945. Keep Yourself from Idols

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today on The Daily Platform, we'll hear a message preached by Dr. Sam Horn during a BJU Seminary Conference titled, New Life, Hope and Help for an Addicted World.

The title of his message is, Keep Yourself from Idols. I'd like to ask you to take your Bible this morning to Matthew chapter 6. We have been enjoying, since yesterday morning, the CORE Conference that we have every year. And this year, the theme of the CORE Conference is on addictions. And the subtitle you can see on the screen in front of you is, Hope and Help for an Addicted World. And I have the privilege of addressing you this morning.

I'm thankful to Dr. Pettit for the invitation to do so. And I want to, as you are looking at Matthew 6 where we're going to spend our morning, I want to lay a foundation for you as we talk about a line in the most familiar prayer that we have in our Christian understanding of what prayer is. Because I believe that part of the hope and part of the help that God has given for whatever it is that tends to enslave us in any addiction is enslavement, is in this prayer. So, I want to begin this morning in 1 John chapter 5 verse 21 where the scripture gives a very clear and unmistakable command that we, as believers who know the Lord and who are known by Him, keep ourselves from idols. And so the question that I would ask if I were in your shoes or you should be asking is, so how is the concept of idolatry tied to the concept of addiction? What's the connection between 1 John 5 21, this instruction to keep ourselves from idols and the topic that we're talking about in our CORE Conference? Even though you may not personally have gone to all the sessions, I want to bring a little of that conference into you because I know as you go through your life and I go through my life, we're going to need whatever it is that John is talking about in 1 John chapter 5 verse 21. And so let me make a connection for you that I think will draw a line back to the prayer that we're talking about that you and I know as the Lord's Prayer. When we think of addiction, I would suggest to you that behind every addiction, and you and I may look at a conference like this and say, well, that's really good that the church is talking about this.

And I'm thankful that the school I attend actually is addressing this, but I personally don't really struggle with that. I know that that was my thought coming into the conference and then I actually went to several sessions and as I listened to the different speakers, I began to realize I need to change and adjust my thinking a little bit about addiction. Behind every addiction stands a strong, compelling, and unfulfilled need or desire.

So let me just come back to that and sort of anchor that in your thinking. Behind every addiction stands a strong, a compelling, and unfulfilled need or desire. And generally there are many, but you could take those unfulfilled needs or desires and put them in one of three categories. You and I are people who have a deep desire for satisfaction in our life. And that's one of the reasons why the Scripture so often describes our relationship with God as intensely satisfying.

When you go to the Psalms especially, the Psalmist will frequently talk about how deep and how joy-filled is the relationship that he has with the God he is praising. And so we have a deep desire for satisfaction. We also have a deep desire for significance.

This goes way beyond just the idea of being successful at an endeavor or being successful in a career or being successful at something that we set our hand to do. We have, Ecclesiastes talks about this, we have an innate sense that life under the sun is empty, it's weightless, it's lacking in significance. And that creates in us a dissonance because we are creatures created in the image of the most significant being in the universe. And so as we mirror that image, there is in us a deep desire, a God-placed desire for significance.

And then of course there is our earthly desire, our human desire for security or for safety. And when we turn to something or someone other than God, in order to meet those needs or to satisfy those desires, whatever we turn to has displaced God. And whatever stands in the place of God functions as an idol. And you and I both know from the reading of Scripture that idols always fail to deliver what we initially think they have promised.

Idols always fail to deliver what we think they have promised. And actually when we engage ourself in a form of idolatry, when we turn to something to satisfy a desire to meet a need, to provide significance or to provide safety, when that thing becomes our object that answers that need or that desire, sooner or later that object will become our master and we will be enslaved. And so when John writes to people like us, he actually talks about this and he says, now make sure as a believer that you keep yourself from that. So what is going to keep us from idolatry? Let me read you what John says in the verses right before that.

He wants you to know some things. For example in verse 18 he says this, we know, here's something that you can take to the bank. We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one touches him not. The idea here is not that believers never sin. It's that believers never give themselves over completely and wholly and willingly and joyfully to the pursuit of a lifestyle of sin.

That's not what a believer does. And John says we know that because whoever is born of God sinneth not. And then in verse 19 he says we know that we are of God and the whole world lies in wickedness. And so not only do we know that we're born of God and the evidence of that is that we don't wholly give ourselves over to a lifestyle of sin. John says we know something else. We know that the world we live in is very different than us.

It lies in wickedness. And then in verse 20 we know that the Son of God has really come in the person of Jesus. That's one of the things that has been denied earlier in the book and one of the reasons that John writes. First John, we know, we are firmly convinced that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding. We know these things because the Spirit of God through the Son of God has given to us a firm conviction.

That's the idea of understanding. That we may know Him that is true and we are in Him that is true. Even in His Son, Jesus Christ.

This is the true God and eternal life. And so these are things if you stop and think about it that you have believed as a believer. You have come to the place in your life where as a believer you have believed the things that John just articulated. And so as you embrace those beliefs, John says to you, now here's what you need to do. You need to keep yourself from anything that takes the place of that Son. You need to take care, you need to guard your heart from anyone or anything that becomes so important to you that you are willing to distance yourself from that Son or to disobey what that Son has communicated to you in the written word that He inspired through His Spirit.

So keep yourself from idols. So how does the prayer in Matthew 6 actually help us do that? Well when you think about the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6, it does a number of things. It orients our life in a number of ways. For example, there's an upward orientation of our life as we begin the prayer.

Our Father who art in Heaven. There's an immediate orientation away from the world that John described as lying in wickedness. When we cry out in prayer, we are lifting ourselves up out of that world recognizing that there are no answers to the deepest needs and the deepest desires that we have as people in that world. And so we turn for help, we turn for safety, we turn for satisfaction, we turn for significance to a completely different place. We lift our eyes to the throne of Heaven and we pray to the person sitting on that throne. And what, what Jesus does in orienting us this way is He reminds us of our true identity. John said that we know that we are of God. And every time you begin your prayer with the phrase Our Father, that phrase is intending to let you know that you have a personal, a real, an intimate, a vital relationship with the God of Heaven. It's an amazing thing when Jesus looks at these men and He says, Now when you pray, pray to our Father.

That's a stunning statement and it orients us. Then there's an outward focus to the prayer. Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. That's the upward focus of our prayer. Then there's the outward focus, Thy kingdom come.

And then there's an inward focus, Thy will be done on earth. And the implication of the prayer is very personal that I would be a part of the doing of that will. And then there is a very intimate focus where we are asked and invited to pray for our daily bread, for the pardon of our daily sins, and for the protection of our lives in the daily trials and struggles and temptations that we face. And it is in that last section of the prayer that we find the line that Jesus gives us that I believe will help us to keep ourselves from idols. It's the part of the prayer that you find in Matthew chapter 6 verse 12 where Jesus invites us as part of our daily praying, part of our regular communication with our Heavenly Father to appeal to Him to forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. You and I know about forgiveness even though in our day and age it's almost become unfashionable to talk about it.

When we talk about forgiveness, there's almost a bristling that happens in the life of certain people because when we talk about forgiveness it almost seems like we're just excusing whatever it is that somebody has done in the name of just forgiving. But I want you to see that it's built right into the very fabric of the prayer that should guide and shape our thinking and our living. When we come to the reality of keeping ourselves from idols, from turning to things and looking to people for satisfaction, for security, for significance and safety, Jesus said here is something that will actually keep you from that.

Here is something that will help you. When you recognize that idolatry is sin and you find yourself having turned to something and we do it all the time, Jesus said, you pray this way, forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. So let's talk about that line briefly this morning. I want you to notice that every time you pray that line, the intent of that part of the prayer is to bring us to confront the reality of our sinfulness.

Now think about this for a minute. The prayer that Jesus is encouraging us to pray is for believers. And believers have already received forgiveness when they were justified. The scripture is very, very clear about that. Ephesians 1 7, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.

That idea is repeated again in Colossians chapter 1 verse 14. So believers who have already received forgiveness are instructed to ask for daily forgiveness. This forgiveness that we received when we became believers was permanent and it was complete. Romans chapter 5 verse 1 tells us that all of our sins, past, present, and future are included in that forgiveness. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we right now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So the obvious question that you face when you come to this line in the prayer is this. What connection does this line have to a person who has already been forgiven? Completely. Thoroughly.

Permanently. There is no sin in our past. There is no sin in our present. And there is no sin in our future that was not included in the forgiveness that God extended to us when we came to him and we repented of our sins and we appeal to him for salvation.

And what we got was justification. Justification speaks to a legal standing that God grants us as fully forgiven from the guilt and the penalty of our sin. And we saw that in Romans chapter 5 verse 1 and then Romans chapter 8 verse 17 and Romans chapter 8 verse 30 talk about a time in the future when we will be freed from the very presence of sin in our lives and in our world. And the theological word for that is glorification. So between justification and glorification, both of which we currently own, is the rest of our life. And the rest of our life is a progressive growth toward God and away from sin.

And we call that sanctification. And that reality, that progressive growing involves a daily repenting of whatever it is that has gotten in the way of our fellowship with our Father who is in heaven. And so how do we deal with that sin? How do we confront the reality of our sin and come to grips with it and that leads us then to the second big thing that the line in the prayer does for us. It forces us to consider the nature and the extent of our sinfulness.

Now think about the nature of sin. The Bible uses a lot of different images to talk about sin. The word sin, for example, is replete in the Scriptures and it means to miss the mark. The word trespass is a word that is a willful stepping over a boundary that God has established. Disobedience is an intentional disregarding or an unwillingness to hear and obey something God has said. Lawlessness, another term that occurs in Scripture, is to speak to the utter disregard of God's moral and ethical mandates. To just cast those aside, to cast off restraints. And then the word defilement, that is a sin term, actually points to the pollution and to the filth of sin.

You say, well what connection does that have with this whole addiction? When you turn to something or someone other than God to meet your need for security, for safety, for satisfaction or significance, you have sinned. And these words are intended to bring us up short and recognize the significance of our sinfulness, the nature of it. And then think about the extent of that sin in our life.

The term that is used here in verse 12 is plural. Forgive us our debts. This is a term that is drawn from the financial world to speak to an obligation or to a debt that is owed to another. In this case, to God. And it is plural in indicating that whatever our debts are, they are multiple. We have been accruing them over time. Think of all of the debts that you have piled up against yourself in the past week.

Just think about this, even as a believer. Sins of omission. Things that you should have done and didn't. Sins of commission. Things that we should not have done and did. Secret sins that only God saw. Public sins maybe that we confronted before others or in their presence. Deliberate sins. Willful sins. Intentional sins that we planned out and that we intended.

And then unintentional sins that we never intended to commit but were caught up in. All of these debts mount up in our hearts the longer they remain unresolved and they distance us from God and they overwhelm us at times. So how do we respond to our sinfulness? We are called to recognize it. We are called to consider the reality of it and we are called to respond to it. So how do we respond to our sinfulness in a way that will protect us from turning to an idol to relieve us from the pressure and the distance and the emptiness that comes because of that? And the line in the prayer we are looking at, Forgive us our debts, is intended to help us to respond. The fact that this word debt coming out of the financial world is sort of played out there indicates that one of the things we have to do is we have to stop and we have to take stock of our life. We have to calculate out what we owe God in the form of these debts. And when we do we realize that we are totally out of options.

There is nothing we can do to make up for all of these different sins that have come in the way of our fellowship with our Father. And so we have no other option but to turn to God and to restore that relationship to appeal to Him for mercy and for forgiveness. The other option that we have, I said we have no other option, that's the only legitimate option we have. We have many other options. And many people turn to these illegitimate options and whatever those illegitimate options are they take the place of God.

You are looking to that option to do what this line points that only God can do. And the minute you do that you have failed to listen to John and you have not kept your heart from idols. And so one of the things that you do as you pray this prayer, forgive us our debts, is you sit down mentally and you ask yourself how do I assess my relationship to God? How much do I owe? Who do I owe it to?

What can I pay? If you consistently overspend and you find yourself with a mountain of debt at some point you're going to sit down and you're going to take out a piece of paper and you're going to list out all of your debts. And who you owe them to.

And what resources you have to answer those debts. And you know it doesn't take very long as a Christian to sit down and do that in our daily walk with God and we immediately realize Lord thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for justification. Thank you that there's coming a day when I will stand in your presence free from all of this. Thank you for glorification and Lord thank you that in the in between you are sanctifying me and part of that process is me coming to grips every day with the debts that I have accumulated and recognizing I have no ability to pay for those debts.

And so what must I do? I must confess. I must repent. And therein is the power of this line in the prayer. It brings daily to our minds as we pray this prayer Lord forgive us our sins. Well what sins are we asking God to forgive us for? I mean it's very easy to say that line and just move on but the line is not intended to be like a magic charm that you just utter to God and say Lord you know what I know that I messed up today somehow so just forgive me.

The line is intended for you. The language of the line is intended for you and for me so that we would sit down and we would assess where we stand in our fellowship with God. Not in our relationship to God. He is our Father. Not in our future with God. That is assured but in our daily relationship to him. And just when we realize that we were eternally separated from God by our sins we had no ability to pay those sins.

We have no ability to pay for these daily sins. And so we have to come with a repentant heart and that's the fourth thing we see here. We must come with a repentant heart and receive from God the provision that he has given. And you know what the provision is?

Here's the provision. Forgiveness. God has made a provision a divine provision to deal with your sins.

He's already dealt with them from an eternal perspective. He has made promises to you that you will stand before him and you will enter into the joy of the Lord. You will be in a place forever with him where there is no sin. But in the middle in the right now moment of your life Jesus has also made a provision for our sins and that provision is forgiveness. Now that forgiveness comes from God. That forgiveness is based on the blood of Jesus.

That's what we saw in Ephesians 1-7. And the condition for that forgiveness is repentance and confession. So every day we are intended by this prayer to come to God and say, God here is where I failed. Here is where I intentionally overstepped. Here is where I did what I shouldn't have done.

Here is where I didn't do what I should have done. And I'm coming to you with a broken and contrite heart. I'm coming with repentance because I am asking for the one thing I need that I can't get from anybody else but you and that is forgiveness. I would suggest to you that many of the addictions in our life come because we are trying to answer the deep need of our heart for forgiveness in some other way.

Now let me end with this as we close this morning and that is this. How much forgiveness is available to us? And to answer that question I think we go in our minds to Matthew 18 to the story that Jesus told to answer Peter when Peter asked the question, how much forgiveness should I have? We're trying to answer the question, how much forgiveness does God have? And the answer to that question is illustrated by Peter's question, how much forgiveness should I have? Should I forgive somebody seven times?

Seven. And Jesus said Peter no, that's not how you should forgive. You should forgive that individual seventy times seven.

It's an immense amount. And the reason that human story is so important is because it illustrates the way that God forgives. You see that in the text, we forgive, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lord, just like you told Peter to forgive immense amounts of times, unthinkable amounts of times. Just like you told us to be unlimited in our earthly forgiving of one another, we need you to be forgiving like that for us. And I think the reason that line is in the text of the prayer is to assure you that you will never exhaust God's forgiveness. You will never frustrate God's forgiveness.

And at the end of the day, when you turn to God and away from those things that you look to to satisfy you, to keep you safe and secure, to give you significance, you keep yourself from idols and you keep yourself by extension from addictions. And that's why the prayer, forgive us our sins, forgive us our debts, is so essential. Lord, thank you that you do forgive us. Thank you as we live our life in this world that we have a sure, a reliable foundation upon which to stand, and that is the justification that you have given to us and declared over us. And we look forward to that time when we will stand with you in your presence, delivered from the very things that cause us to look for answers and places away from you. So Lord, as we live in that in-between time, would you help us to do what John instructed? Would you help us to keep our hearts from idols? And we thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to a message preached by Dr. Sam Horn from the BJA Seminary Conference titled, New Life, Hope and Help for an Addicted World. Thanks again for listening and join us again next week as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform.