Worship, part 2

I finished worship, part 1 questioning whether or not it is even possible to keep God in his rightful place and keep other things from becoming idols in our lives. As you may have guessed already, the answer is YES, we can do this. However, the method that often times is prescribed seems a bit wanting in my opinion. Often times churches give practical, religious ways to stop habits, stop worrying, and focus more on God. The prescription usually includes prayer, consistent Bible reading, and asking God to help us get over whatever we're worried about or hooked on. I'm certainly not advocating the abandonment of prayer or Bible study, but I think there is something more fundamental than these things that often isn't mentioned. The thing left out is this: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The answer to our idolatry problem (worshiping something else besides God) is not to work harder at Christian practices and white-knuckle our way through it. The answer is to learn, in deeper and deeper ways who Jesus is and how he is the greatest news in the world.

Part of being a worshiper, of being created to worship, is that we are setting our deepest affections on the object of our worship and we are willing to sacrifice many things for it. Another important part of worship (or idolatry) is that we become enslaved to whatever it is we worship. If it's your family, you will be a slave to all your family demands of you, usually feeling that you've never done enough to measure up.

Tim Keller tells a story of two women, each with terrible husbands who didn't father well, and each with one son. He counseled each of them at nearly the same time with the same advice: each needed to forgive their husband, work on loving him, and leave the rest up to God to work on their heart. The woman who seemed less mature in her faith successfully forgave her husband, improving the marriage and slowly seeing improvements of her husband's fathering. The other woman, who seemed more mature, did not forgive her husband. The son became suffocated under the mother's love, the marriage went south (I can't remember if they divorced or not), and the mother was bitter for many years.

Keller reflected years later on the events of these two women and realized one crucial difference between them: the woman who forgave her husband trusted God in such a way that her son was not an idol, yet the other one, the one that he thought would fare better, made an idol out of her son's love and wouldn't forgive her husband. The issue was not just bitterness or parenting, but idolatry on the part of the mother. When a relationships becomes an idol, we become a slave to it in such a way that we MUST have "it" - approval, success, praise/affection, power, control, etc. Every other idol becomes a master as well, though it may manifest itself in different ways.

So, how do we a.) discern idols, and b.) destroy idols? We went through how to discern them briefly in the last post, so I want to focus on destroying them. The deepest answer is that we need our hearts to see and take its greatest joy in the person and work of Jesus Christ. When we recognize Christ as our master (for that is what he is), we will come to see that he is the only master who can forgive us when we fail him and satisfy our heart. Career, romance, family relationships, education, money, sports, leisure, control, you name it - none of those things can forgive us if we fail them. We will know we are guilty of disappointing our master and work harder than ever to make it up and get in good standing. Only Christ gave his own life for us in order to become the Master of our hearts and lives - calling us to deeper trust in him and promising us grace when we fail him. We deserve infinite wrath from God our Creator - we have abandoned him, trusted in created things above him, and set our heart's affection on anything but him.

Yet Christ came, eternal God in human flesh, to reconcile us to himself. And the wild thing is this: only when we come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, when he is our Master, do we become free. Only by setting our heart's deepest affection on him, tearing down any idols that threaten that Lordship and seeing him as all-satisfying, will we find true satisfaction in other things as well. When Christ is Lord in our heart, then career, money, family, education, success, leisure, comforts, will become be subordinate to him. Instead of ruling over us, they will matter properly (these are good things, and should be important) but not so much so that we are consumed and ruled by them.

I know this post is long, but I hope it is a good encouragement for you. You don't need to work harder at stopping bad habits, you need to see and love Jesus Christ above all else. You don't need to work harder at changing your attitudes, you need to look to Christ, belonging to him and being satisfied in him.

Soli Deo Gloria

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Worship, part 1

In the Christian community, "worship" has become a word synonymous with singing. It is typically relegated to that period that people sing about 3-5 songs before someone prays and the pastor comes up. Oh, and maybe you worship (sing) some more after the sermon, and then are dismissed and go home. The only problem with this is, well, the Bible.

In the Bible we don't find worship to be singing; we find worship to be something that is woven into the fabric of every human being. Instead of being something religious people do on Sundays, it is something every human being does. But, what is worship? Worship actually used to be spelled differently in the old days, and was called "worth-ship" (pronounce it with a lisp and you get the idea). Worship is giving something your utmost "worth" or value, your greatest amount of dedication. The object of worship is whatever you are centered on, whatever life ultimately depends on for you. And you know what? We were all created to worship God. And we'd all like to think that we worship God pretty well. The only problem with this is, well, the Bible.

The apostle Paul sums up humanity this way in Romans 1:22-25 - "Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." You see, the opposite of worshiping God is not "not worshiping" but it is idolatry. Now idolatry is another word usually devoid of meaning these days because we think of people in foreign lands who make things out of wood or bronze, bow down to it or dance around it or paint silly things on their faces. The only problem with this is, well, the Bible (am I getting repetitive?).

In the book of Ezekiel, chapter 14, God talks to the prophet Ezekiel about how the people of Israel had "taken idols into their hearts". This is known as heart idolatry and is the most subtle and deadliest kind of idolatry. Heart idolatry happens when someone removes God from the rightful position of authority, influence, and honor in their life and puts something else there. This could be a relationship, the pursuit of more money, your children, sports, independence, nature, education, or any number of other things. Heart idolatry can be hard to spot, but here are three ways to be pretty sure something has become an idol in your heart:

1. What is it in your life that, if you lost it or it left you somehow, you would be utterly ruined and life would lose much of its meaning and purpose?
2. What do you spend most of your time thinking about, being concerned with or maybe worrying over?
3. What is that one thing that you routinely make sacrifices for? (The main thrust behind "sacrifice" here has to do with money and time being spent on itinstead of other things)

Here's the deal: usually an idol is actually a good thing like family, children, careers, your house, possessions like cars, boats, and your hobbies like golf, soccer, and so on. But, it becomes an idol when it becomes the Ultimate Thing in your life. This is called making a good thing a "god thing". So how do we get rid of these things? How can we return to worshiping God as God and keep other things in their right place? Is this even possible? We'll look at this next time.

Soli Deo Gloria

If you want an interesting read on "heart idolatry", click here for a great article.


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