring punishment on the violator – v. 2. The word translated as “resists” means to set oneself against, to withstand, or oppose. We do this at great personal risk. When Herod and Nero were on the throne, the N.T. authors never encouraged people to go underground and joint the resistance. 3) The state is commissioned by God to punish evil and reward good – vv. 3-4. This is why it behooves us to be good, law abiding citizens. 4) There are two motives for being in submission to our Government – fear and love – v. 5. Fear of punishment by the state and love for God as a follower of Christ.
This is our foundational passage for answering the question of how involved we should be, and what I want you to take from this passage of scripture is that the things of God and the things of state are very intermingled! This is why for hundreds of years the European model has been that the head of the state was also the head of the church. Who is the head of the church of England? The Queen! The Archbishop of Canterbury is the religious head of the church, but the Queen is the “Supreme Governor of the Church of England.”
So, if the biblical teaching is that the church and the state are so closely related that resisting the church is tantamount to resisting God, why did our Baptistic forefathers endure martyrdom for holding to a separation between the church and state? Why do we have in America this concept of separation between the church and state? It‟s because of the teaching in Mt. 22.
B. Matt. 22:15-22 “Then the Pharisees went and counseled together how they might trap Him in what He said. 16 And they sent their disciples to Him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that You are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any. 17 "Tell us therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?" 18 But Jesus perceived their malice, and said, "Why are you testing Me, you hypocrites? 19 "Show Me the coin used for the poll-tax." And they brought Him a denarius. 20 And He said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" 21 They said to Him, "Caesar's." Then He said to them, "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." 22 And hearing this, they marveled, and leaving Him, they went away.
What bearing does this passage have on the question at hand (what level of involvement should the gathered church have in the affairs of the state)? Note these several points. 1) As followers of Christ, we exist in two clearly delineated spheres – God and state. Certain things are in God‟s realm, and certain things are in the state‟s realm. While these two spheres overlap in some areas (our first point), there are other areas where they don‟t overlap. God is God, and the state is not! And what this means is that any time the state encroaches on God, we side with God. This is a vital, critical distinction. 2) There is no incompatibility between giving your money to a godless state and maintaining your right relationship with God. I point this out because there is the thought in the church that since our state uses our taxes for godless enterprises, we shouldn‟t pay our taxes because that makes us participants in their wickedness. That isn‟t true according to this passage because Jesus said to give to Caesar what belonged to him, and if you think our government is corrupt, compare it to Herod‟s and Caesar‟s!
What this passage tells us about the question at hand is that even though church and state are very intertwined (as we saw from the last passage), there are very clearly marked boundaries between these two entities. If you want to know how this works in practical terms, read the story in Acts 5 about when the state ordered Peter and the Apostles to stop preaching.
C. 1 Tim. 2:1-4 “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. 3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
This passage teaches us several things. 1) The church is commanded to pray for its governmental leaders. One of the things that really bugged me about the Bush presidency is that as soon as he was elected, a national Presidential Prayer Team was assembled to pray for him every day. When somebody placed the fliers advertising this in the church foyer, I started asking people, “Where was this Presidential Prayer Team for the last 8 years when Clinton was our President?” The command is to pray for your governmental leaders, not to pray for the governmental leaders you happen to agree with. 2) There is a direct connection between obedience to this principle and my quality of life. Do you see that? Paul tells Timothy that we should pray for those in authority over us so that we can “lead a quiet and tranquil life.” Quietness and tranquility in the social realm are very conducive to godliness and dignity.
What this passage tells us about our topic is that there is a correlation between the amount of involvement we have in government and the kind of lives we get to lead. I believe that the more proactive the church is in being involved in the affairs of state, the more freedoms and prosperity we can enjoy. We can prove this historically. There is a reason why America exploded with freedom, technology, and wealth in its first 200 years of existence, and it is tied to the involvement of the church in the affairs of the state!
D. Matt. 5:38-41 “You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' 39 "But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 "And if anyone wants to sue you, and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41 "And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two.
Now at first glance, these verses may seem like they don‟t have any bearing on the question at hand, but if we look at it a little deeper we‟ll see the relevance. The general point Jesus is making is that we need to maintain an attitude of love toward our enemies instead of an attitude of vengeance or retaliation. The “eye for an eye” “tooth for a tooth” concept, even though its origins were in the Mosaic Law, by the time it got to Jesus‟ day, was a perversion of the limits God had built into the Mosaic Law. The purpose behind lex talionis (law of retaliation) was to discourage private retaliation and let public justice rule. Its purpose was not to establish some kind of tit-for-tat justice system.
The teaching of Jesus is that we demonstrate love for our enemies by repaying their evil with good as Paul tells us to do in Romans 12, not insisting on the OT standard of the eye for an eye. And then, to illustrate what this new standard looks like, Jesus give three illustrations of what this concept looks like in real life – in physical assault (v. 39), in judicial assault (v. 40), and in political oppression (v. 41). In the days of Jesus, military personnel had the authority to make any civilian drop what he was doing and carry the soldier‟s load for one mile. This was something the Romans adopted from the Babylonians and Persians as well – forced conscription of civilian labor or animals. And I want you to put yourself in the sandals of these Jewish people who were living under the occupying force of the despised Roman army.
Here you are working in your field, minding your own business, and a Roman soldier comes along, yanks you out of your field, and makes you carry his pack for a mile. You know you have just lost at least an hour of your day, maybe more, and you are assisting a hated symbol of your oppressive, foreign government. He knows you despise him, just like all the previous Jewish men he has made to carry his pack, and when you get to the end of the mile, instead of dropping his pack and turning around to go back, you say, “Would you mind if I carried your pack another mile?” How do you suppose he will react?
After he picks his jaw up off the ground, I can envision him saying something like, “A couple of days ago another guy did this, and he said he was a follower of Christ. Are you one of those followers of Christ as well?” And there is the opportunity to tell him about the difference Christ has made in your life as you spend the next half hour with him carrying his pack another mile.
The reason I‟m drawing our attention to this passage is because the difference that being a follower of Christ makes on us should have a profound impact on our involvement in the affairs of state. Peter makes the very same point in his first letter. Christians should be the best citizens! In fact, a constitutional republic, like ours, can‟t operate if it isn‟t fueled by moral people! This is something we‟ll look at next week, but certain types of governments work only when godliness is prevalent.
So to summarize what we have looked at this morning, we are considering the principle of active involvement. The question that helps us see this best is, “What level of involvement should the church have in the affairs of the state?” And the answer we see from the biblical record is that as followers of Christ, the church should have a very high level of involvement. It is natural and normal for us to do this, and what we are going to see next week is that historically, our founding fathers held tenaciously to these truths:
1. Government is ordained of God.
2. The church and the state have clearly delineated roles.
3. There is a direct connection between our quality of life and our political involvement.
4. Our relationship with Christ compels us to high level of involvement.
Biblical Principles that Affect the Christian Citizen
“The Principle of Active Involvement” – Part 2
Mt. 22:29
This morning we are going to finish the message I started last week when I was sharing with you the principle of active involvement. We are in a series of messages where I am answering the question, “What is the role of the follower of Christ in the political process?” And as we saw last week, government is ordained of God (Rom. 13), the church and the state are considerably intertwined yet they have clearly delineated roles (Mt. 22), there is a direct connection between our quality of life and our political involvement (1 Tim.2), and finally that our relationship with Christ compels us to higher level of involvement (Mt. 5). That is the biblical perspective that should motivate us to a high level of involvement in the affairs of the state.
I told you in the introduction last week that we‟d be looking at this matter of active involvement from two different perspectives – the biblical perspective and the historical perspective. Last week‟s message was the biblical part, so this morning we are going to look at the historical part. I want us to start by looking at this passage in Mt. 22:29. The Bible has a lot to say about the connection between ignorance and consequence. Ignorance can get you into trouble very quickly.
It pays to be educated (and I‟m not talking about formal education here), and in Mt. 22:29 Jesus condemns the Pharisees by saying, “you are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures.” In other words, their ignorance of the scriptures led to serious consequences concerning issues of eternal importance. We see another example of this connection between ignorance and consequence in Hosea 4:6. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Do you see the connection between ignorance and consequence?
Now, as we think about this matter of how involved we should be in the political process, there is a particular piece of ignorance, or we could call it a lack of knowledge, that is prevalent in our country and even in Christian circles that I want to clear up for us this morning. It has to do with the misconception about the “separation of church and state.” How many of you have ever heard that phrase used in connection with morality being kept out of civic matters? In other words, you can‟t pray in school because of “the separation of church and state.” You can‟t have
a copy of the 10 commandments on government property because of “the separation of church and state.” You can‟t have a nativity scene on the public library lawn because of “the separation of church and state.” We could go on ad infinitum ad nauseum. Most people base this thinking on the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”
Here is something I want you to understand with great clarity. This phrase, “the separation of church and state” is not found in one single governing document of the United States! Most Americans believe that it is actually taken from our constitution. Listen to this very sad conversation between David Barton and a U.S. Congressman who was an accomplished attorney. They were discussing the importance of basic religious values in society, and the Congressman said, “We know these values are important; it‟s unfortunate that we can‟t do anything to promote them.” Surprised, Dave Barton queried, “Why not?” He replied, “We just can‟t.” Barton persisted, “Why not?” The Congressman answered, “Because of „separation of church and state.‟” Barton responded, “Separation of church and state? What about it?” He replied, “It‟s in the Constitution – the Constitution won‟t permit us to have religious values in public arenas.” Barton said, “That phrase is not in the Constitution!” Forcefully, the Congressman countered, “Yes it is!” “No it isn‟t!” “Yes it is!” They went back and forth until Barton produced a copy of the Constitution and asked, “Would you please find that phrase for me?” He replied triumphantly, “I‟d be happy to.” He immediately went to the First Amendment, read it – and became very embarrassed. He said, “I can‟t believe this! In law school they always taught us that‟s what the First Amendment said!” Amazed, Barton said, “You‟ve never read the Constitution for yourself?” He replied, “We were never required to read it in law school.”
This is a pretty sad commentary on our law schools, and I‟m afraid that this particular Congressman who had never read the Constitution is not an exception to the rule. And to help us out here at Cornerstone, there are copies of the Constitution on the information table in the foyer. Get one, read it, and be familiar with it. The words “separation,” “church,” and “state” are not found in the Constitution, or the First Amendment, or any other official document pertinent to the founding of our Country.
So where does this phrase come from? As I shared with you last Sunday, our 16th century Anabaptist forefathers had a very clear understanding of the Scriptures we appealed to last week. They understood with great clarity that even though God and State were closely connected and even intertwined to a great degree, there was a very clear boundary that the state could not step over. These Anabaptist paid very dearly for their insistence on this matter because their actions and beliefs were considered treason. Yet this insistence has marked Baptist thought for the last 500 years, which is why on Oct. 7, 1801, The Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, CT, sent a letter to President Thomas Jefferson expressing their concern about this matter. The essence of their concern was this. They felt that freedom of religion was an inalienable right, it had been given to them by God, not granted to them by the state. And there is a big difference between those two concepts. They were concerned that since freedom of religion was mentioned in the First Amendment of the Constitution (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”), that people would erroneously conclude that it was a freedom granted by the Constitution and not God.
Jefferson replied to this letter on Jan. 1, 1802 and said, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, . . . I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should „make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,‟ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
This phrase, “a wall of separation between Church and State” is a phrase taken from Thomas Jefferson‟s personal correspondence to a group of Baptist pastors, not some kind of official statement. But even if it were an official statement, even if it were in the Constitution, what would Jefferson be saying? He would be saying that the U.S. Government has no right to establish a religion for the entire nation – like the church of England, or the church of Scotland, etc. He would not be saying, nor does the First Amendment advocate that religious matters have no place in government.
So what has happened over the last 100 years is that there has been an evolution of thought in our country. Fueled by an activist Supreme Court, public opinion has swung from “government not being able to establish a national religion,” to “government not permitting religious expression in the civic arena.” As Dave Barton says, “The result is that the First Amendment is now used to prohibit the very religious activities that the Founders themselves once encouraged under the same Amendment.” Not only is this a sad commentary on our nation, it is also a sad commentary on the church because by and large, the church has bought into this thinking which is completely against each of the principles of active involvement.
Let‟s take a few minutes now and look at some historical illustrations of how actively involved the church was in the political process in the early days of our country. I want to do this two ways. First of all, we are going to look at some testimonies from our founding fathers, and then I will show you an example of exactly how integrated church and state was in the early days of our country.
II. Historical Perspective
A. Testimony of the founding fathers
1. John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson on June28, 1813 said, “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were . . . the general principles of Christianity.” Works, Vol. X p. 45
2. On Oct. 11, 1789,John Adams in a speech to a group of officers in the Massachusetts Militia said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Works, Vol. IX p. 229
3. Robert Winthrop, a Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1840‟s said, “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them, either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man, either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”
4. In George Washington‟s Farewell Address, he said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness – these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.”
5. On the very first day after George Washington became the commander in chief of the American forces in the Revolutionary war, he issued this order: “The General most earnestly requires and expects a due observance of those articles of war established for the government of the army, which forbid profane cursing, swearing, and drunkenness. And in like manner he requires and expects of all officers and soldiers, not engaged in actual duty, a punctual attendance on Divine service, to implore the blessing of Heaven upon the means used for our safety and defense.”
B. Example of churches meeting in court houses
For Americans today, the idea of a church being able to use a tax-supported governmental building for their worship services sound unbelievable, since we have heard so much about this “wall of separation between church and state.” But in the minds of our founding fathers, there was no objection to this idea. Understanding the importance of morality to a stable society, they encouraged it!
Listen to this testimony from Thomas Jefferson concerning the town of Charlottesville, VA. “In our village of Charlottesville, there is a good degree of religion, with a small spice only of fanaticism. We have four sects, but without either church or meeting-house. The court-house is the common temple, one Sunday in the month to each. Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist, meet together, joining in hymning their Maker, listen with attention and devotion to each others‟ preachers, and all mix in society with perfect harmony.”
I believe we have seen with great clarity, from both a biblical and an historical perspective, that Christians should have a high level of involvement in the political process. Our nation became what it did because of the level of involvement of Christians, and we have become what we are today because of the level of involvement of Christians as well! It is high time for followers of Christ to reengage the political process and wield its influence.
Alexis de Tocqueville was a French jurist who visited the US in 1831, and he was so impressed with what he saw that he went home and wrote one of the best studies of
American culture and Constitutional system that had been published up to that point. His book was called Democracy in America, and listen to his first impression of our country in the early 1800‟s. “On my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things.” That is what I have been trying to say for these last two weeks. It is the principle of active involvement. He goes on to say, “Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions . . . . I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion – for who can search the human heart? – but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.”
In Ps. 33:12 we read the truth that “blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” That should serve as a motivation for us to not only be godly but also to seek to exert a godly influence in our culture. But it is also a warning that if America does not stay blessed, it will be because we did not stay involved! De Tocqueville‟s most famous statement serves as a very appropriate parting thought: “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Biblical Principles That Affect the Christian Citizen
I’d like you to turn in your Bibles this morning to Prov. 28:12. Last week we were in Deut. 28 and I brought you a message titled “The Benefits of Principled Living.” We saw that principles are divine in origin – principles don’t come into existence by a majority vote, and you can’t rescind them if you get enough signatures on a ballot. God created this universe with certain principle designed to govern it (economic, political, agricultural, spiritual, social, familial, civil, biological, physical), and to the extent we follow those principles, we will benefit from them. But the converse of that is true as well. To the extent we violate God’s principles, we will suffer.
I then gave you an extended illustration of how we see this being played out on a daily basis in our country in the abortion breast cancer connection. The reason there is a connection between abortion and breast cancer is because abortion violates one of the principles that God established to rule His universe, and that is human life is precious. How many of you knew that human life is so precious that even animals that kill a human are under the death penalty? Read Gen. 9:1-6 this afternoon and see if that isn’t what God is saying. The reason human life is precious is because humans are created in the image of God. That fetus bears the image of God, and to terminate the life of the fetus is tantamount to an attack on God Himself – and God doesn’t take that lightly. The message of Deut. 28 is that to the extent we violate God’s principles, we will suffer, and to the extent we honor God’s principles, we will be blessed.
Now before we leave this and get into today’s message, there are two very important clarifications I need to make. First of all, I don’t want anyone to make the logical mistake that every woman you know who has had breast cancer has also had an abortion. There is a connection, but there is not a one-to-one correlation. For instance, do we know that there is a connection between driving while intoxicated and wrecking your car? Yes. There is irrefutable evidence that if you drive while intoxicated there is a higher incidence of accidents. But do we immediately assume that everyone who has a car wreck was intoxicated? Not at all. There is an connection, but there is not a one-to-one correlation. That is the way I want you to view this abortion breast cancer link.
The second clarification is that as terrible and brutal as abortion is, God’s mercy is infinitely larger and more capable for forgiveness and restoration. This is the thrust of Paul’s teaching in Rom. 5:20 when he says, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” Do you see the proportionate nature of God’s grace? God’s grace is always more than enough to meet the need. What that means is that there is no sin beyond God’s capacity for forgiveness. The Bible teaches that “if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This verse teaches that God’s forgiveness is tied to two of his attributes, his faithfulness and justice. The faithfulness makes sense to us, but we don’t often think about forgiveness and justice in the same thought, do we? What do we usually equate justice with? Punishment, right. But this verse equates justice with forgiveness. In other words, if we were to confess a sin, and God refused to forgive us, He would be an unjust God. Well, abortion is one of the sins that this verse covers. So if abortion is a part of you past, there is a message of forgiveness and hope and healing in Christ.
So with that introduction to the concept and importance of God’s principles, I want us to turn our attention now to a series of principles that affect the Christian citizen. Remember, the theme of this series is the role of the follower of Christ in the political process. If you want to know what your role is, you have to know first of all what is important in the big scheme of things. In other words, you have to know what principles are at stake in the political process.
If you want to know how to safely navigate the political process, you have to know first of all what is really important in the big scheme of things.
If you want to have a positive impact on the political process, you have to know first of all what is really important in the big scheme of things.
If you want to know which candidate is going to serve your interests the best, you have to know what he believes about the issues that are really important.
So what I want to do this morning and next Sunday as well is share with you a series of principles that have tremendous bearing on our country. The first one is found in Prov. 28:12, and I’m calling it the principle of righteous leadership.
I. The Principle of Righteous Leadership – Prov. 28:12, 29:2
“When the righteous (צַדִּיק - not “born again,” but just, or ethical in conduct and character) triumph, there is great elation; but when the wicked rise to power, men go into hiding.”
“When the righteous increase, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, people groan.”
This is a principle that obviously has tremendous ramifications for our political situation, and when it is violated, the consequences are devastating. How many of you are familiar with the term “brain drain?” Brain drain is the term given to large-scale immigration of individuals who are academically, artistically, and technologically skilled. Brain drain is almost invariably the outworking of Prov. 28:12 – “when the wicked rise to power, men go into hiding.” Out of hundreds of possible illustrations, think for a moment about Ethiopia and some of the other African countries. Conservatively speaking, brain drain has cost the African continent over $4 billion a year! This is due to the flight of over 150,000 professionals, and the revenue they generate, annually. Ethiopia lost 75 per cent of its skilled workforce between 1980 and 1991. Guess why? Because of the rise of Communism under Mengistu. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered without trial in the red terror, and all who could fled the country. This is why there are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago today than there are in Ethiopia. “When the wicked rise to power, men go into hiding.”
What does this principle (the principle of righteous leadership) mean for you and me as Christian citizens? It means we have a vested interest in the character of our elected officials. From our town officials, to our county officials, to our state officials, to our national officials, character counts! If there is a person running for office who is a local businessman, we need to investigate how he runs his business because how he runs his business is going to be how he runs his agency. We need to investigate his fidelity to his spouse because his fidelity or infidelity will be replicated in his political office. If he won’t honor commitments made to his spouse, do you think he will suddenly start honoring commitments made to his constituency? Character and ethical conduct are huge! You cannot separate political skill from personal character.
This principle is why it is right for people to be adamantly opposed to people like JFK, and Bill Clinton, and Eliot Spitzer serving as elected officials. And by the way, I think there is a difference between a man who succumbs to temptation and falls, but then confesses, repents, makes restitution and gets on with his life; and the man who is chronically unfaithful and lies and deceives and diminishes his guilt. But character is inextricably bound to political skill.
Most people know Samuel Adams only as a beer label, but listen to this quote: “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt [this is last week’s principle – “the way of the transgressor is hard”. If you have a nation full of corrupt people, their lives will be difficult no matter how many wise laws and constitutions are passed.] He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.” Let me repeat that so it sticks in our minds. “He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.”
This sentiment was tenaciously held to by our founding fathers. They understood the principle of righteous leadership. They knew, based on their understanding of European and world history, that “when the wicked rule, men groan and go into hiding.” This is why they were adamant that men of noble character served in public office. For instance, they deliberately kept the salary of elected official very low so that greedy men would not be attracted to office. Greed is a character issue and our founding fathers believed that character was important. This is why George Washington refused a salary when he was the president – even though his plantation had been basically destroyed in the war and had not been built back to full production. He also refused a salary while serving as Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces during the Revolutionary War. This was the attitude of our country’s early public servants which is why our nation thrived under their leadership. “When the righteous triumph, there is great rejoicing, but when the wicked come to power, men go into hiding.”
Before I give you a series of practical steps to take in relation to this principle, let’s look at one more passage in Proverbs. Turn back one chapter to chapter 28 and look with me at verses 15 and 16. “Like a roaring lion and a rushing bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people.[How many historical illustrations could we come up with that demonstrate this truth?] A leader who is a great oppressor lacks understanding [this is a message all elected officials need to hear], but he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days [cf. G. Washington not wanting to serve a second or third term].”
If you want to read a biblical example of how this works, read 2 Chron. 10:1-10 this afternoon. This is the account where King Rehoboam, upon ascending the throne of his father Solomon, rejected the advice of his elders and followed the advice of the young men he grew up with, and look at the consequences of his foolishness. He was a “great oppressor” [“my father disciplined you with whips, I will discipline you with scorpions”] which showed his “lack of understanding.” Rehoboam rejected sound principles because he was not a principled man, and he paid a high price for his foolishness.
What this means for you and me as citizens of the greatest nation this world has known, is that we have a huge privilege in being able to elect our leaders. We don’t live in a monarch like Israel did – we have a voice in who rules us. We don’t have a dictator who seized the Oval Office by armed revolution – we have a voice in who rules us. So let’s not forget this principle of righteous leadership.
Here are the three action steps we need to take if we are going to apply the principle we have studied this morning. Step #1 – get registered to vote if you aren’t already. How many of you heard the statistic Jason McGuire told us two weeks ago about church voting records? He said that in the last election, only 50% of the people in the church were registered to vote. That ain’t right! Or as my Southern friends say it, “dat’s just wroang.” Only half of all church members are registered to vote. It is a privilege to have a voice in the election of our officials, but if you aren’t registered, you have no say.
The second action step is to actually vote. Jason also told us that only half of the registered voters in the church actually voted! Again, that ain’t right! What that means is that out of all the possible voters in the church, only 25% of them actually made the effort to go out and vote in the last election. How can we have ethical, just rulers if only 25% of the church is voting? Again, it is a privilege to have a voice in the election of our officials, but if you aren’t actually going to the polls, you have no say.
The final step is to get to know the character of the candidates. Out of the three action steps, this one is the hardest. It isn’t hard work to get registered. It isn’t hard work to get out on election day, but it does take some effort to know the character of the candidates. The good news though is that there are lots of resources available that make the work easier. Voting records are online. You can just scan down the list of bills up for vote, see how they voted, and then draw conclusions about their character based on their voting record. There are organizations that are dedicated to voter education. And perhaps most importantly for us Christians, there are Christian Political Action Committees committed to educating Christian voters about where the various candidates stand. Next week I’ll try to have some links printed in the bulletin to show you where to go for information.
So, what is the role of the follower of Christ in the political process? His first role involves the principle of righteous leadership. “When the righteous triumph, there is great elation; but when the wicked rise to power, men go into hiding.” What are you doing as a follower of Christ to bring righteous leadership to our town, state, and country?
I then gave you an extended illustration of how we see this being played out on a daily basis in our country in the abortion breast cancer connection. The reason there is a connection between abortion and breast cancer is because abortion violates one of the principles that God established to rule His universe, and that is human life is precious. How many of you knew that human life is so precious that even animals that kill a human are under the death penalty? Read Gen. 9:1-6 this afternoon and see if that isn’t what God is saying. The reason human life is precious is because humans are created in the image of God. That fetus bears the image of God, and to terminate the life of the fetus is tantamount to an attack on God Himself – and God doesn’t take that lightly. The message of Deut. 28 is that to the extent we violate God’s principles, we will suffer, and to the extent we honor God’s principles, we will be blessed.
Now before we leave this and get into today’s message, there are two very important clarifications I need to make. First of all, I don’t want anyone to make the logical mistake that every woman you know who has had breast cancer has also had an abortion. There is a connection, but there is not a one-to-one correlation. For instance, do we know that there is a connection between driving while intoxicated and wrecking your car? Yes. There is irrefutable evidence that if you drive while intoxicated there is a higher incidence of accidents. But do we immediately assume that everyone who has a car wreck was intoxicated? Not at all. There is an connection, but there is not a one-to-one correlation. That is the way I want you to view this abortion breast cancer link.
The second clarification is that as terrible and brutal as abortion is, God’s mercy is infinitely larger and more capable for forgiveness and restoration. This is the thrust of Paul’s teaching in Rom. 5:20 when he says, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” Do you see the proportionate nature of God’s grace? God’s grace is always more than enough to meet the need. What that means is that there is no sin beyond God’s capacity for forgiveness. The Bible teaches that “if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This verse teaches that God’s forgiveness is tied to two of his attributes, his faithfulness and justice. The faithfulness makes sense to us, but we don’t often think about forgiveness and justice in the same thought, do we? What do we usually equate justice with? Punishment, right. But this verse equates justice with forgiveness. In other words, if we were to confess a sin, and God refused to forgive us, He would be an unjust God. Well, abortion is one of the sins that this verse covers. So if abortion is a part of you past, there is a message of forgiveness and hope and healing in Christ.
So with that introduction to the concept and importance of God’s principles, I want us to turn our attention now to a series of principles that affect the Christian citizen. Remember, the theme of this series is the role of the follower of Christ in the political process. If you want to know what your role is, you have to know first of all what is important in the big scheme of things. In other words, you have to know what principles are at stake in the political process.
If you want to know how to safely navigate the political process, you have to know first of all what is really important in the big scheme of things.
If you want to have a positive impact on the political process, you have to know first of all what is really important in the big scheme of things.
If you want to know which candidate is going to serve your interests the best, you have to know what he believes about the issues that are really important.
So what I want to do this morning and next Sunday as well is share with you a series of principles that have tremendous bearing on our country. The first one is found in Prov. 28:12, and I’m calling it the principle of righteous leadership.
I. The Principle of Righteous Leadership – Prov. 28:12, 29:2
“When the righteous (צַדִּיק - not “born again,” but just, or ethical in conduct and character) triumph, there is great elation; but when the wicked rise to power, men go into hiding.”
“When the righteous increase, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, people groan.”
This is a principle that obviously has tremendous ramifications for our political situation, and when it is violated, the consequences are devastating. How many of you are familiar with the term “brain drain?” Brain drain is the term given to large-scale immigration of individuals who are academically, artistically, and technologically skilled. Brain drain is almost invariably the outworking of Prov. 28:12 – “when the wicked rise to power, men go into hiding.” Out of hundreds of possible illustrations, think for a moment about Ethiopia and some of the other African countries. Conservatively speaking, brain drain has cost the African continent over $4 billion a year! This is due to the flight of over 150,000 professionals, and the revenue they generate, annually. Ethiopia lost 75 per cent of its skilled workforce between 1980 and 1991. Guess why? Because of the rise of Communism under Mengistu. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered without trial in the red terror, and all who could fled the country. This is why there are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago today than there are in Ethiopia. “When the wicked rise to power, men go into hiding.”
What does this principle (the principle of righteous leadership) mean for you and me as Christian citizens? It means we have a vested interest in the character of our elected officials. From our town officials, to our county officials, to our state officials, to our national officials, character counts! If there is a person running for office who is a local businessman, we need to investigate how he runs his business because how he runs his business is going to be how he runs his agency. We need to investigate his fidelity to his spouse because his fidelity or infidelity will be replicated in his political office. If he won’t honor commitments made to his spouse, do you think he will suddenly start honoring commitments made to his constituency? Character and ethical conduct are huge! You cannot separate political skill from personal character.
This principle is why it is right for people to be adamantly opposed to people like JFK, and Bill Clinton, and Eliot Spitzer serving as elected officials. And by the way, I think there is a difference between a man who succumbs to temptation and falls, but then confesses, repents, makes restitution and gets on with his life; and the man who is chronically unfaithful and lies and deceives and diminishes his guilt. But character is inextricably bound to political skill.
Most people know Samuel Adams only as a beer label, but listen to this quote: “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt [this is last week’s principle – “the way of the transgressor is hard”. If you have a nation full of corrupt people, their lives will be difficult no matter how many wise laws and constitutions are passed.] He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.” Let me repeat that so it sticks in our minds. “He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.”
This sentiment was tenaciously held to by our founding fathers. They understood the principle of righteous leadership. They knew, based on their understanding of European and world history, that “when the wicked rule, men groan and go into hiding.” This is why they were adamant that men of noble character served in public office. For instance, they deliberately kept the salary of elected official very low so that greedy men would not be attracted to office. Greed is a character issue and our founding fathers believed that character was important. This is why George Washington refused a salary when he was the president – even though his plantation had been basically destroyed in the war and had not been built back to full production. He also refused a salary while serving as Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces during the Revolutionary War. This was the attitude of our country’s early public servants which is why our nation thrived under their leadership. “When the righteous triumph, there is great rejoicing, but when the wicked come to power, men go into hiding.”
Before I give you a series of practical steps to take in relation to this principle, let’s look at one more passage in Proverbs. Turn back one chapter to chapter 28 and look with me at verses 15 and 16. “Like a roaring lion and a rushing bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people.[How many historical illustrations could we come up with that demonstrate this truth?] A leader who is a great oppressor lacks understanding [this is a message all elected officials need to hear], but he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days [cf. G. Washington not wanting to serve a second or third term].”
If you want to read a biblical example of how this works, read 2 Chron. 10:1-10 this afternoon. This is the account where King Rehoboam, upon ascending the throne of his father Solomon, rejected the advice of his elders and followed the advice of the young men he grew up with, and look at the consequences of his foolishness. He was a “great oppressor” [“my father disciplined you with whips, I will discipline you with scorpions”] which showed his “lack of understanding.” Rehoboam rejected sound principles because he was not a principled man, and he paid a high price for his foolishness.
What this means for you and me as citizens of the greatest nation this world has known, is that we have a huge privilege in being able to elect our leaders. We don’t live in a monarch like Israel did – we have a voice in who rules us. We don’t have a dictator who seized the Oval Office by armed revolution – we have a voice in who rules us. So let’s not forget this principle of righteous leadership.
Here are the three action steps we need to take if we are going to apply the principle we have studied this morning. Step #1 – get registered to vote if you aren’t already. How many of you heard the statistic Jason McGuire told us two weeks ago about church voting records? He said that in the last election, only 50% of the people in the church were registered to vote. That ain’t right! Or as my Southern friends say it, “dat’s just wroang.” Only half of all church members are registered to vote. It is a privilege to have a voice in the election of our officials, but if you aren’t registered, you have no say.
The second action step is to actually vote. Jason also told us that only half of the registered voters in the church actually voted! Again, that ain’t right! What that means is that out of all the possible voters in the church, only 25% of them actually made the effort to go out and vote in the last election. How can we have ethical, just rulers if only 25% of the church is voting? Again, it is a privilege to have a voice in the election of our officials, but if you aren’t actually going to the polls, you have no say.
The final step is to get to know the character of the candidates. Out of the three action steps, this one is the hardest. It isn’t hard work to get registered. It isn’t hard work to get out on election day, but it does take some effort to know the character of the candidates. The good news though is that there are lots of resources available that make the work easier. Voting records are online. You can just scan down the list of bills up for vote, see how they voted, and then draw conclusions about their character based on their voting record. There are organizations that are dedicated to voter education. And perhaps most importantly for us Christians, there are Christian Political Action Committees committed to educating Christian voters about where the various candidates stand. Next week I’ll try to have some links printed in the bulletin to show you where to go for information.
So, what is the role of the follower of Christ in the political process? His first role involves the principle of righteous leadership. “When the righteous triumph, there is great elation; but when the wicked rise to power, men go into hiding.” What are you doing as a follower of Christ to bring righteous leadership to our town, state, and country?
The Benefits of Principled Living
This morning we are going to be in Deuteronomy 28 where we are going to consider the fundamental principle that will serve as the theme for our study of the role of the follower of Christ in the political process. I hope you were blessed last Sunday by the ministry of Jason McGuire. He is a follower of Christ who has a vision for being involved in the political process. You heard it directly from his mouth that he wants to influence legislators and legislation for the glory of God. That is a great motto and certainly worthy of our imitation. If there is anything a Christian should aspire to, it is being influential. Not in a proud way, but in the biblical way of exerting an influence on those around you.
The title I have given this message is, “The Benefit of Principled Living.” Living according to principles as opposed to feelings, or polls, or your peers opinions is a discipline that will serve you well all your life. For example, a good principle to live by is to never spit into the wind. You usually only have to do that once to learn that that is a bad idea. Another good principle to live by is to make sure when you are using a hand saw, your first stroke should always be a pull, never a push. Similar to this is the principle that you should always use tools according to their design. Screw drivers are not designed to have their handles hammered, so don’t use them as a chisel.
These are all small principles and as such they have small consequences when they are violated. Breaking the handle of your screwdriver because you are pounding on it with a hammer really isn’t that big of a deal. Cutting your finger because you are using your saw the wrong way doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things. But, the larger the principle, the larger the consequences of violating it. For instance:
you can’t spend your way out of debt. That is a big principle of life! Another biggie is,
you can’t have a high standard of living and high employment rates at the same time.
You can’t hoard resources and generate wealth at the same time.
The moral character of a leader affects his decision making ability – and consequently the quality of life of the follower.
These are huge principles and if you violate them, the consequences are staggering. This is why it makes sense to live according to principles. When we live principled lives, we trade short term pain for long term gain, which is why most people don’t live according to principles. The principled choice is almost always the more difficult of the two choices, but I assure you that principled living has great benefits.
Now, before we get into the passage I want us to look at, let me give you three important truths about principles. 1) Principles are divine in origin. God created this universe to operate by principles. I want to make sure everybody understands that this universe, and the inhabitants of this planet (both human and animal – cf. Gen. 9:5), are subject to the principles and laws God established at creation. 2) A principle does not become a principle because it won a majority vote. That is not how principles come into being. A principle does not cease being a principle if you get enough signatures on a petition to rescind it. Principles emanate from God and are reflections of His character. And 3), your relationship to God or lack of relationship to God does not determine whether or not these principles are binding on you or not. Every person on this planet is subject to God’s laws, regardless of his relationship to God.
So with this introduction to principles, let’s look at this passage in Deuteronomy and see the benefit of principled living. The passage we are going to be considering today is found in Deut. 28. We will be reading verses 1 – 20.
"And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God.
3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.
5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 "The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
8 The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
9 The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways.
10 And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you.
11 And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.
12 The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
13 And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them,
14 and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
15 "But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.
16 Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
17 Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.
19 Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
20 "The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds.
If I were to sum up these 20 verses, here is what God is saying. “If you will live according to the principles I have established to rule my universe, you will reap positive consequences. But if you defy my principles, you will pay a very heavy price for your foolishness.” Now I know that the immediate context of this passage is the nation of Israel and their obedience to the laws God gave to Moses. But when you think about it, the reason God’s moral law was binding on Israel is the same as the reason God’s universal laws are binding on all of creation. As the creator (and it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about the creation of Israel or the universe), it is His right to regulate His creation as He pleases. So make sure you remember the teaching of Deut. 28: “If you will live according to the principles I have established to rule my universe, you will reap positive consequences. But if you defy my principles, you will pay a very heavy price for your foolishness.”
Let me give you in the rest of our time this morning an illustration of this truth that God blesses obedience and punishes disobedience. Turn with me to Prov. 13:15 where we see a very general principle. Here we read that “Good understanding gives favor: but the way of transgressors is hard.” How many of you have learned that “the way of the transgressor is hard?” We usually discover this principle early on in life, don’t we? This same principle is expressed using different terms down in verse 21. “Adversity pursues sinners, but the righteous will be rewarded with prosperity.” Look next with me at the book of Job. I want us to go to chapter 4:8-9 and see Job’s friend’s testimony. “As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. 9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.” This matter of suffering some kind of adversity for violating an established guideline is a universal principle established by God. It did not become a principle by popular vote, and just because you don’t agree with it or believe it is binding on you doesn’t matter – the way of the transgressor is hard.
How many of you were aware that there has never been a civilization that has not been regulated by some code of justice. You can go to the most barbaric, uncivilized tribe in the world and find that they had a recognized set of guidelines (minimal as they may have been) that established boundaries for the tribe, or group, or nation. If you lived within those boundaries, it would go well with you. But if you go outside those boundaries, adversity will pursue you! Your way will be hard. And the reason we can find this phenomenon throughout human history is because the reward of good and the punishment of evil is one of God’s principles.
The Apostle Paul elaborates on this principle in Gal. 6:7-8. While you are turning there, I will tell you that the popular way of expressing this principle is to say, “What goes around comes around.” How many of you have ever heard that saying? Is it true? You better believe it is! Another popular way of expressing this principle is to say, “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.” Paul’s way of expressing it is found here in Galatians 6 when he says in verse 7, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
I like the way Paul states this because he starts with a warning about dismissing the truth of what he is about to say. If you think you can sow something and then get away with not reaping the consequences, you are delusional. If you think that “what goes around comes around” applies to everyone else except you, you are “deceived.” Why? Because God’s nature as a just God is on the line here, and He will not be mocked. So Paul starts with a word of caution about trying to dismiss this principle. He then goes on to narrow this principle down and tells us that there is a specific connection between the sowing and reaping. Let me develop this for just a minute.
How many of you are aware of the connection between abortion and breast cancer? The first time I heard about this was at a seminar about 10 years ago when a doctor who did extensive research into it gave a lecture explaining how it worked. He said that the single best thing a woman could do to protect herself against breast cancer was to have a full term pregnancy. This was discovered back in the 17th century when doctors started taking note of the high rate of breast cancer among nuns. So the medical community has known for a long time that there is a connection between childbearing (or the lack of childbearing) and breast cancer.1 But it is especially harmful to a woman’s body if she terminates her pregnancy. Here’s why.
When a woman conceives, her body immediately starts flooding her breasts with the hormone estradiol to get them ready for lactation. At 8 weeks, the level of estradiol is 500 times the level it was at conception. This hormone, which is a form of estrogen, causes the proliferation of both normal and precancerous cells, which is why her breasts start to swell. Now, at 8 months, a second process takes place called “differentiation.” Differentiation is the process of shaping these cells into milk producing tissue and it shuts off the cell multiplication process. If the fetus is aborted before differentiation, the woman is left with all these pre-cancerous cells – more than she had before she got pregnant. This is why there is such a high incidence of breast cancer in women who have had abortions. And interestingly enough, research has shown that most miscarriages do not raise the breast cancer risk. This is because the woman’s body knows there is a problem with the fetus so her body stops the production of the progesterone which is needed to maintain the pregnancy, as well as the estradiol, which prepares her for lactation.
The reason I’m giving you this illustration is because it shows two things. First of all, it shows in a general way that if you violate God’s laws, there are consequences. You cannot snuff out a human life and expect to merrily make your way down life’s path without any consequences. What goes around, comes around. You live by the sword, and you will die by the sword. But more precisely than this general application is the truth of what Paul says in Gal. 6. Is it a stretch to say that if a woman chooses to take the life of her child, that God will take away the very organ that was going to be used to sustain that child’s life?
Is it a stretch to say that because of the egregious nature of a woman terminating the life in her womb (the womb should be the safest place in the universe, and the mother should be the most ferocious protector of that life) that in God’s justice the most visible manifestation of her femininity will be affected?
The bottom line here is that one of the principles that God has established to rule His universe is that our actions carry very specific consequences. God blesses obedience and God disciplines disobedience. This is why it makes a lot of sense to live within the confines that God has established. There are benefits to principled living. God said it explicitly in Deut. 28, and we see it illustrated bountifully in life.
By way of conclusion, you are probably asking yourself what in the world this has to do with the role of the follower of Christ in the political process, and I have to ask you to be patient and let me build my foundation. I assure you that what we talked about this morning is relevant to our topic, but I have to lay out several planks to build on before we get into the specifics. So starting next Sunday I am going to give you a quick overview of some of the biblical principles our nation was built on.
The title I have given this message is, “The Benefit of Principled Living.” Living according to principles as opposed to feelings, or polls, or your peers opinions is a discipline that will serve you well all your life. For example, a good principle to live by is to never spit into the wind. You usually only have to do that once to learn that that is a bad idea. Another good principle to live by is to make sure when you are using a hand saw, your first stroke should always be a pull, never a push. Similar to this is the principle that you should always use tools according to their design. Screw drivers are not designed to have their handles hammered, so don’t use them as a chisel.
These are all small principles and as such they have small consequences when they are violated. Breaking the handle of your screwdriver because you are pounding on it with a hammer really isn’t that big of a deal. Cutting your finger because you are using your saw the wrong way doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things. But, the larger the principle, the larger the consequences of violating it. For instance:
you can’t spend your way out of debt. That is a big principle of life! Another biggie is,
you can’t have a high standard of living and high employment rates at the same time.
You can’t hoard resources and generate wealth at the same time.
The moral character of a leader affects his decision making ability – and consequently the quality of life of the follower.
These are huge principles and if you violate them, the consequences are staggering. This is why it makes sense to live according to principles. When we live principled lives, we trade short term pain for long term gain, which is why most people don’t live according to principles. The principled choice is almost always the more difficult of the two choices, but I assure you that principled living has great benefits.
Now, before we get into the passage I want us to look at, let me give you three important truths about principles. 1) Principles are divine in origin. God created this universe to operate by principles. I want to make sure everybody understands that this universe, and the inhabitants of this planet (both human and animal – cf. Gen. 9:5), are subject to the principles and laws God established at creation. 2) A principle does not become a principle because it won a majority vote. That is not how principles come into being. A principle does not cease being a principle if you get enough signatures on a petition to rescind it. Principles emanate from God and are reflections of His character. And 3), your relationship to God or lack of relationship to God does not determine whether or not these principles are binding on you or not. Every person on this planet is subject to God’s laws, regardless of his relationship to God.
So with this introduction to principles, let’s look at this passage in Deuteronomy and see the benefit of principled living. The passage we are going to be considering today is found in Deut. 28. We will be reading verses 1 – 20.
"And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God.
3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.
5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 "The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
8 The LORD will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
9 The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in his ways.
10 And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you.
11 And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.
12 The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
13 And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them,
14 and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
15 "But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.
16 Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
17 Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.
19 Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
20 "The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds.
If I were to sum up these 20 verses, here is what God is saying. “If you will live according to the principles I have established to rule my universe, you will reap positive consequences. But if you defy my principles, you will pay a very heavy price for your foolishness.” Now I know that the immediate context of this passage is the nation of Israel and their obedience to the laws God gave to Moses. But when you think about it, the reason God’s moral law was binding on Israel is the same as the reason God’s universal laws are binding on all of creation. As the creator (and it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about the creation of Israel or the universe), it is His right to regulate His creation as He pleases. So make sure you remember the teaching of Deut. 28: “If you will live according to the principles I have established to rule my universe, you will reap positive consequences. But if you defy my principles, you will pay a very heavy price for your foolishness.”
Let me give you in the rest of our time this morning an illustration of this truth that God blesses obedience and punishes disobedience. Turn with me to Prov. 13:15 where we see a very general principle. Here we read that “Good understanding gives favor: but the way of transgressors is hard.” How many of you have learned that “the way of the transgressor is hard?” We usually discover this principle early on in life, don’t we? This same principle is expressed using different terms down in verse 21. “Adversity pursues sinners, but the righteous will be rewarded with prosperity.” Look next with me at the book of Job. I want us to go to chapter 4:8-9 and see Job’s friend’s testimony. “As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. 9 By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.” This matter of suffering some kind of adversity for violating an established guideline is a universal principle established by God. It did not become a principle by popular vote, and just because you don’t agree with it or believe it is binding on you doesn’t matter – the way of the transgressor is hard.
How many of you were aware that there has never been a civilization that has not been regulated by some code of justice. You can go to the most barbaric, uncivilized tribe in the world and find that they had a recognized set of guidelines (minimal as they may have been) that established boundaries for the tribe, or group, or nation. If you lived within those boundaries, it would go well with you. But if you go outside those boundaries, adversity will pursue you! Your way will be hard. And the reason we can find this phenomenon throughout human history is because the reward of good and the punishment of evil is one of God’s principles.
The Apostle Paul elaborates on this principle in Gal. 6:7-8. While you are turning there, I will tell you that the popular way of expressing this principle is to say, “What goes around comes around.” How many of you have ever heard that saying? Is it true? You better believe it is! Another popular way of expressing this principle is to say, “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.” Paul’s way of expressing it is found here in Galatians 6 when he says in verse 7, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.”
I like the way Paul states this because he starts with a warning about dismissing the truth of what he is about to say. If you think you can sow something and then get away with not reaping the consequences, you are delusional. If you think that “what goes around comes around” applies to everyone else except you, you are “deceived.” Why? Because God’s nature as a just God is on the line here, and He will not be mocked. So Paul starts with a word of caution about trying to dismiss this principle. He then goes on to narrow this principle down and tells us that there is a specific connection between the sowing and reaping. Let me develop this for just a minute.
How many of you are aware of the connection between abortion and breast cancer? The first time I heard about this was at a seminar about 10 years ago when a doctor who did extensive research into it gave a lecture explaining how it worked. He said that the single best thing a woman could do to protect herself against breast cancer was to have a full term pregnancy. This was discovered back in the 17th century when doctors started taking note of the high rate of breast cancer among nuns. So the medical community has known for a long time that there is a connection between childbearing (or the lack of childbearing) and breast cancer.1 But it is especially harmful to a woman’s body if she terminates her pregnancy. Here’s why.
When a woman conceives, her body immediately starts flooding her breasts with the hormone estradiol to get them ready for lactation. At 8 weeks, the level of estradiol is 500 times the level it was at conception. This hormone, which is a form of estrogen, causes the proliferation of both normal and precancerous cells, which is why her breasts start to swell. Now, at 8 months, a second process takes place called “differentiation.” Differentiation is the process of shaping these cells into milk producing tissue and it shuts off the cell multiplication process. If the fetus is aborted before differentiation, the woman is left with all these pre-cancerous cells – more than she had before she got pregnant. This is why there is such a high incidence of breast cancer in women who have had abortions. And interestingly enough, research has shown that most miscarriages do not raise the breast cancer risk. This is because the woman’s body knows there is a problem with the fetus so her body stops the production of the progesterone which is needed to maintain the pregnancy, as well as the estradiol, which prepares her for lactation.
The reason I’m giving you this illustration is because it shows two things. First of all, it shows in a general way that if you violate God’s laws, there are consequences. You cannot snuff out a human life and expect to merrily make your way down life’s path without any consequences. What goes around, comes around. You live by the sword, and you will die by the sword. But more precisely than this general application is the truth of what Paul says in Gal. 6. Is it a stretch to say that if a woman chooses to take the life of her child, that God will take away the very organ that was going to be used to sustain that child’s life?
Is it a stretch to say that because of the egregious nature of a woman terminating the life in her womb (the womb should be the safest place in the universe, and the mother should be the most ferocious protector of that life) that in God’s justice the most visible manifestation of her femininity will be affected?
The bottom line here is that one of the principles that God has established to rule His universe is that our actions carry very specific consequences. God blesses obedience and God disciplines disobedience. This is why it makes a lot of sense to live within the confines that God has established. There are benefits to principled living. God said it explicitly in Deut. 28, and we see it illustrated bountifully in life.
By way of conclusion, you are probably asking yourself what in the world this has to do with the role of the follower of Christ in the political process, and I have to ask you to be patient and let me build my foundation. I assure you that what we talked about this morning is relevant to our topic, but I have to lay out several planks to build on before we get into the specifics. So starting next Sunday I am going to give you a quick overview of some of the biblical principles our nation was built on.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
How Do I Deal With Idols of the Heart - Part Three
Let’s turn in our Bibles this morning to 1 Tim. 2. This morning we are going to finish up our study of the idols of the heart. Idolatry is something that God takes very seriously, and just because we don’t burn incense to little gold and silver statues in our homes doesn’t mean we don’t struggle when it comes to idols. Here in the Western world, and in particular, in Western Evangelicalism, we have a tendency to worship concepts, not objects. Concepts like control, respect, appreciation, comfort, and success.
One thing I think we have learned in this study is that our God is a jealous God and will not tolerate any competition. Because of His exclusivity He deals strongly with competitors. Two weeks ago we looked again at Ez. 14 and saw that God has a single objective on His mind when His children have divided loyalties – and that is the destruction of the idol, the destruction of His competition.
The final dimension of our study of idols is “How to deal with idols of the heart.” We know what they look like, we know how detrimental they are, we know how to identify them in our lives, so it behooves us to get rid of them. And so far we have looked at three principles for dealing with idols. First of all, we have to choose whom we will serve – we can’t serve two masters. Secondly, we have to resolve to love God with all our hearts – we can’t give Him most of our affection, He wants it all. Third, we have to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit – He was sent to be our Helper because God knows idolatry is a powerful attraction and we can’t defeat it on our own power.
This brings us up to where we are today, so let’s look at the final two principles we need to practice if we want to conclusively destroy the idols we have erected in our lives. I want us to start by looking at this passage in 1 Timothy 2:3-4. I’m calling this principle, “Carry a warrior mentality.”
4. Carry A Warrior Mentality – 1 Tim. 2:3-4
Several years ago Steve Farrar wrote a very good book for men and fathers called “Point Man.” In it he compared the job of a father to the job of the point man on a military patrol. He explained how in the Vietnam war when small groups of soldiers would be in enemy territory, there was this point man would walk some distance ahead of the rest of the patrol and serve as the lookout. It was a critically important position since the point man was responsible for the safety of the entire group, and it was a very dangerous position because he was exposed as well as isolated from the safety of the group. When you are the point man for the day, every nerve in your body is on high alert. You know that any stick on the path could be the trigger for a booby trap. Any indention on the side of the trail could be concealing a land mine. Any movement in the bushes could be an enemy soldier ready to take your life. And because of the unrelenting tension and danger, you didn’t dare mosey your way down the path and through the jungle.
That is the imagery I am appealing to when I say that one of the principles for tearing down idols is to carry a warrior mentality. The apostle Paul thought along the same lines, according to 2 Tim. 2:3-4. Here he says, “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” In his letters to Philemon and the church in Philippi, he refers to two of his co-workers as “fellow soldiers.” Why all this military terminology? Because Paul appreciated the danger associated with being in enemy territory. When you are the point man, you are not wondering if the Yankees are winning or not. You aren’t planning what you are going to have for dinner that night. You aren’t worrying about the lack of rain and how low the water table is. You’re not thinking about how the dollar is doing against the yen, in other words, you “aren’t entangled with the affairs of everyday life.” You have a single focus, and that is the danger of your situation and the survival of yourself and your men.
Something to remember about dealing with idols is that you can never let your guard down. Every morning when we wake up, our feet need to hit the floor with the realization that we are at war with an enemy who is committed to our destruction. And to feed into our imagery of idolatry, there really is an idol behind every bush. In addition to that, just because you had victory yesterday doesn’t mean you will have victory today. Just because we had victory every day last week doesn’t mean we will have victory today.
I was talking with a man one time, and in the course of the conversation he told me he was an alcoholic. I didn’t think much of it until he told me later in the conversation that he hadn’t had a drink of alcohol in ten years! How does that work? I’ve had former addicts tell me the same thing – “I’m an addict, but I haven’t used in years.” What’s going on? These people understand the nature of an idol. They know they can never let their guard down. They know they can relapse in an instant, so they carry a warrior mentality.
We have to live this way as well. Several months ago I shared with you the basic principle that idols are insidious. They disguise themselves as legitimate desires, and if we don’t view life from the perspective of a warrior mentality, we will fall.
Transition: The final principle I’d like to share with you about dealing with idols is found in 2 Pt. 1:4 – 10, and that is to strengthen critical spiritual disciplines.
5. Strengthen Critical Spiritual Disciplines – 2 Pt. 1:4-10
[For by these] he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.
Let’s talk for a moment about strengthening critical spiritual disciplines. Last week as we were talking about appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit, I emphasized the fact that we are incapable of dealing conclusively with idols all by ourselves. We need supernatural help. A misapplication of that truth would be the idea that we carry no responsibility in this matter and that we can simply sit back and let the Holy Spirit do all the work. That is an imbalanced view. The principle that balances appropriating the Holy Spirit is this one found in 2 Peter 1:2-4 that tells us we have a role in the matter as well.
What we all have in common is our faith, but then we have to “apply all diligence” (v.5) to add various disciplines to our faith: virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, etc. These disciplines need to be “increasing,” according to verse 8. “Increasing” is the opposite of “stagnating.” In other words, they need to be getting larger. And in verse 10 we see that we have to “practice” these disciplines.
Do world class athletes and musicians practice every day, or do they have their skills perfected and no longer need to practice? Obviously, even the most skilled athletes and musicians practice every day. Yehudi Menuhin is considered by many to be the greatest violinist of the 20th century, and he regularly practiced 8 hours a day. Why? Because he understood the principle that practice is important. World class musicians know that while they may have intrinsic abilities that separate them from the rest of the masses, it would be presumptuous to assume they could sit back and coast for the rest of their lives.
My point is that even though we have the Holy Spirit residing in us as our Helper, it is presumptuous for us to assume we can sit back and let Him do all the work in destroying the idols in our life. In fact, there are three disciplines that figure prominently in idol destruction. Let me give them to you quickly. The first is found in Mt. 17.
A. Prayer and Fasting – Mt. 17:21
14 And when they came to the multitude, a man came up to Him, falling on his knees before Him, and saying, 15 "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic, and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 "And I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him." 17 And Jesus answered and said, "O unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me." 18 And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" 20 And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you. 21 "But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."
Prayer and fasting is a discipline we don’t talk a lot about, which is unfortunate in light of it’s power. The point Jesus was making to His disciples is that there are some things in life that are so overwhelming that there is only one solution, and that is to pray and fast about the issue. If you are struggling with an idol that you just can’t seem to tear down, I strongly suggest you start here. Set aside a day to fast and pray for victory.
The second critical spiritual disciple I want to share with you is found in
Matt. 18:7-9, and I’m calling it radical amputation.
B. Radical Amputation – Mt. 18:8-9
8 "And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble [sin], cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the eternal fire. 9 "And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into the fiery hell.
Radical amputation is the idea that we need to be willing to take radical steps to get rid of the idols in our lives. An outstanding example of what this looks like is in the movie Fireproof. Do you remember the struggle the fire chief was having with his computer? How did he deal with it? He didn’t purchase filtering software. He didn’t set up an accountability partner. He took it outside and smashed it with a baseball bat. That is radical amputation! I have a pastor friend in Albany who has men struggling this way bring him their computer. They have to turn it in to him for two months. Some of the guys balk and insist they can’t live without it, and he simply says, “How serious are you about dealing with the problem? If you are ready to do business and break the hold this has on you, you’ll bring me the computer. Otherwise, you’re just playing around.” That is radical amputation, and sometimes that is the missing element in dealing with our idols.
The final critical spiritual discipline I want to share with you comes from James 5:16. I’m calling it confession and accountability.
C. Confession and Accountability – James 5:16
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
Confession and accountability is another one of those disciplines that isn’t practiced too often. The dynamic involved in this discipline is similar to the dynamic involved in appropriating the power of the HS. Do you remember when I showed you how the presence of another person had a powerful effect on our behavior? It is easy to be “good” when we are around other people, but when we are alone, it’s a battle to be “good,” isn’t it? This is the same concept behind confession and accountability.
It isn’t hard for me to confess a sin to God. Why? Because it is something I do in private, and I can’t see Him. It is a whole different dynamic if I have to confess my sin to another human. Earlier this year we tried to get a men’s accountability program going here at church, and the idea was that we would meet on a monthly basis, share our struggles with each other, hold each other accountable, and pray for one another. Guess how well that idea went over? It was a flop! Guess why? Because it is easy to confess sins to God. We can do that in private. It’s a whole different story though to confess sins to another person.
But what does James say? He says, “confess your sins to one another [not for forgiveness, only “God can forgive sins”], and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
So there you have the five principles for dealing with idols of the heart. Can you remember them all? Here’s another acronym to help you: C-R-A-C-S. Choose Whom you will serve. Resolve to love God with all your heart. Appropriate the power of the HS. Carry a warrior mentality, and Strengthen critical spiritual disciplines.
One thing I think we have learned in this study is that our God is a jealous God and will not tolerate any competition. Because of His exclusivity He deals strongly with competitors. Two weeks ago we looked again at Ez. 14 and saw that God has a single objective on His mind when His children have divided loyalties – and that is the destruction of the idol, the destruction of His competition.
The final dimension of our study of idols is “How to deal with idols of the heart.” We know what they look like, we know how detrimental they are, we know how to identify them in our lives, so it behooves us to get rid of them. And so far we have looked at three principles for dealing with idols. First of all, we have to choose whom we will serve – we can’t serve two masters. Secondly, we have to resolve to love God with all our hearts – we can’t give Him most of our affection, He wants it all. Third, we have to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit – He was sent to be our Helper because God knows idolatry is a powerful attraction and we can’t defeat it on our own power.
This brings us up to where we are today, so let’s look at the final two principles we need to practice if we want to conclusively destroy the idols we have erected in our lives. I want us to start by looking at this passage in 1 Timothy 2:3-4. I’m calling this principle, “Carry a warrior mentality.”
4. Carry A Warrior Mentality – 1 Tim. 2:3-4
Several years ago Steve Farrar wrote a very good book for men and fathers called “Point Man.” In it he compared the job of a father to the job of the point man on a military patrol. He explained how in the Vietnam war when small groups of soldiers would be in enemy territory, there was this point man would walk some distance ahead of the rest of the patrol and serve as the lookout. It was a critically important position since the point man was responsible for the safety of the entire group, and it was a very dangerous position because he was exposed as well as isolated from the safety of the group. When you are the point man for the day, every nerve in your body is on high alert. You know that any stick on the path could be the trigger for a booby trap. Any indention on the side of the trail could be concealing a land mine. Any movement in the bushes could be an enemy soldier ready to take your life. And because of the unrelenting tension and danger, you didn’t dare mosey your way down the path and through the jungle.
That is the imagery I am appealing to when I say that one of the principles for tearing down idols is to carry a warrior mentality. The apostle Paul thought along the same lines, according to 2 Tim. 2:3-4. Here he says, “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” In his letters to Philemon and the church in Philippi, he refers to two of his co-workers as “fellow soldiers.” Why all this military terminology? Because Paul appreciated the danger associated with being in enemy territory. When you are the point man, you are not wondering if the Yankees are winning or not. You aren’t planning what you are going to have for dinner that night. You aren’t worrying about the lack of rain and how low the water table is. You’re not thinking about how the dollar is doing against the yen, in other words, you “aren’t entangled with the affairs of everyday life.” You have a single focus, and that is the danger of your situation and the survival of yourself and your men.
Something to remember about dealing with idols is that you can never let your guard down. Every morning when we wake up, our feet need to hit the floor with the realization that we are at war with an enemy who is committed to our destruction. And to feed into our imagery of idolatry, there really is an idol behind every bush. In addition to that, just because you had victory yesterday doesn’t mean you will have victory today. Just because we had victory every day last week doesn’t mean we will have victory today.
I was talking with a man one time, and in the course of the conversation he told me he was an alcoholic. I didn’t think much of it until he told me later in the conversation that he hadn’t had a drink of alcohol in ten years! How does that work? I’ve had former addicts tell me the same thing – “I’m an addict, but I haven’t used in years.” What’s going on? These people understand the nature of an idol. They know they can never let their guard down. They know they can relapse in an instant, so they carry a warrior mentality.
We have to live this way as well. Several months ago I shared with you the basic principle that idols are insidious. They disguise themselves as legitimate desires, and if we don’t view life from the perspective of a warrior mentality, we will fall.
Transition: The final principle I’d like to share with you about dealing with idols is found in 2 Pt. 1:4 – 10, and that is to strengthen critical spiritual disciplines.
5. Strengthen Critical Spiritual Disciplines – 2 Pt. 1:4-10
[For by these] he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. 10 Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.
Let’s talk for a moment about strengthening critical spiritual disciplines. Last week as we were talking about appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit, I emphasized the fact that we are incapable of dealing conclusively with idols all by ourselves. We need supernatural help. A misapplication of that truth would be the idea that we carry no responsibility in this matter and that we can simply sit back and let the Holy Spirit do all the work. That is an imbalanced view. The principle that balances appropriating the Holy Spirit is this one found in 2 Peter 1:2-4 that tells us we have a role in the matter as well.
What we all have in common is our faith, but then we have to “apply all diligence” (v.5) to add various disciplines to our faith: virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, etc. These disciplines need to be “increasing,” according to verse 8. “Increasing” is the opposite of “stagnating.” In other words, they need to be getting larger. And in verse 10 we see that we have to “practice” these disciplines.
Do world class athletes and musicians practice every day, or do they have their skills perfected and no longer need to practice? Obviously, even the most skilled athletes and musicians practice every day. Yehudi Menuhin is considered by many to be the greatest violinist of the 20th century, and he regularly practiced 8 hours a day. Why? Because he understood the principle that practice is important. World class musicians know that while they may have intrinsic abilities that separate them from the rest of the masses, it would be presumptuous to assume they could sit back and coast for the rest of their lives.
My point is that even though we have the Holy Spirit residing in us as our Helper, it is presumptuous for us to assume we can sit back and let Him do all the work in destroying the idols in our life. In fact, there are three disciplines that figure prominently in idol destruction. Let me give them to you quickly. The first is found in Mt. 17.
A. Prayer and Fasting – Mt. 17:21
14 And when they came to the multitude, a man came up to Him, falling on his knees before Him, and saying, 15 "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic, and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 "And I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him." 17 And Jesus answered and said, "O unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me." 18 And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" 20 And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you. 21 "But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."
Prayer and fasting is a discipline we don’t talk a lot about, which is unfortunate in light of it’s power. The point Jesus was making to His disciples is that there are some things in life that are so overwhelming that there is only one solution, and that is to pray and fast about the issue. If you are struggling with an idol that you just can’t seem to tear down, I strongly suggest you start here. Set aside a day to fast and pray for victory.
The second critical spiritual disciple I want to share with you is found in
Matt. 18:7-9, and I’m calling it radical amputation.
B. Radical Amputation – Mt. 18:8-9
8 "And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble [sin], cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the eternal fire. 9 "And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into the fiery hell.
Radical amputation is the idea that we need to be willing to take radical steps to get rid of the idols in our lives. An outstanding example of what this looks like is in the movie Fireproof. Do you remember the struggle the fire chief was having with his computer? How did he deal with it? He didn’t purchase filtering software. He didn’t set up an accountability partner. He took it outside and smashed it with a baseball bat. That is radical amputation! I have a pastor friend in Albany who has men struggling this way bring him their computer. They have to turn it in to him for two months. Some of the guys balk and insist they can’t live without it, and he simply says, “How serious are you about dealing with the problem? If you are ready to do business and break the hold this has on you, you’ll bring me the computer. Otherwise, you’re just playing around.” That is radical amputation, and sometimes that is the missing element in dealing with our idols.
The final critical spiritual discipline I want to share with you comes from James 5:16. I’m calling it confession and accountability.
C. Confession and Accountability – James 5:16
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
Confession and accountability is another one of those disciplines that isn’t practiced too often. The dynamic involved in this discipline is similar to the dynamic involved in appropriating the power of the HS. Do you remember when I showed you how the presence of another person had a powerful effect on our behavior? It is easy to be “good” when we are around other people, but when we are alone, it’s a battle to be “good,” isn’t it? This is the same concept behind confession and accountability.
It isn’t hard for me to confess a sin to God. Why? Because it is something I do in private, and I can’t see Him. It is a whole different dynamic if I have to confess my sin to another human. Earlier this year we tried to get a men’s accountability program going here at church, and the idea was that we would meet on a monthly basis, share our struggles with each other, hold each other accountable, and pray for one another. Guess how well that idea went over? It was a flop! Guess why? Because it is easy to confess sins to God. We can do that in private. It’s a whole different story though to confess sins to another person.
But what does James say? He says, “confess your sins to one another [not for forgiveness, only “God can forgive sins”], and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
So there you have the five principles for dealing with idols of the heart. Can you remember them all? Here’s another acronym to help you: C-R-A-C-S. Choose Whom you will serve. Resolve to love God with all your heart. Appropriate the power of the HS. Carry a warrior mentality, and Strengthen critical spiritual disciplines.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
How Do I Deal With Idols of the Heart - Part Two
How Do I Deal With Idols of the Heart? - Part 2
I’d like us to start this morning by turning to Ez. 14. The topic we have been considering for the past several months is idols of the heart. We have identified five basic idols: control, respect, appreciation, comfort, and success. Three weeks ago, we started drawing this study to a close by asking the question, “How do I deal with these idols?” We know what the idols are, what they look like, how they manifest themselves in everyday life, and we know how we can determine their presence. So now we need a battle plan to get rid of them. The last time we were together I gave you the first two and a half steps, so this morning we’ll finish up the third one which I believe is a key element.
Before we get into this, I want us to look at Ez. 14 again and take a minute to remind us why we are studying this particular issue. I don’t want us to forget the overall trajectory we are on. I believe we are at a critical juncture in the history of our nation. I have shared with you that I believe we have about 24 months left to pull ourselves away from the precipice, politically speaking; and the real solution is not as simple as just electing conservative, virtuous, constitutionally oriented officials. We are in a spiritual battle that has to be fought as well as won spiritually! Now where idols come into this picture is the principle that when God’s people are involved in idolatry, God has a single objective on His mind, and that is the eradication of the idol. Let’s read this passage in Ez. 14 again and see this truth.
Ezekiel says in verse one, “Then some elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me. [In chapter 12 Ezekiel had acted out several charades that illustrated the coming destruction of Israel] 2 And the word of the LORD came to me saying, 3 "Son of man, these men [the elders] have set up their idols in their hearts, and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all? [In this question, God is highlighting the absurd nature of trying to serve two masters] 4 "Therefore speak to them and tell them, 'Thus says the Lord God, "Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the LORD will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols, 5 in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols."'
So here we have the elders of Israel who wanted to know what was in store for their nation, so they inquired of God, but God didn’t want to talk to them about their nation, did He? He wanted to talk to them about their idols. As applied to us, we cry out to God to turn our nation around, and God says, “I don’t want to talk to you about your nation, I want to talk to you about your idols.” Here is a vital truth we have to understand. The fate of the United States of America is not as important in God’s eyes - as the condition of our hearts. We need to grasp this truth. We say, “God, we’re in trouble, and we need help, and the homosexual agenda is running our country, and the liberal media are blinding the eyes of the masses to the truth of what is going on. God, please have mercy on us and fix our nation!” And God says, “I don’t want to talk to you about the homosexuals, or the media, or the illegal immigrants, or anything else other than your idolatry.”
This is why we are talking about the idols of the heart. To use the language of Jesus, we need to get the planks out of our own eyes so that we can even see clearly enough to accurately identify the issues that are truly important. In addition to having clear vision, we need to deal with our idols so that we can have power with God. We want Him to hear us. We want Him to respond to us. We want Him to come to our aid. As followers of Christ, we can’t help this nation without His help – so we better start by focusing on personal holiness. That is why we need to spend some time on idols.
So as we consider how to deal with an idol, we have seen three things so far. First of all, we have to choose whom we will serve. God demands full allegiance from his followers. God demands a categorical break with our past when we put our trust in him for salvation. Secondly, we need to resolve to love God with all our heart. To the degree we are worshipping / loving idols, we are not worshipping / loving God. It is a proportionate thing. If we love God with 80% of our heart, 20% of our life will be given to idolatry. And finally, we saw that we are to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit. According to Acts 1:8, when a person comes to Christ for salvation, something mysterious happens to him in that the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, comes to live inside him. Linked to that indwelling is power – “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” That is the promise of Jesus.
Now what does all that have to do with idols? We know from experience that we don’t have it within ourselves to simply work up the strength to deal with idols. Tearing down idols is not a matter of self discipline (though self-discipline does play a role as we are going to see in one of the next points). Conclusively dealing with idols takes Supernatural empowerment. So, how does one appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit? That is where we stopped last time we were together, so I want to take the rest of our time this morning to answer this question.
We know the Holy Spirit lives in us, we know that one of the reasons God has sent Him is to help us, and we know we struggle with idols. Have you ever wondered how all three of those propositions can be true at the same time? The reason they are all true is because the power of the Holy Spirit is not to be taken for granted, nor does it manifest itself automatically in our lives. Let me repeat that. The power of the Holy Spirit is not to be taken for granted, nor does it manifest itself automatically in our lives. Let me give you two truths about this matter of appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit.
1. Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is not a matter of “how much” of the Holy Spirit you have or don’t have. When you are “baptized with the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13) you get all the Holy Spirit you will ever get. The Holy Spirit is a person, not a force of which different people have differing amounts.
2. Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is not a matter of “unleashing” the Holy Spirit, or “harnessing” the Holy Spirit. Those are two images that are popular in explaining how the Holy Spirit works, and they are both erroneous. There is not some kind of activity we have to engage in to release the Holy Spirit (contra the Alpha program) so He can work, nor is He some force in our lives that we have to capture if we want to utilize, like we do with wind and wind turbines.
So as we think about appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit, don’t envision the wrong thing. Once we know what appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is not, let’s see if we can figure out what it is. To help us with this, let me give you two fundamental truths about the Holy Spirit as expressed by Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology.
1. The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in this world (Grudem, p. 634). The reason this is important is because we can’t see God because He is a Spirit (Jn. 4:24) and He is so holy that anyone who did see him would die (Ex. 33:20). In addition to this, we are 2000 years too late to see Jesus, God in flesh who did live on this planet. So remember that the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in this world.
2. One of the unique works of the Holy Spirit is to complete and sustain what God the Father and God the Son started (Grudem, p. 635). The Holy Spirit was active and present at creation (Gen. 1:2), He was active and present at Pentecost (Acts 1:8), and He is active and present at our salvation (Rom. 8:23). When you consider the greatest events in the history of the universe, the Holy Spirit was right there carrying out God’s plan and bringing it to completion.
Here is how this applies to appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit. God’s desire for you as His child is to live a pure and holy life (cf. Mt. 5:48 – “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”). God doesn’t want idolatrous children. God doesn’t want lukewarm followers, and when you put your trust in His Son Jesus as your Savior, God had a plan for your life and began a work in you that is designed to change you from being a self-absorbed, self-important, self-reliant idolater into a God-absorbed, God-loving follower of Christ. We have already established the fact that that is impossible, but remember what one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is – to complete and sustain what God starts. This is why Paul says in Phil. 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” The “day of Jesus Christ” is the point in history in which the work will be completed, but the agent assigned to us to get there successfully is the Holy Spirit. My point is that we each have a powerful, personal assistant committed to our success in this matter. The reality of this matter is that we aren’t in this battle alone.
Now, how else does the Holy Spirit help us in this matter of dealing with idols? We know He is personally with us, we know He is powerful, we know He is committed to our success – but is there anything else about Him that will help us in this matter of appropriating the power He has? Absolutely! Let’s go back to the point I made about the primary work of the Holy Spirit – He manifests the active presence of God in the world.
How many of you have figured out that it is relatively easy to be “good” in the presence of another person, and it’s pretty easy to be “bad” when you are all by yourself? You know how that works, right? When I’m driving through town with the family and there is a very immodestly dressed woman walking down the sidewalk, it isn’t hard at all for me to keep my eyes looking straight ahead. When the same thing happens and I’m all by myself in the car, it’s a different story – it is a battle to keep my eyes where they ought to be. When my child misbehaves at church, it isn’t hard for me to deal with it gently; but let him misbehave at home and then there is a battle in my heart because my natural inclination is to respond in anger, frustration, and severity. I’m not tempted to respond that way in the presence of other believers at church.
I have a friend who is a traveling salesman who told me a very interesting story that illustrates this principle. He and several other men would all go together on sales trips, and every time they would stop for a meal, one guy in particular always ordered a salad, or a sandwich without fries; and he always drank diet soda. My friend thought this somewhat strange because the guy weighed well over 300 lbs. One morning my friend got up early, left his hotel room and walked to the IHOP next door for breakfast, and there was his fellow salesman, eating by himself, with six plates of food on his table.
Isn’t it amazing what the presence of another person does to us? You probably see where I’m going with this, but I’m going to say it anyway – God is actively present with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I am driving down the road all by myself and I see that provocatively dressed woman. God is actively present with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I am at home and have to deal with my child again about the same issue, and all my fellow church friends aren’t there to observe me. God is actively present with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I am all by myself and I want to gorge myself with food.
Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is living with a continual awareness that God is actively present with me in the person of the Holy Spirit! When we choose to worship idols in the presence of God, we are quenching the Spirit (1 Th. 5:19), grieving the Spirit (Eph. 4:30), striving with the Spirit (Gen. 6:3), rebelling against the Spirit (Ps. 106:33), dealing treacherously with the Spirit (Mal. 3:15-16), lying to and testing the Spirit (Acts 5:3), resisting the Spirit (Acts 7:51), and insulting the Spirit (Heb. 10:29). We don’t lose the presence of the Holy Spirit like Saul did in the OT, but our idolatry has effectively tied His hands and rendered Him powerless to be our “Helper.” Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is living in such a way that He is free to do what He was sent to do.
Can you imagine what it would be like to be locked into a marriage with a spouse who continually, and in your presence grieved you, and strove with you, and rebelled against you, and insulted you, and resisted you, and dealt treacherously with you? Can you imagine something like that? If that were your case, how likely would you be to fulfill your role to your spouse? Yet that is precisely what the Holy Spirit has to put up with far too often in our lives. He won’t leave us because it is a permanent indwelling, but He can be so grieved and insulted that we have effectively shut Him down in His capacity as our Helper. Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is living in such a way that He is free to do what He was sent to do.
Several years ago we camping out West, and as we were coming into Colorado, we had to cross the Rockies to get to Denver where I have family. We were really loaded down as well as pulling a camper, so I knew that making our way up the mountains and over the Continental Divide was going to be tricky. We were travelling on I-70 which peaks at the Eisenhower Tunnel, the highest vehicular tunnel in the world at over 11,000 feet. At our final stop in Utah, I had changed the spark plugs in the van because I thought it had been running roughly; but as we made our way across the plains and toward the mountains, the van would run fine when we were level or going downhill but really coughed and sputtered when I would accelerate. Sure enough, about ¼ of the way up the mountain we were coughing and sputtering our way up the mountain at about 10 miles per hour. Eventually we ended up with a State Police escort because we were going so slow, and it put us several hours behind schedule. When we got to Denver a mechanic showed me a spark plug wire that had gone bad, and explained that the bad wire was causing the loss of power.
Our engine had all the power it needed to get the job done. It was actually a pretty strong engine, but the reason we struggled up that mountain was because of my failure to appropriate the power that was available in that engine. All I had to do was change the spark plug wires, and then the engine could have operated in the way it was designed to operate.
That is the way the power of the Holy Spirit operates in our lives. We already have all the power we need to deal with idols. It is there in the person of the Holy Spirit. What we have to do is live in such a way as to allow Him to do His work.
I want to close this morning by sharing with you a great passage from Ezekiel 36. Turn with me to verse 24. “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. 25 "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
I’d like us to start this morning by turning to Ez. 14. The topic we have been considering for the past several months is idols of the heart. We have identified five basic idols: control, respect, appreciation, comfort, and success. Three weeks ago, we started drawing this study to a close by asking the question, “How do I deal with these idols?” We know what the idols are, what they look like, how they manifest themselves in everyday life, and we know how we can determine their presence. So now we need a battle plan to get rid of them. The last time we were together I gave you the first two and a half steps, so this morning we’ll finish up the third one which I believe is a key element.
Before we get into this, I want us to look at Ez. 14 again and take a minute to remind us why we are studying this particular issue. I don’t want us to forget the overall trajectory we are on. I believe we are at a critical juncture in the history of our nation. I have shared with you that I believe we have about 24 months left to pull ourselves away from the precipice, politically speaking; and the real solution is not as simple as just electing conservative, virtuous, constitutionally oriented officials. We are in a spiritual battle that has to be fought as well as won spiritually! Now where idols come into this picture is the principle that when God’s people are involved in idolatry, God has a single objective on His mind, and that is the eradication of the idol. Let’s read this passage in Ez. 14 again and see this truth.
Ezekiel says in verse one, “Then some elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me. [In chapter 12 Ezekiel had acted out several charades that illustrated the coming destruction of Israel] 2 And the word of the LORD came to me saying, 3 "Son of man, these men [the elders] have set up their idols in their hearts, and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all? [In this question, God is highlighting the absurd nature of trying to serve two masters] 4 "Therefore speak to them and tell them, 'Thus says the Lord God, "Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the LORD will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols, 5 in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols."'
So here we have the elders of Israel who wanted to know what was in store for their nation, so they inquired of God, but God didn’t want to talk to them about their nation, did He? He wanted to talk to them about their idols. As applied to us, we cry out to God to turn our nation around, and God says, “I don’t want to talk to you about your nation, I want to talk to you about your idols.” Here is a vital truth we have to understand. The fate of the United States of America is not as important in God’s eyes - as the condition of our hearts. We need to grasp this truth. We say, “God, we’re in trouble, and we need help, and the homosexual agenda is running our country, and the liberal media are blinding the eyes of the masses to the truth of what is going on. God, please have mercy on us and fix our nation!” And God says, “I don’t want to talk to you about the homosexuals, or the media, or the illegal immigrants, or anything else other than your idolatry.”
This is why we are talking about the idols of the heart. To use the language of Jesus, we need to get the planks out of our own eyes so that we can even see clearly enough to accurately identify the issues that are truly important. In addition to having clear vision, we need to deal with our idols so that we can have power with God. We want Him to hear us. We want Him to respond to us. We want Him to come to our aid. As followers of Christ, we can’t help this nation without His help – so we better start by focusing on personal holiness. That is why we need to spend some time on idols.
So as we consider how to deal with an idol, we have seen three things so far. First of all, we have to choose whom we will serve. God demands full allegiance from his followers. God demands a categorical break with our past when we put our trust in him for salvation. Secondly, we need to resolve to love God with all our heart. To the degree we are worshipping / loving idols, we are not worshipping / loving God. It is a proportionate thing. If we love God with 80% of our heart, 20% of our life will be given to idolatry. And finally, we saw that we are to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit. According to Acts 1:8, when a person comes to Christ for salvation, something mysterious happens to him in that the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, comes to live inside him. Linked to that indwelling is power – “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” That is the promise of Jesus.
Now what does all that have to do with idols? We know from experience that we don’t have it within ourselves to simply work up the strength to deal with idols. Tearing down idols is not a matter of self discipline (though self-discipline does play a role as we are going to see in one of the next points). Conclusively dealing with idols takes Supernatural empowerment. So, how does one appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit? That is where we stopped last time we were together, so I want to take the rest of our time this morning to answer this question.
We know the Holy Spirit lives in us, we know that one of the reasons God has sent Him is to help us, and we know we struggle with idols. Have you ever wondered how all three of those propositions can be true at the same time? The reason they are all true is because the power of the Holy Spirit is not to be taken for granted, nor does it manifest itself automatically in our lives. Let me repeat that. The power of the Holy Spirit is not to be taken for granted, nor does it manifest itself automatically in our lives. Let me give you two truths about this matter of appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit.
1. Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is not a matter of “how much” of the Holy Spirit you have or don’t have. When you are “baptized with the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13) you get all the Holy Spirit you will ever get. The Holy Spirit is a person, not a force of which different people have differing amounts.
2. Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is not a matter of “unleashing” the Holy Spirit, or “harnessing” the Holy Spirit. Those are two images that are popular in explaining how the Holy Spirit works, and they are both erroneous. There is not some kind of activity we have to engage in to release the Holy Spirit (contra the Alpha program) so He can work, nor is He some force in our lives that we have to capture if we want to utilize, like we do with wind and wind turbines.
So as we think about appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit, don’t envision the wrong thing. Once we know what appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is not, let’s see if we can figure out what it is. To help us with this, let me give you two fundamental truths about the Holy Spirit as expressed by Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology.
1. The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in this world (Grudem, p. 634). The reason this is important is because we can’t see God because He is a Spirit (Jn. 4:24) and He is so holy that anyone who did see him would die (Ex. 33:20). In addition to this, we are 2000 years too late to see Jesus, God in flesh who did live on this planet. So remember that the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in this world.
2. One of the unique works of the Holy Spirit is to complete and sustain what God the Father and God the Son started (Grudem, p. 635). The Holy Spirit was active and present at creation (Gen. 1:2), He was active and present at Pentecost (Acts 1:8), and He is active and present at our salvation (Rom. 8:23). When you consider the greatest events in the history of the universe, the Holy Spirit was right there carrying out God’s plan and bringing it to completion.
Here is how this applies to appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit. God’s desire for you as His child is to live a pure and holy life (cf. Mt. 5:48 – “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”). God doesn’t want idolatrous children. God doesn’t want lukewarm followers, and when you put your trust in His Son Jesus as your Savior, God had a plan for your life and began a work in you that is designed to change you from being a self-absorbed, self-important, self-reliant idolater into a God-absorbed, God-loving follower of Christ. We have already established the fact that that is impossible, but remember what one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is – to complete and sustain what God starts. This is why Paul says in Phil. 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” The “day of Jesus Christ” is the point in history in which the work will be completed, but the agent assigned to us to get there successfully is the Holy Spirit. My point is that we each have a powerful, personal assistant committed to our success in this matter. The reality of this matter is that we aren’t in this battle alone.
Now, how else does the Holy Spirit help us in this matter of dealing with idols? We know He is personally with us, we know He is powerful, we know He is committed to our success – but is there anything else about Him that will help us in this matter of appropriating the power He has? Absolutely! Let’s go back to the point I made about the primary work of the Holy Spirit – He manifests the active presence of God in the world.
How many of you have figured out that it is relatively easy to be “good” in the presence of another person, and it’s pretty easy to be “bad” when you are all by yourself? You know how that works, right? When I’m driving through town with the family and there is a very immodestly dressed woman walking down the sidewalk, it isn’t hard at all for me to keep my eyes looking straight ahead. When the same thing happens and I’m all by myself in the car, it’s a different story – it is a battle to keep my eyes where they ought to be. When my child misbehaves at church, it isn’t hard for me to deal with it gently; but let him misbehave at home and then there is a battle in my heart because my natural inclination is to respond in anger, frustration, and severity. I’m not tempted to respond that way in the presence of other believers at church.
I have a friend who is a traveling salesman who told me a very interesting story that illustrates this principle. He and several other men would all go together on sales trips, and every time they would stop for a meal, one guy in particular always ordered a salad, or a sandwich without fries; and he always drank diet soda. My friend thought this somewhat strange because the guy weighed well over 300 lbs. One morning my friend got up early, left his hotel room and walked to the IHOP next door for breakfast, and there was his fellow salesman, eating by himself, with six plates of food on his table.
Isn’t it amazing what the presence of another person does to us? You probably see where I’m going with this, but I’m going to say it anyway – God is actively present with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I am driving down the road all by myself and I see that provocatively dressed woman. God is actively present with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I am at home and have to deal with my child again about the same issue, and all my fellow church friends aren’t there to observe me. God is actively present with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I am all by myself and I want to gorge myself with food.
Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is living with a continual awareness that God is actively present with me in the person of the Holy Spirit! When we choose to worship idols in the presence of God, we are quenching the Spirit (1 Th. 5:19), grieving the Spirit (Eph. 4:30), striving with the Spirit (Gen. 6:3), rebelling against the Spirit (Ps. 106:33), dealing treacherously with the Spirit (Mal. 3:15-16), lying to and testing the Spirit (Acts 5:3), resisting the Spirit (Acts 7:51), and insulting the Spirit (Heb. 10:29). We don’t lose the presence of the Holy Spirit like Saul did in the OT, but our idolatry has effectively tied His hands and rendered Him powerless to be our “Helper.” Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is living in such a way that He is free to do what He was sent to do.
Can you imagine what it would be like to be locked into a marriage with a spouse who continually, and in your presence grieved you, and strove with you, and rebelled against you, and insulted you, and resisted you, and dealt treacherously with you? Can you imagine something like that? If that were your case, how likely would you be to fulfill your role to your spouse? Yet that is precisely what the Holy Spirit has to put up with far too often in our lives. He won’t leave us because it is a permanent indwelling, but He can be so grieved and insulted that we have effectively shut Him down in His capacity as our Helper. Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is living in such a way that He is free to do what He was sent to do.
Several years ago we camping out West, and as we were coming into Colorado, we had to cross the Rockies to get to Denver where I have family. We were really loaded down as well as pulling a camper, so I knew that making our way up the mountains and over the Continental Divide was going to be tricky. We were travelling on I-70 which peaks at the Eisenhower Tunnel, the highest vehicular tunnel in the world at over 11,000 feet. At our final stop in Utah, I had changed the spark plugs in the van because I thought it had been running roughly; but as we made our way across the plains and toward the mountains, the van would run fine when we were level or going downhill but really coughed and sputtered when I would accelerate. Sure enough, about ¼ of the way up the mountain we were coughing and sputtering our way up the mountain at about 10 miles per hour. Eventually we ended up with a State Police escort because we were going so slow, and it put us several hours behind schedule. When we got to Denver a mechanic showed me a spark plug wire that had gone bad, and explained that the bad wire was causing the loss of power.
Our engine had all the power it needed to get the job done. It was actually a pretty strong engine, but the reason we struggled up that mountain was because of my failure to appropriate the power that was available in that engine. All I had to do was change the spark plug wires, and then the engine could have operated in the way it was designed to operate.
That is the way the power of the Holy Spirit operates in our lives. We already have all the power we need to deal with idols. It is there in the person of the Holy Spirit. What we have to do is live in such a way as to allow Him to do His work.
I want to close this morning by sharing with you a great passage from Ezekiel 36. Turn with me to verse 24. “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. 25 "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
How Do I Deal With Idols of the Heart - Part One
How Do I Deal With Idols of the Heart?
For the last eight weeks or so we have been studying the five idols of the heart. Let’s see if we can remember them using the acronym CRACS – control, respect, appreciation, comfort, and success. We have defined them, illustrated them biblically, illustrated them in everyday life, and analyzed what principle of scripture they violate. I hope that you have become very familiar over the past two months with the two questions that identify the presence of idols in your life: if I am willing to sin to get something I want, what I want is an idol. If I respond sinfully when I don’t get something I want, then what I wanted is an idol. I hope that you are sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as He convicts and nudges you.
This morning I want to talk to you about how we deal with an idol. As we have been going through this study I hope that a scenario similar to this one has gone through your mind. “OK, I see the idol in my life, I see the principle it violates, I understand the magnitude of what is going on, I see the negative consequences the idol brings about – but what do I do now? How do I tear that idol down?” That is the question I want to answer this morning – how do I deal with an idol of the heart?
Transition: So what I want to share with you over the course of two messages is five principles for dealing with idols. The first one is found in Joshua 24:15. Turn there with me and let’s think about choosing whom we will serve.
1. Choose Whom You Will Serve – Josh. 24:15
"And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
God demands full allegiance from His followers. Not only do we see it here in Joshua 24, we also see it in the words of Jesus in Mt. 6:24. “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Paul expresses this same truth in 2 Cor. 6:14 when he says, “for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” The answer is “none!” The call to follow Christ is a categorical call, and the first step in dealing with idols is to choose whom we will serve.
There is a very interesting passage that has bearing on this point in Rev. 3:14-16 where God rebukes the church in Laodicea by saying, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I would that you were cold or hot. 16 'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.” Do you see the categorical nature of God’s call? God can really use a “hot” person, and He can work with a “cold” person, because He knows where they are. Their positions are well defined. But He despises a person who tries to maintain a “middle of the road” position.
Isn’t there something particularly distasteful about things that are tepid? Just the word itself has negative associations – I don’t think we even use the word “tepid” in a positive way. Don’t you find it irritating when you don’t know where a person stands? When he refuses to take a side? I remember the anger I felt when I was trying to speak to a state senator about NY’s effort to redefine marriage. I couldn’t actually talk to him, so I ended up talking to his chief of staff, or office manager, and the official position, the official statement coming from this senator was, “Should this legislation come to vote, at this point I anticipate voting against it.” When you think about that statement, it says nothing. So when she told me that, I responded by saying, “that is a very craftily worded statement that says nothing definite.” She smiled at me and said, “We think so.”
God feels the same way about people who refuse to give Him their wholehearted allegiance. God wants followers who leave no questions in anybody’s minds about where they stand. That is the essence of Joshua’s challenge to the nation of Israel in Joshua 24:15 – “choose Whom you will serve.”
To build on this point, turn with me to 1 Cor. 6:9-11, where we are going to see that God demands a clean break with our past. When we come to Christ for salvation, God expects a wholehearted, decisive, comprehensive break with our past. “Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you [in other words, they weren’t that way any more]; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.”
So the first step in removing an idol from our life is to realize the categorical nature of being a follower of Christ.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture that fosters convenient Christianity and doesn’t demand a radical break from our past. We really do think we can have our cake and eat it too – which is an incubator for idol worship. So if you are struggling with an idol and want to tear it down, the first thing you have to do is determine where your allegiance lies. Are you a follower of Christ, or not? Are you going to declare yourself as such, or not? Are you going to be “hot” for Christ, or not? God does not want tepid followers who can’t make up their minds whether or not they are going to worship God or their idols.
So once we make that decision to follow God, the second principle in dealing with an idol is found in Mt. 22:37. Let’s turn there and see that we need to resolve to love God with all our heart.
2. Resolve to Love God With All Your Heart - Mt. 22:37
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment.”
What does it look like to love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind? Have you ever wondered that? In other words, I think we would all agree that we want to do this, we really do want to love God with everything within us, but how do we do it? Is there something I can measure to see if I am doing it? Well, it really is somewhat simple (which, by the way, is different from being easy) in that love is demonstrated best by obedience. Turn to John 14 with me, and let’s look at verses 23 and 24 where Jesus teaches this idea. “Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.” Do you see what Jesus is saying here? Our love for God is not some kind of arbitrary, subjective endeavor. It’s not like I get to love God my way, and you get to love God your way, and she gets to love God her way, and each way is equally legitimate. That isn’t what the Bible teaches. Love for God is measurable. It is objective. And it is seen by our level of obedience to Him, or as Jesus puts it in this passage, “keeping His words.”
What does this have to do with idols? Just this. The true nature of idolatry is that every act of idolatry is also an act of self love. To the degree we are worshipping idols, we are not worshipping God. Or I could say it this way, to the degree we are loving idols, we are not loving God. Idol worship is taking God off the throne of my life and putting myself up there.
One of the sobering questions we have to ask ourselves is this: “How much do I love God?” Do I love Him enough to say “no” to the call of the idol? Or do I love my idol more? That’s really what idol worship boils down to. Let’s see if we can apply this concept to our opening illustration 8 weeks ago. Do you remember when I gave the hypothetical situation of the daughter telling her dad that if he’d look for the remote with his eyes instead of his mouth he’d find it quicker? At that instant of sarcastic disrespect, something goes off in the man and he has to decide in a moment which direction he is going to go. Everything in his old nature is screaming for him to worship at the idol of respect and seek vindication and justification and to take his daughter down a notch or two.
On the other hand, he knows that this situation is not primarily about him and personal disrespect – the violation of God’s principles of honor and parental authority tremendously outweigh his personal hurt. This isn’t primarily about him. So in that moment, he has to decide the love thing. Does he love himself the most, or does he love God the most? If he loves himself more than he loves God he is going to light into his daughter and give it to her with both barrels. On the other hand, if he loves God more than himself, he’s going to firmly and persuasively convince her of the magnitude of her offense – primarily against God, and only secondarily against her father.
Do you see how love works, do you see the role love plays in idol worship? As humans, we have a limited capacity for love. To the degree we love ourselves, we won’t obey God. To the degree we love God, we won’t obey our impulses to idolatry. If we love God with 80% of our heart and soul and mind, while that sounds admirable, we are going to be worshipping idols with 20% of our heart, soul and mind. If we love God with 40% of our heart, we are going to be worshipping idols with 60% of our heart. This is why we must resolve to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
Transition: So as we answer the question, “How do I deal with an idol of the heart,” we have seen two principles. First, we have to choose whom we are going to serve, and second, we have to resolve to love God with all our heart. The third truth I want to share with you is found in Acts 1:1-8, and it is that we have to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit.
3. Appropriate the Power of the Holy Spirit – Acts 1:1-8
In Acts 1, starting in verse one, we read, “The first account I composed, Theophilus, [this would be the Gospel of Luke] about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. 3 To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. 4 And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "you heard of from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." 6 And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
Note the connection in verse 8 between the coming of the Holy Spirit and the word “power.” The promise of Jesus in this verse is that when a person comes to Christ for salvation, something mysterious happens to him in that the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, comes to live inside him. Don’t ask me how it works – I don’t understand the biology involved. What I do understand is the reality.
The reality of this promise is that as a follower of Christ, you have a strength, or a capacity for accomplishment, that you didn’t have before you were a Christian. I want you to take a moment to let that sink in because this is a truth we Evangelicals often minimize because of the excesses of the Charismatics. The Holy Spirit coming upon you at the moment of your salvation gave you a supernatural strength, not necessarily physical, a supernatural capacity to do things you would be incapable of doing without the Holy Spirit living in you. That is the meaning of the word “power” in Acts 1:8. It is really interesting to me that the Greek word used here is δύναμις, spelled in English as “dynamis.” Our English word “dynamite” comes from this word.
If you want to see some great illustrations of how this concept works, read the book of Judges in the Old Testament (though it isn’t limited to this book), paying special attention to the phrase “and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily . . .” And then see what that man or woman was able to accomplish while under the influence, under the power, filled with a capacity for accomplishment, by the Holy Spirit. You will read of Gideon and his defeat of the Midianites, Jeptha and his defeat of the Ammonites, and multiple stories of Samson including Samson and the lion attack and Samson and the Philistines. What we see in the Old Testament concerning the presence of the Holy Spirit is that He came and went, as it were. And when one of God’s people in the Old Testament needed supernatural help, the Holy Spirit was sent to fill him and energize him and give him the capacity to do what needed to be done.
That is significantly different from the work of the Holy Spirit today. After Jesus was crucified but before He went back to heaven, He made this promise in Acts 1:8 to that little band of terrified followers. And on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down and took up permanent residence in the lives of the Believers, and that is how He has operated ever since – He permanently dwells in the lives of those who have come to Christ for salvation. In practical terms, what that means for you and me today is the Holy Spirit doesn’t come and go in our lives like He did in the OT, He is here all the time to give us, among other things, the power and help we need.
Turn with me now to John 14. I want us to look at verses 15 – 17 where we see Jesus explain this concept in a little more detail. In verse fifteen Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments [that sounds familiar, right? It was our last point – resolving to love God with all our heart]. 16 "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper [the reason that word is capitalized is because it is a reference to deity], that He [the Helper, who is obviously the Holy Spirit since Jesus is the speaker and He has referred to God sending “another Helper”] may be with you forever [unlike in the Old Testament times]. Now, what is the connection between “keeping the commandments” of verse 15, and the promise to send a “helper”? It isn’t very easy to keep the commandments, is it? So, in order to help us out, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit]; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.” The Holy Spirit, Who is my helper, lives in me. That is Jesus’ point. We are not trying to live up to God’s expectations on our own.
Now what does all that have to do with idols? Simply this. Those of you who have struggled with idols like I have know from experience that we don’t have it within ourselves to simply work up the strength to deal with idols. Tearing down idols is not a matter of self discipline. Now, self-discipline does play a role as we are going to see in one of the next points, but conclusively dealing with idols takes Supernatural empowerment. If you think you can just exercise some self-control and focus and overcome the idol, you are either out of touch with reality or extremely naïve about the power and nature of idol worship.
So once we understand that we can’t do this on our own, that we need help, and that God has graciously given us a “helper,” we are well on the way to dealing with idols. But there was a very important word in the title of this point – the word “appropriate.” Not only do we have to choose whom we are going to serve, and resolve to love God with all our heart, we also have to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit. What does “appropriating” the power of the Holy Spirit look like? That is where we are going to start next time we get together.
I’d like to close our time together this morning by having everyone close their eyes and bow their heads. I want us to spend some time in personal reflection and examination. We have looked at three principles for dealing with idols this morning, and I want us to focus on the first two, those of choosing whom we will serve, and resolving to love God with all our hearts. Think about choosing and resolving – those are action words. They require you to engage your will. Mental assent isn’t enough.
My goal for you this morning is not to have you agree with everything I have said, it goes way beyond that. My goal is for you to do something. Will you choose this morning to serve God alone? I’m not talking about salvation here, I’m talking about serving. Salvation covers your eternity, service covers your day in and day out living. Will you choose this morning to serve God alone?
In addition to that, will you resolve this morning to love God with all your heart? He doesn’t want most of our love, He wants it all. And in light of what He has done to secure our eternity, isn’t giving Him all our love about the least we can do for Him?
If you would choose to serve God alone and love Him with all your heart, would you quietly stand to your feet right now as a testimony to yourself and God that on Sunday morning, June 27, 2010 you took two decisive steps in dealing with idols of the heart. This isn’t a testimony to me, or to the people sitting around you – this is a testimony to yourself and God that you are not only willing but serious about this matter of idols. Would you stand to your feet now while I pray for us.
For the last eight weeks or so we have been studying the five idols of the heart. Let’s see if we can remember them using the acronym CRACS – control, respect, appreciation, comfort, and success. We have defined them, illustrated them biblically, illustrated them in everyday life, and analyzed what principle of scripture they violate. I hope that you have become very familiar over the past two months with the two questions that identify the presence of idols in your life: if I am willing to sin to get something I want, what I want is an idol. If I respond sinfully when I don’t get something I want, then what I wanted is an idol. I hope that you are sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as He convicts and nudges you.
This morning I want to talk to you about how we deal with an idol. As we have been going through this study I hope that a scenario similar to this one has gone through your mind. “OK, I see the idol in my life, I see the principle it violates, I understand the magnitude of what is going on, I see the negative consequences the idol brings about – but what do I do now? How do I tear that idol down?” That is the question I want to answer this morning – how do I deal with an idol of the heart?
Transition: So what I want to share with you over the course of two messages is five principles for dealing with idols. The first one is found in Joshua 24:15. Turn there with me and let’s think about choosing whom we will serve.
1. Choose Whom You Will Serve – Josh. 24:15
"And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
God demands full allegiance from His followers. Not only do we see it here in Joshua 24, we also see it in the words of Jesus in Mt. 6:24. “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Paul expresses this same truth in 2 Cor. 6:14 when he says, “for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols?” The answer is “none!” The call to follow Christ is a categorical call, and the first step in dealing with idols is to choose whom we will serve.
There is a very interesting passage that has bearing on this point in Rev. 3:14-16 where God rebukes the church in Laodicea by saying, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I would that you were cold or hot. 16 'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.” Do you see the categorical nature of God’s call? God can really use a “hot” person, and He can work with a “cold” person, because He knows where they are. Their positions are well defined. But He despises a person who tries to maintain a “middle of the road” position.
Isn’t there something particularly distasteful about things that are tepid? Just the word itself has negative associations – I don’t think we even use the word “tepid” in a positive way. Don’t you find it irritating when you don’t know where a person stands? When he refuses to take a side? I remember the anger I felt when I was trying to speak to a state senator about NY’s effort to redefine marriage. I couldn’t actually talk to him, so I ended up talking to his chief of staff, or office manager, and the official position, the official statement coming from this senator was, “Should this legislation come to vote, at this point I anticipate voting against it.” When you think about that statement, it says nothing. So when she told me that, I responded by saying, “that is a very craftily worded statement that says nothing definite.” She smiled at me and said, “We think so.”
God feels the same way about people who refuse to give Him their wholehearted allegiance. God wants followers who leave no questions in anybody’s minds about where they stand. That is the essence of Joshua’s challenge to the nation of Israel in Joshua 24:15 – “choose Whom you will serve.”
To build on this point, turn with me to 1 Cor. 6:9-11, where we are going to see that God demands a clean break with our past. When we come to Christ for salvation, God expects a wholehearted, decisive, comprehensive break with our past. “Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you [in other words, they weren’t that way any more]; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.”
So the first step in removing an idol from our life is to realize the categorical nature of being a follower of Christ.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture that fosters convenient Christianity and doesn’t demand a radical break from our past. We really do think we can have our cake and eat it too – which is an incubator for idol worship. So if you are struggling with an idol and want to tear it down, the first thing you have to do is determine where your allegiance lies. Are you a follower of Christ, or not? Are you going to declare yourself as such, or not? Are you going to be “hot” for Christ, or not? God does not want tepid followers who can’t make up their minds whether or not they are going to worship God or their idols.
So once we make that decision to follow God, the second principle in dealing with an idol is found in Mt. 22:37. Let’s turn there and see that we need to resolve to love God with all our heart.
2. Resolve to Love God With All Your Heart - Mt. 22:37
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment.”
What does it look like to love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind? Have you ever wondered that? In other words, I think we would all agree that we want to do this, we really do want to love God with everything within us, but how do we do it? Is there something I can measure to see if I am doing it? Well, it really is somewhat simple (which, by the way, is different from being easy) in that love is demonstrated best by obedience. Turn to John 14 with me, and let’s look at verses 23 and 24 where Jesus teaches this idea. “Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.” Do you see what Jesus is saying here? Our love for God is not some kind of arbitrary, subjective endeavor. It’s not like I get to love God my way, and you get to love God your way, and she gets to love God her way, and each way is equally legitimate. That isn’t what the Bible teaches. Love for God is measurable. It is objective. And it is seen by our level of obedience to Him, or as Jesus puts it in this passage, “keeping His words.”
What does this have to do with idols? Just this. The true nature of idolatry is that every act of idolatry is also an act of self love. To the degree we are worshipping idols, we are not worshipping God. Or I could say it this way, to the degree we are loving idols, we are not loving God. Idol worship is taking God off the throne of my life and putting myself up there.
One of the sobering questions we have to ask ourselves is this: “How much do I love God?” Do I love Him enough to say “no” to the call of the idol? Or do I love my idol more? That’s really what idol worship boils down to. Let’s see if we can apply this concept to our opening illustration 8 weeks ago. Do you remember when I gave the hypothetical situation of the daughter telling her dad that if he’d look for the remote with his eyes instead of his mouth he’d find it quicker? At that instant of sarcastic disrespect, something goes off in the man and he has to decide in a moment which direction he is going to go. Everything in his old nature is screaming for him to worship at the idol of respect and seek vindication and justification and to take his daughter down a notch or two.
On the other hand, he knows that this situation is not primarily about him and personal disrespect – the violation of God’s principles of honor and parental authority tremendously outweigh his personal hurt. This isn’t primarily about him. So in that moment, he has to decide the love thing. Does he love himself the most, or does he love God the most? If he loves himself more than he loves God he is going to light into his daughter and give it to her with both barrels. On the other hand, if he loves God more than himself, he’s going to firmly and persuasively convince her of the magnitude of her offense – primarily against God, and only secondarily against her father.
Do you see how love works, do you see the role love plays in idol worship? As humans, we have a limited capacity for love. To the degree we love ourselves, we won’t obey God. To the degree we love God, we won’t obey our impulses to idolatry. If we love God with 80% of our heart and soul and mind, while that sounds admirable, we are going to be worshipping idols with 20% of our heart, soul and mind. If we love God with 40% of our heart, we are going to be worshipping idols with 60% of our heart. This is why we must resolve to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
Transition: So as we answer the question, “How do I deal with an idol of the heart,” we have seen two principles. First, we have to choose whom we are going to serve, and second, we have to resolve to love God with all our heart. The third truth I want to share with you is found in Acts 1:1-8, and it is that we have to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit.
3. Appropriate the Power of the Holy Spirit – Acts 1:1-8
In Acts 1, starting in verse one, we read, “The first account I composed, Theophilus, [this would be the Gospel of Luke] about all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. 3 To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. 4 And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "you heard of from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." 6 And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
Note the connection in verse 8 between the coming of the Holy Spirit and the word “power.” The promise of Jesus in this verse is that when a person comes to Christ for salvation, something mysterious happens to him in that the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, comes to live inside him. Don’t ask me how it works – I don’t understand the biology involved. What I do understand is the reality.
The reality of this promise is that as a follower of Christ, you have a strength, or a capacity for accomplishment, that you didn’t have before you were a Christian. I want you to take a moment to let that sink in because this is a truth we Evangelicals often minimize because of the excesses of the Charismatics. The Holy Spirit coming upon you at the moment of your salvation gave you a supernatural strength, not necessarily physical, a supernatural capacity to do things you would be incapable of doing without the Holy Spirit living in you. That is the meaning of the word “power” in Acts 1:8. It is really interesting to me that the Greek word used here is δύναμις, spelled in English as “dynamis.” Our English word “dynamite” comes from this word.
If you want to see some great illustrations of how this concept works, read the book of Judges in the Old Testament (though it isn’t limited to this book), paying special attention to the phrase “and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily . . .” And then see what that man or woman was able to accomplish while under the influence, under the power, filled with a capacity for accomplishment, by the Holy Spirit. You will read of Gideon and his defeat of the Midianites, Jeptha and his defeat of the Ammonites, and multiple stories of Samson including Samson and the lion attack and Samson and the Philistines. What we see in the Old Testament concerning the presence of the Holy Spirit is that He came and went, as it were. And when one of God’s people in the Old Testament needed supernatural help, the Holy Spirit was sent to fill him and energize him and give him the capacity to do what needed to be done.
That is significantly different from the work of the Holy Spirit today. After Jesus was crucified but before He went back to heaven, He made this promise in Acts 1:8 to that little band of terrified followers. And on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down and took up permanent residence in the lives of the Believers, and that is how He has operated ever since – He permanently dwells in the lives of those who have come to Christ for salvation. In practical terms, what that means for you and me today is the Holy Spirit doesn’t come and go in our lives like He did in the OT, He is here all the time to give us, among other things, the power and help we need.
Turn with me now to John 14. I want us to look at verses 15 – 17 where we see Jesus explain this concept in a little more detail. In verse fifteen Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments [that sounds familiar, right? It was our last point – resolving to love God with all our heart]. 16 "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper [the reason that word is capitalized is because it is a reference to deity], that He [the Helper, who is obviously the Holy Spirit since Jesus is the speaker and He has referred to God sending “another Helper”] may be with you forever [unlike in the Old Testament times]. Now, what is the connection between “keeping the commandments” of verse 15, and the promise to send a “helper”? It isn’t very easy to keep the commandments, is it? So, in order to help us out, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit]; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.” The Holy Spirit, Who is my helper, lives in me. That is Jesus’ point. We are not trying to live up to God’s expectations on our own.
Now what does all that have to do with idols? Simply this. Those of you who have struggled with idols like I have know from experience that we don’t have it within ourselves to simply work up the strength to deal with idols. Tearing down idols is not a matter of self discipline. Now, self-discipline does play a role as we are going to see in one of the next points, but conclusively dealing with idols takes Supernatural empowerment. If you think you can just exercise some self-control and focus and overcome the idol, you are either out of touch with reality or extremely naïve about the power and nature of idol worship.
So once we understand that we can’t do this on our own, that we need help, and that God has graciously given us a “helper,” we are well on the way to dealing with idols. But there was a very important word in the title of this point – the word “appropriate.” Not only do we have to choose whom we are going to serve, and resolve to love God with all our heart, we also have to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit. What does “appropriating” the power of the Holy Spirit look like? That is where we are going to start next time we get together.
I’d like to close our time together this morning by having everyone close their eyes and bow their heads. I want us to spend some time in personal reflection and examination. We have looked at three principles for dealing with idols this morning, and I want us to focus on the first two, those of choosing whom we will serve, and resolving to love God with all our hearts. Think about choosing and resolving – those are action words. They require you to engage your will. Mental assent isn’t enough.
My goal for you this morning is not to have you agree with everything I have said, it goes way beyond that. My goal is for you to do something. Will you choose this morning to serve God alone? I’m not talking about salvation here, I’m talking about serving. Salvation covers your eternity, service covers your day in and day out living. Will you choose this morning to serve God alone?
In addition to that, will you resolve this morning to love God with all your heart? He doesn’t want most of our love, He wants it all. And in light of what He has done to secure our eternity, isn’t giving Him all our love about the least we can do for Him?
If you would choose to serve God alone and love Him with all your heart, would you quietly stand to your feet right now as a testimony to yourself and God that on Sunday morning, June 27, 2010 you took two decisive steps in dealing with idols of the heart. This isn’t a testimony to me, or to the people sitting around you – this is a testimony to yourself and God that you are not only willing but serious about this matter of idols. Would you stand to your feet now while I pray for us.
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