9.11.24
This week we are looking at the supremacy of God. The fact that God is God and we are not! And we’ve seen the counterfeit to his supremacy: idolatry. God designed us in such a way that we cannot get our validation and joy in life on our own. We have to look outside ourselves for it. And with our relationship with God cut off, our hearts naturally run to things in this world to replace that source of affirmation.
So how do the dynamics of idolatry work? How does this process play itself out in our lives? Romans 1 shows us how this works. First, we see the motivation beneath idolatry. It promises to give us control. The original lie in the Garden of Eden is that God is holding out on us. He is keeping the best for himself. And that if we give ourselves fully to him, we will have to settle for less than best. As Paul tells us in Romans, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” The nature of sin is such that we do not want to be under any obligation to God. And the motivation is the lie of freedom from his control - and the gaining of it ourselves.
Secondly, we see the delusion of idolatry. As Paul says in the passage above, there is an exchange that happens. We exchange the truth for a lie, and run to idols. And the delusion here is that we can actually take an ordinary thing and elevate it to become an ultimate thing, and it can fill us. And whether that ordinary thing is a piece of wood or stone carved into a literal idol, or whether it’s the idolatry of power or control or family or relationships, we all turn to something. The way idols function is that we take good things - helpful things - ordinary things…and we elevate them to become THE thing that’s going to make us, fill us, name us, validate us.
The third aspect of idolatry is that we give it the role of our salvation. As Paul says here, we worship it and give it the glory that is due only to God. We don’t just want things, we need them. We don’t just enjoy something, we feed on it for our lives. We look to things about which we say, “unless I can have you, I’m a nobody…a failure…a loser.” So much of the misery we face in life comes because we are unable to get - or hold on to - the things our hearts tell us will save us.
The final aspect of how idols function is the slavery effect. Though they promise freedom and control, they deliver absolute slavery. Most of the time that slavery is so subtle, we barely notice. As Paul tells us in Romans, God gives us “up” or “over” to these idols, to allow them to control us. Idolatry means that we have thrown off God as our ultimate source of life, and his response is to simply give us what we asked for. And the slavery of an idol is felt when it curses us and makes us feel worthless for having failed it. We can never fully please any idol, and so it perpetually makes us feel worthless.
And into this dilemma, God speaks and says: I am the Lord your God who brings you out of slavery. Don’t put any other gods before me. Because I love you and am jealous for your love in return. I hate to see you enslaved. And I purchased your freedom with my own life. Come to me! Trust me! Rest in me alone!