What Do You Worship? Idols Exposed

In John 7:37-39, Jesus calls people to believe and worship him. What is so sweet is that he does this after a week long party of eating and drinking the best food and wine. After all of this, most people would be satisfied right? Wrong! Jesus knows that created things can only give temporary joy and satisfaction. So, he stands up at the end of the party and says, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." Jesus is promising that he is the way, the truth , and the life (John 14:6). He is the single way to eternal joy, joy that starts the minute you trust him for your righteousness and payment for sins. Joy that sustains you through suffering.

The first commandment, and most important in the Bible, is God calling his people to worship him and him alone (Exodus 20:3; Matt 22:37). In the very next verse (Exodus 20:4), God calls his people to not make any carved images or idols in his place. You see, this is the condition of the human heart, we run to created things for temporary joy instead of running to the Creator who holds all things together (Colossians 1:15-20). As John Calvin said, "Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.11.8)."

The question is, whether we are Christians or not, what is it that we truly worship? What is it that our hearts truly desire? Christians will often say God because it's the "right answer," but God searches the heart of man and knows what we truly desire (Psalm 139:23-24). God woos us and draws us to himself (John 6:44), so we should be aware and fighting to love us him as he has loved us (Rom. 5:8).

Lastly, idols are often good things we have turned to for our ultimate joy instead of God. They are gifts from God meant to draw us to him for thankfulness, for the Giver is always better than the gift. These idols can be spouses, our kids, or our jobs. Deeper down they can also be our image, our self-righteousness, etc.

Below are a series of questions from David Powlison's book Seeing with New Eyes. He calls them 'X-Ray Questions' because they are useful in exposing your true desires deep down inside of you. Go through these, take your time, and above all...BE HONEST! Somehow Christianity has become people who think they have to be good and perfect, but the truth is we are still sinners drawn to worship false idols. So, enjoy this and I would love to hear anything the Spirit exposes in your heart. When idols are exposed and we find our joy, identity, and righteousness in Christ alone...it is then that we are seen by God as good, right and perfect.

X-Ray Questions

David Powlison, Seeing with New Eyes (pg. 132-40)

1. What do you love? Hate?

2. What do you want, desire, crave, lust, and wish for? What desires do you serve and obey?

3. What do you seek, aim for, and pursue?

4. Where do you bank your hopes?

5. What do you fear? What do you not want? What do you tend to worry about?

6. What do you feel like doing?

7. What do you think you need? What are your 'felt needs'?

8. What are your plans, agendas, strategies, and intentions designed to accomplish?

9. What makes you tick? What sun does your planet revolve around? What do you organize your life around?

10. Where do you find refuge, safety, comfort, escape, pleasure, security?

11. What or whom do you trust?

12. Whose performance matters? On whose shoulders does the well-being of your world rest? Who can make it better, make it work, make it safe, make it successful?

13. Whom must you please? Whose opinion of you counts? From whom do you desire approval and fear rejection? Whose value system do you measure yourself against? In whose eyes are you living? Whose love and approval do you need?

14. Who are your role models? What kind of person do you think you ought to be or want to be?

15. On your deathbed, what would sum up your life as worthwhile? What gives your life meaning?

16. How do you define and weigh success and failure, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, in any particular situation?

17. What would make you feel rich, secure, prosperous? What must you get to make life sing?

18. What would bring you the greatest pleasure, happiness, and delight? The greatest pain or misery?

19. Whose coming into political power would make everything better? 20. Whose victory or success would make your life happy? How do you define victory and success? 21. What do you see as your rights? What do you feel entitled to?22. In what situations do you feel pressured or tense? Confident and relaxed? When you are pressured, where do you turn? What do you think about? What are your escapes? What do you escape from?

23. What do you want to get out of life? What payoff do you seek out of the things you do?

24. What do you pray for?

25. What do you think about most often? What preoccupies or obsesses you? In the morning, to what does your mind drift instinctively?

26. What do you talk about? What is important to you? What attitudes do you communicate?

27. How do you spend your time? What are your priorities?

28. What are your characteristic fantasies, either pleasurable or fearful? Daydreams? What do your night dreams revolve around?

29. What are the functional beliefs that control how you interpret your life and determine how you act?

30. What are your idols and false gods? In what do you place your trust, or set your hopes? What do you turn to or seek? Where do you take refuge?

31. How do you live for yourself?

32. How do you live as a slave of the devil?

33. How do you implicitly say, “If only...” (to get what you want, avoid what you don't want, keep what you have)?

34. What instinctively seems and feels right to you? What are your opinions, the things you feel true?

35. Where do you find your identity? How do you define who you are?

Other helpful sources:

Idols of the Heart by Elyse Fitzpatrick

Counterfeit gods by Tim Keller

Rant on the Attractional Church

I would love to write a ton more on this, but just have a rant to pass on:

For the past two years now, my view of the church has massively changed. First, I must state something very clearly. In 2005 I started attending church, in 2007 started Bible school and helped plant a church, and in 2008 came to the realization that I was the best law-keeping moralist I knew. I preached at church, led Bible studies, but in 2008 I was confronted with the truth of the cross and the Gospel. This may seem shocking, but I was not a believer in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. My view up until then was that Christians are people who might have said a "sinner prayer," didn't cuss, didn't drink, and was basically a really good person. However, that all changed when I was confronted with what the Bible really said about my sin, about Jesus, and even more, my identity in Christ.

I attribute most of my moralism (Jesus + my good works trying to please God) to the type of ministry I was in. I had never heard a text preached or shared with me about sin, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. I never heard that he lived a perfect life where I had failed and died the death I deserved for failing to live perfectly. I did hear 7 ways to a happy marriage, 4 ways to be a better evangelist, basically 777 ways to earn God's love, or at least make him happy.

This type of ministry is called attractional, or event driven. The heart of this type of ministry is good, but very wrong. These churches will do everything possible to get people in the doors, entertain them, and show them that God can be cool. The major downfall with this is that 1) Jesus commanded, after all authority on heaven and earth had been given to him, believers to GO! Make Disciples! Teach Them (Matt. 28:18-20)! Understanding discipleship is a whole other discussion 2) The people who are attracted to this ministry have to always give more entertainment, more fun things, more instant satisfaction of the senses.

Attractional churches have become a place, when the church is supposed to be a people. No one in this attractional church is committed to the ministry and the body, but uses what the church offers for themselves. These churches do not believe in church discipline because we "are all sinners" and don't want our weekly statistics to drop.

So how did this happen? The Church (the people of God) from 33 A.D. on were committed to one another (Acts 2:42-47), proclaiming Christ in everyday life (1 Cor. 15:1-4; Rom. 1:16-17; Phil. 3:7-11), and on mission to the world (Acts 1:8). In the late 1900's through the beginning 2000's, especially with Billy Graham and Greg Laurie starting the Crusades (terrible reminder to the Muslim world), the Gospel began to get watered down to a prayer you say to get your ticket to heaven. No discipleship followed, just a high emphasis on church attendance, serving in the church, and tithing.

I once approached a pastor and told him I was concerned about eldership in the church, finances, and a clear preaching of the Gospel and the cross. I was told that I needed to pray more, read my Bible more, etc. and Jesus would be happy with me. This view comes from the medieval ages heresy of the Roman Catholic Church, that we are justified by our sanctification, not justified by faith in the life and death of Christ. People who attend these churches, like I did for years, have identity issues. They are not happy with God and the Gospel. They always feel they need to serve more, have a husband or wife, read their Bibles more, etc. Their identity is not in Christ, which now I know, is the most beautiful freeing thing, wanting me to serve, read, pray, etc. out of joy!!!

Life together is non-existent in this type of ministry. Other than a weekly service, one might join a small group, Bible study, home group, etc. This is a time of Bible study, which is good, but is never played out (James 1:22-27. This creates a dichotomy where you have your family life, church life, work life, when the Scripture call us to live these out together. We cannot come together once a week to surround ourselves around the Bible, but are called to live our everyday lives according to the Bible, reminding one another of it's truths.

The most pressing issue here is the Gospel. The Gospel is not something that saves us and we are free to live as we were before, or if you are really good, you study end times and the rapture. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16-17). Salvation is a past tense Ephesians 2:8, Present tense: 1 Cor. 15:2; Phil. 2:12-13 and Future tense: Acts 15:11; 1 Peter 1:3-5. This means that we use the Gospel to call one another (believers) from sin unto repentance, with the purpose that they would believe their identity in the Gospel. All sin is unbelief (read Hebrews 3-4), so we must remind each other of the Gospel. Attractional churches will either say to be more disciplined in reading or praying (which can be good), or even preach sermons calling the people of God to "just be like your favorite Bible character). The truth is we are like our favorite Bible characters, sinners in need of a Savior. We need to be reminded of how the Law condemns us, just as it did everyone in the Scriptures, but Jesus perfectly fulfilled it, was killed for our failure, and was risen 3 days later to give us life.

I have lived both sides of this, so I am critical for a reason. My prayer is that we would stop being consumeristic, finding churches that best serve and entertain us, etc. Instead, let's get back to the Gospel. Numbers are not always souls. I was a leader in a church and was not saved, this is very dangerous. I now am free because of the Gospel. My identity is in Christ. I am part of a Christ-treasuring community, formed by the Gospel and sent on mission to the world through the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God. If some of this offends you, I would ask that you don't get defensive because your church "is right" but to diligently search the Scriptures and compare and contrast.

Restoring Beauty

I read this today and thought it was definitely worth sharing:

"Let us suppose, in the manner of some romances, that a king was betrothed to a beautiful wife, whose picture was sent to him before he himself saw her. But when she set out on her journey to him, she fell sick of some loathsome disease, such as the smallpox or leprosy.

But suppose that he knew before she came to him that she should be restored to her first primitive beauty, and that even though he knew he would be troubled by her disaster, distemper, or disease, he easily quieted himself for that little space of time in which her infirmity, though greatly disfiguring her, was to continue. For he himself would be her physician, the only one who could cure her and restore her to her first perfect beauty, which he know he could and should do. Thus he would show all love and peace toward her, even though her disease was loathsome, in full hope of her recovery.

This is the case between Christ and the church."

A Habitual Sight of Him: The Christ-centered Piety of Thomas Goodwin

Christ in ALL SCRIPTURE

For the past year, I have been studying Christ in the Old Testament. As a newer Christian, I always saw the Old Testament as a compilation of some cool stories, some hard to understand stories, and a few scattered prophecies about Jesus. More often than not, most churches will only throw random prophecies into their sermons, but will not preach through an Old Testament book. Then, if lucky, you might get a sermon on a whole book of the OT, but without Christ as the center and climax of every sermon. Why does this matter? There is a nasty thing called moralism that will take place. Example: Your pastor preaches on David and Goliath. Your pastor builds up David as this hero of faith who takes down the big challenges in life. The application then becomes, whatever your "big challenge" in life is right now (financial problems, relational problems, loss of a loved one), just have faith like David and you will conquer your own Goliath. This is called moralism. Moralism calls you to add some of your own work to please God, denying that his atoning death on the cross was full payment for your sin, AND his perfect righteousness was transferred to you (2 Cor. 5:21).

The truth is when we are given commands in the New Testament (Work as you are working for Christ, love your wife like Christ loved the Church, etc.), we are bound to fail if we do not understand the indicatives. Throughout Scripture, there is a redemptive story of God being graceful to His people, promising that He would be our God and we would be His people. All of this can only be true in the person and work of Christ, because he alone was the one who lived a perfectly sinless obedient life, and the only one who could be the perfect substitute for us on the cross.

So, when reading the redemptive story, especially in the New Testament, we must look at what Jesus says in Luke 24. iN 24:13-48, after being resurrected from the dead, Jesus appears, first, to a couple dudes on the Road to Emmaus and beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scripture the things concerning himself (v.27). The passage goes on to say that because of this their eyes were opened (v.31) and their hearts burned within them (v.32). Later in Luke 24:44-48, Jesus does the same thing with the disciples.

Yesterday, I heard a lecture from pastors/authors Tim Keller and the late Edmund Clowney on this necessary topic of reading and preaching the Scriptures. The same day, I came across a quote from the lecture in Darrin Patrick's book called Church Planting. The quote is lengthy but is a sweet glimpse into the correct way of interpreting Scripture. Please read and enjoy:

"Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us.

Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal.

Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing whither he went to create a new people of God.

Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, "Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me," now we can look at God taking his Son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, "Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your Son, your only Son, whom you love from us."

Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.

Jesus is the true and better Joseph who, at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them.

Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant.

Jesus is the true and better Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of god's justice, now gives us water in the desert.

Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer, who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.

Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people's victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.

Jesus is the true and better Esther who didn't just risk leaving an earthly place but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who didn't just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people.

Jesus is the true and better Jonah who was cast out into the storm so that we could be brought in.

Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will passover us. He's the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread.

The Bible's really not about you, it's about him."

Here are a list of some good resources on Bible interpretation:

Brian Chappell's Christ-Centered Preaching

Tim Keller & Edmund Clowney Audio Class http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/preaching-christ-in-postmodern/id378879885

Sidney Greidanus's Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

Graeme Goldsworthy's Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture

Graeme Goldsworthy's Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics

Darrin Patrick's Church Planter

Shai Linne http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwR_L5pzX70