Gods at War - What Are You Worshipping?, Part 2

Idols in our hearts are a lot like weeds in a garden. They start out small, then slowly, subtly they choke out our joy and our intimacy with Christ. Join me today as I listen to Kyle Eiderman, help me weed the garden of my heart.

I think you'll get some real help as well. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians really live like Christians. I'm Dave Drouy. And as many of you know, Chip's our regular Bible teacher for this daily program. But for this series, he's passed the mic to his friend, Kyle Eiderman. He's the senior pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. We're currently in the middle of his series, Gods at War, defeating the idols that battle for our hearts.

Now in this program, Kyle continues prompting us with the important question, what are you truly worshiping? Now before we begin, let me encourage you to use the message notes while you listen. They'll really help you get the most out of what you're about to hear. Download them under the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org.

App listeners tap fill in notes. With that, here's Kyle with the second half of his talk. Here's the first thing I want you to see from from our study. And that is we are all worshipers. And as we talk about idolatry, this is a foundational truth that we have to understand that all of us are worshipers. Joshua doesn't give a fifth option. He doesn't say, well, another choice would be that you don't worship anything at all.

It's not on the table. We are all worshipers. God hardwired it into our DNA. And it's the one thing that's true of every culture and every civilization throughout all of history. If you were to visit, you would find that they worship a god or many gods. If you were to parachute into the deepest jungles of Africa, you would find that a tribe that's never been exposed to outside civilization or influence worships a god or many gods.

And you could jet into New York or into Paris among the world's elite and you would find that they worship a god. It might be the god of intellect or success or the god of power that they worship. And some of you are like, well, I'm not a Christian, so I'm not a worshiper.

Yeah, you are. Everybody worships a god of some kind. And should you choose not to worship the one true god, then you by default, by default, will worship what Tim Keller calls a god substitute.

You will put in your life some substitute for god and that is what you will worship. And that's what will have control over you. That's what will rule over you.

That's what will have power over you. And philosopher Peter Kreeft explains it this way. He says the opposite of theism or the opposite of belief and faith in God is not atheism. It is idolatry.

There's only two choices. You either worship God or you worship a god, a false god. And understand this and it's important as we study this is that a false god doesn't have to be something wrong or evil. In fact, oftentimes, we turn God's good gifts to us into idols. But when a good thing becomes a god thing, then it's idolatry.

And so Joshua points this out. All of us are worshippers. The second thing that you notice in this is he gives them choices. And I want you to think through this for yourself. He says, you know, your choices are to worship essentially the gods of the Egyptians or the Amorites, the gods of the culture.

Here's what society values. That's one choice for your worship. The second choice, he says, you can worship the gods of your fathers.

And that's what many of us do. We worship the gods, the idols that our parents have handed down to us, right? I mean, that's why you worship what you worship. You worship work, success, or power because your dad worshiped work, success, and power. You worship sports because your dad worshiped sports. You worshiped alcohol because your dad worshiped alcohol. You worship what other people think of you because your mom worshiped what other people thought of her. You worship your kids because your mom worshiped you when you were a kid. I mean, this is what we do.

How about this one? You worship spiritual rules, religious rules, and traditions, which can definitely be a false god because your parents worshiped religious rules and traditions. So this is what many of us choose to do. We just accept the idols that have been handed down to us from previous generations. And what I want to do is just spend a few minutes and together identify what are the gods at war within us.

Because most of us do a pretty poor job of diagnosing this. We tend to think and say what we know we should think and say. That God is the one true God. But I want us to identify just some gods that are warring within us, wanting to have the seed of glory in our lives. And understand this. I'm going to ask you some questions, and these questions I think will reveal some things that will surprise you.

But it doesn't necessarily mean you've made them idols, but these gods certainly have the most potential in your life to become an idol. And I'm going to ask you some questions, some personal questions. You think through these. I've adapted these questions from Dr. David Paulson's work on the motivations of human behavior. So these questions I think will help reveal some of the gods in our lives.

Question number one. What are you disappointed with? What are you disappointed with?

Whenever we experience ongoing and overwhelming disappointment, it reveals that there's something in our life that's more important to us than it should be. And what are you disappointed with right now? Are you disappointed with your financial status?

Is that what it is? Are you disappointed with your marriage? Are you disappointed with your sex life? Are you disappointed with the home you live in? Are you disappointed with your children? Are you disappointed with your career? What are you disappointed with?

Because because that often reveals something that's become too important to us. Let me ask you this way, what do you complain about? If I were to ask your spouse, your siblings, your parents, whatever, what does this person complain about, whatever answer they give back to me tells me something about a God that is at war within you.

Question number two, what do you sacrifice your time and money for? In our text here, the word serve is used seven times in two verses. And in Joshua's day, the word serve carried with it the idea of sacrifice, of sacrificing time and sacrificing money or for them, farm products and animal sacrifices. What is your day calendar and what does your checkbook say you worship? Because it's often very revealing. That's why we consider offering here at church an act of worship.

In some ways it's the most tangible worship that we have in the service is when we say God, I've got this value, I have this money that's of value to me, I'd like to do this with it and this with it and this with it and I could do this with it but instead I give it to you because you are what matters most. Question number three, what do you worry about? Let me put it this way, what are you most afraid of?

Psychologist Alfred Adler, who is not a Christian, he says if you wanna understand what someone is living for, don't ask them because people don't give you the straight answer because oftentimes they don't even realize it. He said if you wanna know what someone is living for, ask them, ask them what is your nightmare? What's your nightmare? What are you most afraid of?

I will show you something that has the potential to be a God in your life. What is it that if you lost it, life would not continue to hold meaning for you? And some of you are afraid of losing something.

Maybe it's a job, maybe it's a house. Maybe what you're afraid of is not reaching a certain level of success at work. Maybe you fear that you're not gonna be liked by other people. Other people won't be impressed by you. Maybe you're just kind of overwhelmed with anxiety because of the rising gas prices.

Well why is that? It's because we make comfort and we make security a God and we think if someone comes along in the United States and they somehow remove our comfort and security, then man, I don't know if I'd wanna keep living. Some of you are afraid of being all alone and your fears reveal what can become a God in your life. Question number four, where do you go when you hurt? Where do you go when you really need comfort?

Long day at work, you come home, you head for the refrigerator for what we call comfort food. It works, it helps a little, doesn't it? Or you flip, turn on the TV, you go to the TV to feel better about life. Or you get into a fight with your spouse and you feel rejected and you feel angry and you feel hurt, what do you do? Do you go to the computer and enter the pagan temple of a pornographic website to find comfort? Or let's say you lose your job and you're devastated. Who do you run to? Maybe you run to a person and that's not a bad thing but God wants to be the first person you run to.

Henry Blackaby defines an idol this way as anything you turn to for help when God told you to turn to him for help. Question number five, what makes you mad? For me this is revealing, I don't get angry easily. But there's a few things that make me mad. One thing that makes me mad is losing. And so some of you are like this, let's just say hypothetically, you're playing a pickup game and your team is losing and the teammate turns the ball over and you get angry, why? Well because you've made winning really important.

Maybe too important. Another thing that can make me mad is when I feel disrespected by someone. I've always been this way, it's gotten me into a certain amount of trouble. When someone is disrespectful I feel like I'm being disrespectful, disrespected makes me angry, why? Because I can make people's respect an idol.

A false god. Number six, what do you dream of? What do you dream of or what gets you really excited? What are you passionate about? Like last month my daughter came in, my oldest daughter came in and I was watching the US Open and she said, Dad I've never seen you so excited in my life.

I mean how pathetic is that? I'm watching golf on TV and I'm as excited as she's ever seen me, I mean she's seen me at the birth of her siblings, she's seen me worship in church and this is it and what is it? Maybe for you it's remodeling a car, maybe it's decorating, maybe it is your work, maybe it's music, maybe it's your physical appearance and exercise. See all these things have a potential to essentially become for us a mistress and God is jealous because of the passion and the time and the effort and the energy we give these things. Number seven, what brings you the most joy? I have to be careful with this as we talk about it in the series. Many things God gives us, he wants us to experience joy from these gifts that he's given us as a father but these things should cause us to find increased joy in him, they should not become competition for him. They shouldn't become gods that war with him. And so where do you find the most joy?

What's on your screen saver? I mean maybe it's a vacation home picture, maybe it's your house, maybe it's a car, maybe it's your family, whatever it is, it has the potential though it is a good thing to become a God thing and therefore to become idolatry. Last question, whose applause do you long for? Maybe this is what you're living for is for your boss to call you in to his or her office and say we couldn't run this company without you, you're getting the next promotion, I mean that's what you're living for. Or maybe it's you're living for your spouse to say you're the husband or you are the wife of my dreams or you're living for your dad to say I'm proud of you, I love you, you're living for your mom to say hey honey you're doing a great job with your kids. You're living for someone else's applause primarily other than God and that's idolatry. And so I find this convicting in my life of how easy it is to allow some false God to win the war and to find the position of glory within me. So what is it for you, can you identify it in your head?

What is it that is warring within you? So Joshua, he identifies these gods and then here's what he does next, he basically throws down a challenge and he says to them you choose this day, you choose, you gotta choose and that's what I hope will happen for us that we will just make a choice. Francis Schaeffer talks about how many Christians think about their choice for God as a choice that was made past tense. In other words, I chose God on this date.

I chose God at church camp, I chose God when I walked forward, I chose God when I said a prayer, I chose God when I was baptized. We think of this time when we chose God. But he points out that in this text, Schaeffer points out that the word choose here is not this once and for all choice, instead it is this continuous action, it's this ongoing choosing that is to take place for us. It's as if Joshua is saying to the people, as for me and my family, we chose the Lord, we're choosing the Lord, we're gonna keep choosing the Lord until the very end. And what we have to understand as followers of Christ is it's not just this choice we made on the day of our salvation but it is an ongoing choice where every day there's this battle being waged, there's this war being fought and we decide, we choose who will sit on the throne of our hearts. And here's what God will do and we'll see it as we study the subject is that he will oftentimes put himself in direct competition with something that we love or care about a great deal and he will say to us, you choose. You choose between this and that, you choose between me and them, you choose. And if you read through the scriptures, when we hear about God's emotion, how he feels about idolatry, there's a surprising emotion that is ascribed to God on this subject and it is that he is jealous.

You just don't expect that, right? That God would be jealous of something in our lives. But he refuses to share that seat of glory. In fact, Exodus chapter 20, verse four and five, when we read about this commandment about idolatry, it says, you shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything, you shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am what, I am a jealous God. And so he won't share, he won't share you any more than your spouse would be okay if you went to your husband or wife and said, you know, I think I'm gonna start dating other people but you'll always be in first place.

Now let me know how that goes, right? I mean, good luck with that, it doesn't work, why? Because true love doesn't share. When I was in high school, some close friends of my parents were going through divorce and she had been unfaithful, the affair had been ongoing and he was devastated and he, you know, just broken. But he loved his wife and he wanted to make it work. He wanted to stay married. But the other man in the picture, he wanted her too. So neither of them are gonna share, obviously.

She's got to make a choice. And so one night, I'm praying with mom in high school, my dad comes up to pray with me and we pray about this, but before we pray, we're talking about the situation and I said to my dad, I said, dad, what would you do, what would you do if you were the husband, what would you do? And I'll never forget his response. He said, well, I'd go downstairs, I'd get your wooden baseball bat, I'd drill a hole through the handle, I'd tie a leather strap to that bat, I'd put that strap around my wrist, I'd go over to the man's house, I would beat down his door and I would tell him if he got within 100 yards of my wife, he would never walk again. And he's like, let's pray.

And I just remember being a little surprised at the response, I mean, my dad's going all Tanya Harding on me and I don't understand it, I don't get it. I understand now, right? I mean, that's the way I love my wife, with the jealous love, true love doesn't share and God says, I'm not gonna share, so you're gonna have to choose. And this whole idea of me sharing the throne and your heart with something or someone else, I'm not up for that.

So you gotta make a choice here. If you're like me, that's what you want, you wanna make that choice, you wanna choose God and Joshua gives us just a few things I wanna finish with that I think will help us. First thing is that you appreciate what God has done for you. Verses two through 13, read them sometime, but here's what he does, he just goes through and he reminds all the people God has done this and he has done this and he has done this and as we remember what God has done for us, it puts him back in the position of glory in our lives. That's why we do what we do here, I mean, we get together and we celebrate who God is and what he's done for us, how he has delivered us from hell, that he's filled us with the Holy Spirit and given us the promise of salvation.

And as we do that, he becomes what's most important. The other thing he does is he challenges the people to recognize who God is, you appreciate what God has done, you recognize who he is. In verse 19, he speaks of God as being holy and God as being jealous. And as you recognize who God is, then he becomes the one you worship. I rather like that, in fact, as a definition of worship. Worship is our response to God for who he is and what he has done for us. The third thing Joshua does is he challenges the people to smash all other gods and if you look at verse 23, he says, throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.

He calls the people to complete surrender. He says, you just need to turn your lives completely over to God. We're going to worship and we're going to praise God for who he is and for what he has done for us. And this time of worship, I hope, will be a way of you smashing some other gods and putting the Lord God on the throne of your heart. Please understand that when we worship, this is something that we give to God.

It's our response to him, this is not for you. It concerns me when I hear people talk about worship as something done for their pleasure and their enjoyment and quite frankly, that attitude is offensive to God. And so we will worship him, we will give him our glory. But I do want to say something to those of you who are maybe like some of the Israelites. You've got these false gods that you've held onto. You need to choose. Who is it that you will worship? Who really is your God?

Before we go any farther, I want to stop. The words that you heard and I heard were very strong from Kyle. In fact, I think they were from God. I think God is speaking to you and speaking to me that idolatry is serious. I mean, it was serious for the Israelites thousands of years ago, but even though like you, I'm not bowing down to wooden statues, as I listened to today's message, I was struck in my heart at how other things, even really good things, keep popping up and try and take the throne of my heart. Sometimes it's a family member, sometimes it's my work.

I mean, it can even be ministry. Sometimes it's just a distraction and I get busy and me doing my life and being successful or achieving becomes an idol in my heart. Let me ask you, where did God speak to you? Whether it's work or money or sex or an addiction, or whether it's something really good like one of your kids or sports that you just love doing, but little by little, your time, your money, your sacrifice is revolving around something or someone other than the Lord Jesus. If that's you right now, would you repent?

Would you pause? Would you just, if at all possible, even stop the car if you need to and pull over and put your palms up and say, Lord, I'm sorry. No one is worthy of my worship but you. Please forgive me. God, I repent, I wanna turn away from the thing or the person that I've made more important than you. Lord, my time, my energy, my money would reveal that you're not the most important person in my life right now and Lord, you call that sin.

You call it an idol and Lord, I call it the same thing. I ask you to forgive me and I surrender myself, my time, my focus and my energy to following you first and foremost right now. If that's the prayer that is on your heart, tell someone today. Say, you know, I was listening to a message on Living on the Edge by Kyle Eidelman and God hit me right between the eyes. This is what I prayed, this is my future, this is what I'm gonna do.

I just needed to call or text or tell you because I know I can't do this alone. Do that right now, do that before the day is over as we dethrone the idols and put Christ back where he belongs at the center, at the focus of our life and our heart. That's a great word, Chip, thanks. Well, if you're looking to be more intentional and develop a deeper relationship with Jesus, we have a great resource to help you. It's Chip's series, True Spirituality, Becoming a Romans 12 Christian. Through his teaching, you'll discover God's plan for your life, why you matter, the need for genuine community and how to respond to evil and injustice. So if you want a clear blueprint to become a genuine follower of Christ, True Spirituality is a great place to start. And besides Chip's teaching, let me encourage you to order the book or get the small group resources.

There's a lot of ways to experience the foundational truths found in Romans 12. To learn more about all the series resources for True Spirituality, go to specialoffers at livingontheedge.org or on the Chip Ingram app. Now before we wrap up this program, here's Chip to share a special email we received recently. I wanna pause just for a minute and if you're a financial partner with Living on the Edge, I just want you to hear a message that we received from a lady named Kelly who listens every single day. She said, thanks so much for your ministry and daily podcast.

I listen every day. I'm a recovering addict of many things. I grew up in a Christian family and was saved at the age of 17.

Shortly after that, because of peer pressure in school, started doing drugs. I now have a few years of sobriety and God saved my life and he has totally removed the physical urge to use drugs and alcohol and cigarettes. I've now joined an awesome church that has small groups and Christ has blessed me in recovery meetings. Anyway, thanks so much for sharing your life with others. You've made a positive difference in my life. You know, Kelly is one of hundreds, actually thousands of emails that we get at Living on the Edge of I just call them life change.

Spirit of God took the word of God and it might have been on a podcast, could have been on the radio, could have been in a small group, could have even been a CD or a book. But God intervenes with their life and something happens that changes the course of their life. And I just wanna pause and thank you. You know, some of you write a check every month, some of you have it taken out of your account every month, some of you like once a quarter, twice a year, you give to Living on the Edge. I wanna remind you what it actually does. It's not about giving money. It's about extending ministry and changing lives. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And if by chance you're listening and you're thinking, you know, I've never given to Living on the Edge, but I'd like to get in on that, we'll give you a very simple way of how you can join the team and really make a difference.

Thanks, Chip. Well, if Kelly's story inspired you and you'd like to become a part of our team, we'd love to have you join us. Your support helps us reach more and more people with biblical teaching and encourages Christians to really live like Christians. To give a gift, call us at 888-333-6003 or go to livingontheedge.org.

That's livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. App listeners, tap donate and let me thank you in advance for whatever the Lord leads you to do. You know, a great way to stay engaged and connected to Chip and Living on the Edge is with the Chip Ingram app. You'll get free access to all of our recent programs, our message notes and much more.

Not only that, but it couldn't be easier to call or email directly from the app. We'll be with us again next time when our guest teacher, Kyle Eidelman, continues his series, Gods at War. Until then, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.