Gods at War - Gods of Success, Part 1

Did you know there's over 1,000 verses in the Bible about a subject that we rarely talk about? It's the number one issue in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and yet most of us have never considered it might be what's wrecking our life.

Want to know what it is? Stay with me. Well thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Druey, and Chip's our Bible teacher for this international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. In just a minute, we'll continue in our series Gods at War, taught by our guest speaker, Kyle Eidelman. You know, as society continues to drift further from truth and morality, we realize it's vitally important to turn to biblically grounded voices like Kyle to share a different viewpoint to what we're experiencing in our world. We believe with the help of this teaching team, we can better encourage and support Christians to really live like Christians. Now for those who don't know, Kyle Eidelman is a best-selling author, notable speaker, and the senior pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. With all that said, let's join Kyle for today's message, Gods of Success, from Luke chapter 18. We don't worship idols in our modern-day civilization, do we?

I mean, think back. When's the last time you heard a sermon on idolatry? I don't know that I've ever really heard more than one or two, maybe around the Ten Commandments, but that's about it. Maybe now and then you'll hear that language when we talk about money, but it just doesn't seem to be that relevant of an issue, not for us today. I mean, after all, we don't worship images of stone and of wood.

That was a primitive culture. Not in our modern-day civilization do we struggle with this. And yet here's what I want you to see today and in this series, that for most of us, idolatry is the issue.

It is the issue. It is the one thing that is keeping us from living the life God really wants us to live. We have these gods at war within us and they are battling for who will sit on the throne of our hearts.

Oz Guinness explains it this way. He says, idolatry is the most discussed problem in the Bible and it's one of the most powerful spiritual and intellectual concepts in a believer's arsenal. Yet for Christians today, it's one of the least meaningful notions. There's more than a thousand references to idolatry in the Bible, but we kind of skip over it.

But let me tell you something. In these last few months, as I've studied this from Scripture, it has changed my faith. As I've begun to see my life and look at my things through the lens of idolatry, God has been, he's been changing my heart.

And I hope that happens for some of you in this series. That as you become aware of the gods at war within you, that it will lead you to a deeper and fuller commitment in your relationship with Christ. My concern is that you will hear this and quickly dismiss it. I'm just somewhat amazed that I could be a Christian for several decades and never understand the significance of this.

So I want to spend a few minutes on it. If you ask most people, what is the definition of success for you, the word happiness would show up. Aristotle called happiness the chief good. It is the ultimate purpose, he would say, for existence, is to be happy.

And when you talk to people about, well, what's it going to take to be happy for you? It doesn't take long for them to start speaking in terms of dollars and cents. Eventually money becomes the symbol for our happiness.

And so when we see money as something that has the ability to satisfy us, we're giving it a divine attribute. 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. Until we understand who or what is sitting on the throne of our hearts, we will not experience victory.

Instead, we will continue to experience frustration, and we will continue to experience defeat. Maybe you say, at least it's not alcohol or drugs or pornography or sex. At least it's not some blatant sin that I'm bowing down to. But we have to understand that our gods can be just as dangerous, even more destructive, because they are often scarcely recognizable as gods. We take the very good things that God has given us, and we turn them in to false gods.

But we don't even realize that's what they are. We don't realize that they have replaced the Lord God on the throne of our hearts, because they seem fine and they seem good. And we are constantly in our lives displacing one God with another. And so maybe a young person has the God of a gaming system in their life.

I mean, practically speaking, that's what's most important to them. And then that God is displaced by the God of a car, and then that God is displaced by a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and then it's college, and then it's the God of career, and then it's the God of a husband or a wife, and then it's the God of your home, and then it's the God of your children and then it's the God of financial status, and then it's the God of retirement, and then it's the God of grandchildren. And we're constantly filling this throne in our hearts with different gods. John Calvin put it this way. He says, the human heart is a factory of idols.

We are always creating these different things. We are always putting people in our place of worship and until we identify those and remove them from the throne of our hearts, we will miss out on the life that God wants us to live. We must experience the expulsive power of a new affection because what cannot be defeated can be dispossessed. What cannot simply be resisted must be replaced and so we replace our false gods with an affection for the one true God. They begin to lose their grip on our hearts and so there is this choosing that must happen in our lives and often in church we focus on a choice that is made on the day of your salvation but truly being a Christian is much more than a choice.

It is a continual choosing. It is not just once a day, it's many times a day where you're choosing who or what you will worship and many times a day you have a choice where you will worship the Lord God or you will worship something else. Will you worship the Lord God or will you worship your spouse? Will you worship the Lord God or will you worship food or will you worship sex or some physical pleasure? Will you worship the Lord God or will you worship your career or what other people think of you? And the list is long but every day we have this choice and when we start to see life through that lens of will I worship the Lord or will I worship something else then things just become very clear. If you have your Bibles turn to Luke chapter 18.

The next few minutes we're gonna study a man who faces this choice in a very direct and a very specific way. Luke chapter 18. There's three words in the Bible used to describe this man and the rich young ruler, two adjectives and a noun all of which point to the fact that he was a successful person. What God is gonna do in this story, what Jesus is gonna do is he's gonna put himself in direct competition with what this man loves so much and he's gonna say to the man you choose and in doing so I think all of us will be challenged. This man has accumulated, he had achieved, he had accomplished and he was worshiping the gods of success. Luke chapter 18, we're gonna start in verse 18.

It says a certain ruler, a certain ruler. Now Matthew's account, Matthew also tells the story and his account points out that he was a young ruler, a young ruler. Now in the Bible, young means 40 and under, okay? And I understand that some of you who are 40 and over like to call yourself young and think of yourself as young and while that is sweet, it's not biblical, all right?

It's not what the Bible teaches. And the Bible teaches 40 and under. We know this man was at least under 40. He's a young ruler. We also read later that he had great wealth. So what do we know about him already? Well we know that he is a person who's driven. We know that he is a person who wants to be at the top, who wants to succeed and says a certain ruler, the word for ruler is basically, it's the Greek word is a recognized official.

He would have been recognized as a person of authority in the culture. Asked Jesus, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now you gotta give him credit for this because if you have one question to ask Jesus right, this is the question. What must I do to live forever? But even the way he asks the question reveals the God that he worships because how does he phrase the question?

What must I do, I do? And those of us who struggle with the gods of success are continually wanting to be the source of our own salvation. And then the word he uses here for inherit could just as easily be translated as acquire or to earn. This is one of the reasons we're drawn to the gods of success because it allows us to put hope in our own accomplishments, to put hope in our own achievements and Jesus doesn't seem necessary because look at everything we've been able to accomplish. This is one of the reasons why the most successful people are some of the hardest to reach with the gospel.

In order for them to respond to Christ and to become a Christian, they have to take the God off the throne of their heart but the God that sits on the throne of their heart is in fact themselves. It's very hard to take yourself off the throne of your heart and it's hard to admit weakness, it's hard to admit that you're unable, especially for a highly driven successful person. This is why TV personality Bill Maher, when he was talking about the crucifixion, he said, I just don't get the thought of someone else cleansing me of my sins, it's ridiculous. I don't need anyone to cleanse me, I can cleanse myself. I can, I can earn it. That's why when Warren Buffet donated 85% of his $44 billion fortune to charity, he said there's a lot of ways to get to heaven but this is a pretty great way. What's he saying, I can do it.

I'm successful enough, I can earn it on my own. So this is very difficult. The only way to have victory over this God is to admit defeat but it is this God, the God of success, that keeps you from admitting defeat. And so these gods are at war within us. Verse 19, Jesus goes right to what this man's question is. He says, why do you call me good?

Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Verse 20, you know the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, don't lie.

Honor your father and mother. And verse 21, here's how the man responds. Jesus says, Jesus says, no one's good but God alone. You gotta follow all these commands and the man says, all these I've kept since I was a boy. See, Jesus tries to help him with the appropriate response. The man should have said, I'm not good, I haven't kept all those commands, I can't do it. He doesn't say that.

Instead, he says, oh yeah, I've done all those things since I was a boy. And what he's doing is what many of us in the church can get caught up in, especially for those of us who've grown up in the church. And while success for you may not be something you feel too caught up in, in that you're not worried about job titles and you're not worried about financial status, it is very possible for you to make spiritual success a false god. And like the man in our text, when you keep all the religious rules, it makes it very difficult to see that you are in fact in need of a savior. And so you can make your religious rule keeping a functional savior where you say, look, I can be so spiritually successful that this is where my confidence is. This is where my security is found. This is my savior.

And so maybe you keep all the rules. And you're at church every time the doors are open and you read your Bible and memorize scripture and you pray and you're fast and you've even come up with your own set of rules and so you don't go to the movie theater and you don't listen to secular music and you don't just give 10%, you give 15% and you're doing all these things which are all well and good until they become your god. Until somehow they've replaced Jesus as your security and as the source of your salvation. And so this man has great confidence in his spiritual success.

I've kept all these since I was a boy. Verse 22, Jesus takes aim at the God, the primary God that sits on the throne of this man's heart. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, you still lack one thing, sell everything you have, give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, then come follow me. When he heard this, the man became very sad because he was a man of great wealth. Now the adjective that's used here to describe this man's wealth would have put him above pretty much everyone else at that time and in that geographical area.

He was towards the very top. And as you read the story, here's what often is done and this is how we often read the story is we see this as a story about money. This is not a story about money.

This is a story about idolatry. The problem with this man is not that he had a lot of money. The problem is that the money had him. The Bible does not say that money is the root of all kinds of evil. It says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil and you may be rich or you may be poor.

That's really not the issue. It's not about whether or not you have money. It's whether or not money has you. He's turned it into a false god and the reason Jesus talks so much about money in scripture is because money has for us the most potential I think of any false god to become a god substitute. And so Jesus talked more about money than he talked about heaven and hell than he talked about sin and judgment. He talked more about money than he talked about prayer. In the Sermon on the Mount, he mentions idolatry only briefly but when he speaks of idolatry, the only application he gives is that of money. Listen to what he says in Matthew 6, 24. Jesus says no one can serve two masters.

Either he will hate one and love the other or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both god and money. And so money in the Bible is consistently portrayed as God's chief competition.

Now here's why and this was very helpful to me personally when I understood this. The things in our life that have the most ability, the most potential to become a false god are the things that promise to do for us what only God can do. The things that have the most potential to become a false god are the things that carry with them a false promise that they can do for us what only God can do.

A woman by the name of Simone Wheel, she says this was the issue for her in her life. One has only the choice between God and idolatry. It's your only choice. If one denies God, one is worshiping some things of this world in the belief that one sees them only as such. You're worshiping these things thinking these are just things. I'm worshiping the things of this world thinking they're just the things of this world but in fact, she says, though unknown to oneself, though you don't even realize it, you are in fact imagining the attributes of divinity in them. You're imagining the attributes of divinity in them.

You are ascribing to them things that are only true of God. Now think how we do this when it comes to money. What do we say about money? Well, one thing we say is that money will satisfy me.

We give money this divine attribute that it has the power to satisfy our souls and in doing so, we make it a god in our lives. If you ask most people what is the definition of success for you, the word happiness would show up. Aristotle called happiness the chief good. It is the ultimate purpose, he would say, for existence is to be happy.

And when you talk to people about well, what's it gonna take to be happy for you? It doesn't take long for them to start speaking in terms of dollars and cents. Eventually, money becomes the symbol for our happiness and so when we see money as something that has the ability to satisfy us, we're giving it a divine attribute.

And yet we've seen over and over again the evidence says otherwise. Forbes magazine, when they put out their 75th anniversary issue, it was 570 pages long and the majority of it went to unpacking this theme. Why do we in America feel so bad if we have it so good? They asked 11 of their best writers to probe this question.

Well, you can read through the whole thing. It really comes down to a very simple equation. Money does not equal happiness. And yet we want to believe that it would satisfy. Satisfaction is not something that you can take off the rack, order off the internet, or drive off a lot. We think we can do that. We think if I could drive this car, I would be satisfied.

And every time we see someone else driving that car, we think if only I could drive that car. We go through the homo rama homes and we think if only I lived in this home, then I would be satisfied. But what are we doing? We're giving money and wealth and possessions a divine attribute. We're saying that it has the power to do for us what only God can do. You've been listening to the first part of our guest teacher, Kyle Eidelman's message, Gods of Success, from his series, Gods at War.

Chip will join us shortly to share some additional thoughts and application to what we've heard. When you hear the word idol, you probably picture those big stone figures that people worshiped centuries ago but did you know that while most people don't bow down to man-made statues anymore, we all worship something? In this series, our guest teacher, Kyle Eidelman, reveals the subtle nature of idolatry and just how rampant it is in our lives, oftentimes without us even realizing it. He unpacks the ways we've put money, pleasure, achievements, careers, even our families in place of God and how we've allowed those false gods to satisfy, control, and define us. Well, stay with us as Kyle exposes the idols we're holding onto and challenges us to take radical steps to get back to worshiping the one true God. To learn more about this series, Gods at War, Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart, go to livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003.

App listeners, tap special offers. Well, before we get to Chip's application for this message, Chip, I can see you wanna jump in here and talk a little bit more about the resource we have for this series. So would you take a minute and share what it has meant to you? You know, every year, I think about what does God want for me? So now it's 2022, and as I think about what I want God to do in my life, there's a book that has had a huge impact in my life in the past, and as I've done a little review, I realize that I think it needs to have impact in 2022.

And the book is called Gods at War by Kyle Eidelman, Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart. And with all the junk that has happened in the last 18 to 24 months, I just kinda wanna get right spiritually. I wanna go back to the baseline. I just wanna say, okay, Lord, if there's idols in my life, and I know they just creep up, this is what I wanna do. And so I would encourage you, if you're thinking about, you know, how do I get on track for 2022?

How do I set a new baseline? What's a book that I could read with my wife or with a friend or accountability partner? Or maybe just privately to sort of say, Lord, I wanna be your man.

I wanna be your woman. I really want to do a deep dive with you, God, Holy Spirit. Let me recommend Gods at War by Kyle Eidelman. I think it would be a great investment of your time and set your course for 2022 exactly where the Lord would have it. Well, if you've been moved by what Kyle's been teaching in this series, let me encourage you to get this book. It'll take you deeper into the subtle dangers of idolatry and push you to consider what needs to change in your life. To order your copy of Gods at War, Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart, visit livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003, or go to livingontheedge.org.

App listeners, tap special offers. Chip, today's message covered a familiar biblical story, the rich young ruler, but Kyle really dug deep and pointed out a very important lesson that we often overlook. Could you elaborate on that for us? Absolutely, Dave. What we know is the rich young ruler was very moral, right? He kept the commands, he had a lot of money. I mean, if we would have met this guy in our day, he would have driven up in a very, very nice car. He would have had very, very nice clothes.

He would have had a watch and that would tell us that he's in the upper class. I mean, if you would check out his internet history, you could go through his browser and you could check all the sites that he goes to and you would think to yourself, wow, man, this guy is pure. He's morally clean.

He's got it all together inside and out. But Jesus saw something different. What Jesus does is ask a number of questions to help him begin to understand that all of that is external, but there's an issue of the heart and there's an idol. And the idol in his heart is money. His security, his value, his worth, what made him a somebody was his money. And so Jesus looked at him and loved him and said, go and sell all that you have, give it to the poor and come follow me.

In other words, get rid of the false God and I want you to experience the real God because that idol can't deliver and it'll destroy you. And in his case, that's what he needed to do. And the text says, because he had very much money and he went away sadly. And I think it broke Jesus' heart. But what I'll tell you, the text doesn't say, it also broke that man's heart.

His life never achieved, that money never delivered because it never does and it never will. And so I just wanna say to all of you, we need to do what Jesus asked him to do. I will tell you, I've had a handful of times in my life where the Lord has tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to give way above, I mean way above any percentage, any tithe. I mean really like go into your retirement chip and take a big chunk of money and I want you to give it over here or I want you to do something over there. Or maybe I wrote a book and he said, before anything happens, I want you to commit in advance to give a really big percentage of all of that even before you find out how it's gonna go.

And I think those are little tests and honestly it was hard. I struggled with that but what I realized was when I struggle with giving away what is God's, it tells me that an idol is growing in my heart. If God is asking you to give generously or extravagantly or in a radical way and in your heart you're feeling like, oh no, I can't do that, then what I want you to know, there's an idol and that idol is not gonna go away and the only thing to do is for you, in your world, in your situation, is to do something radical to give some money to help some people in some radical ways that make you feel like wow, I'm releasing that.

My security can't be in my money because I'm releasing a big portion to help some other people. And I don't think we talk enough about that in Christian circles. And I think because materialism is such a challenge for all of us, we sort of wink at one another and give each other a pass. That idol is destroying people's lives and it's destroying the church. And today is a day for you, in your world, to do something radical about it. Let me encourage you, go for it. Well just before we close, would you pray for those who are responding to Chip's encouragement today?

There's always a spiritual battle when we feel prompted to draw near and obey God. Thanks for taking a minute to do that. And if there's a way we can pray for you, would you let us know? Call 888-333-6003 or email chip at livingontheedge.org. That's chip at livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. We'd love to hear from you. Well until next time, for everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.