Gospel Application - Sin beneath the Sin
(This was written by Emily McEntyre, part of it was adapted from Tim Kellers early article on idolatry.)
Displayed in bold on her PC monitor were all of the offices that Kelly held on campus. She added them up quickly in her head. Hmmm….maybe that’s enough. If she could just have one more cultural volunteer activity she would be a shoe-in for the president’s council. And everyone on the president’s council has a future. She grabbed her bag on the way out of the door and nearly ran right over her roommate, Amy.
“Sorry Ames, just headed to the Girls’ Club to see if they need volunteers.”
But I thought that we were grabbing lunch today,” Amy said, sounding disappointed. “I never see you any more – you’re always in charge of something. My friend Katherine, who’s not a Christian, wanted to meet you. I really think she’s seeking.”
“I’m so sorry Ames. Let’s reschedule.” Kelly yelled as pushed open the heavy stairwell door and let it bang behind her.
“I’m seeking too,” she thought. “I’m seeking a resume that will have companies drooling in two years…”
1. We all have issues. What’s our core problem?
A. We are unwilling to glorify God – We don’t want to give him the centrality that is his due. (Rom. 1:21 ‑ for though they knew God, they neither glorified him nor gave thanks to him). Deep down inside, we do not like the idea of someone else running our lives.
B. We choose created things as "gods". --In order to deny God control of our lives, each of us chooses created things to live for and worship instead. (Rom. 1:25 ‑ worshipped ...created things rather than the Creator.) We must worship something.
C. Our lives are distorted by a life Lie. At the base our all our life choices, our emotional structure, our personality, is a false belief system centered on an idol‑‑that something besides God can give us the life and joy that only God can give. This may be a secret goal or pleasure. This may be a person, activity, position or possession that we order our world around.
D. We are in bondage. No one is actually "free", for whatever we give ourselves to live for, we must serve. Since every human being must have an ultimate "good" by which all other choices are made and values are judged, we all "offer ourselves" to something. Therefore every human being is in "covenant service" to a "lord" which works its will our through our bodies.
E. We need the Holy Spirit. Even after conversion, our old false saviors/lords and their attendant false belief systems still distort our lives unless the power of the Holy Spirit continually renews our minds and hearts. (Romans 7:14‑25) The key to freedom is the application of gospel of grace (Rom.6: 14 ‑ Sin will not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.)
"The principle crime of the human race…is idolatry. For although each individual sin retains its own proper feature… they all fall under the general heading of idolatry.... All murder and adultery, for example are idolatry, for they arise because something is loved more than God‑‑yet in turn, all idolatry is murder for it assaults God, and all idolatry is also adultery for it is unfaithfulness to God. Thus it comes to pass, that in idolatry all crimes are detected, and in all crimes idolatry."
-- Tertullian, On Idolatry Chap. I
2. How does idolatry affect us?
A. Provides Motivation– Sin does not occur in a vacuum. You don’t just tell a lie for the heck of it (unless you are compulsive or mentally ill). You don’t just wake up one day and decide, for no reason, that you will rob a bank, gossip about someone, or have a torrid affair. All behavioral sins begin at a motivational level. You do these things because they are a means to an end. They are a way of getting something that will make you think will make you happy (money, a certain reputation, pleasure, freedom, etc.)
B. Enslaves Us – An idol is something we have set our heart on, so we must serve it. If I value most highly having a 3.4 GPA, then I will do a lot of shady things to get it, and I will begin to worry and be anxious if anything gets in my way. If too highly value physical fitness and love having really great biceps, then I will order my life around going to the gym and eating certain food. At this point I’ve already committed sins of the heart by worshipping this, but if someone or something gets in my way, I will also commit behavioral sins to accomplish my goal.
3. How can we tell if something is an idol?
A. Misplaced Loyalty. As soon as our loyalty to anything leads us to disobey God, we are in danger of making it an idol....
- Work, a commandment of God, can become an idol if it is pursued so exclusively that responsibilities to one's family are ignored.
- Family, an institution of God himself, can become an idol if one is so preoccupied with the family that no one outside one's own family is cared for.
- Being well‑liked, a very legitimate hope, becomes an idol ifh it means one never risks disapproval.
B. False Promises Idols are inflated and give us inordinate hope. They seem to promise things that will satisfy us or make us happy. These things tend to come in pairs.
- For example, a nearby idol may be making a 3.4, but the faraway idol is the subconscious belief that a great GPA will lead to fulfillment and happiness.
- Another nearby idol is working out. The faraway idol would be that having a great body is essential to a good life or will give us a good life.
C. Substituting. We worship idols because humans are wired to worship something. Ask yourself, “Has something or someone besides Jesus the Christ taken title to my heart's functional trust, preoccupation, loyalty, service, fear and delight?"
Questions bring some of people's idols to the surface. To who or what do you look for joy, security and acceptance? .... What do you really want and expect out of life? What would (really) make you happy? What would make you an acceptable person? Where do you look for power and success?' These questions or similar ones tease out whether we serve God or idols, whether we look for salvation from Christ or from false saviors. This helps determine the motives of my behavior, thoughts, feelings. In context of the Bible, the motivation question is lordship: who or what "rules my behavior, the Lord or an idol?" D. Powlison
4. OK, so I might have some idols. How does this affect me?
A. You become an unsuspecting servant. "The idol begins as a means of power, enabling us to control, but then overpowers, controlling us." -Richard Keyes, "The Idol Factory" in No God but God
B. Your views of what’s good and bad become twisted. "Your idols define good and evil in ways contrary to God's definitions. They establish a locus of control that is earthbound, either in objects (e.g., lust for money), or other people (e.g. I need to please my father'), or myself (e.g. attainment of my personal goals). Such false gods create false laws, false definitions of success and failure, of value and stigma. Idols promise blessings and warn of curses for those who succeed or fail their standards.. For example, “If I make enough money, I will be secure. If I can get these certain people to like and respect me, then my life will be valid.'.... ‑ David Powlison, "Idols of the Heart and Vanity Fair"
C. Your emotions are in bondage. (You might not notice this until an idol fails you.)
- Idolatry related to the future leads to worry. Worry becomes intensified to whatever degree that I have worshipped my idols.... Suppose my god is my GPA or my physical health or my reputation. If I experience any of these under genuine threat, then I become worried and preoccupied.
- Idolatry related to the past leads to guilt and bitterness. Suppose I value the fact that I am a good “moral” person… If my morality has become an absolute value for me, a center of value that makes all my other values valuable ...then if I slip up morally, I am stricken with guilt. Bitterness becomes intensified when someone or something stands between me and something that is my ultimate value. (Someone contributed to my moral failure.)
- Idolatry in the present leads to boredom and emptiness. To be bored is to feel empty, [meaningless.] Boredom is an anticipatory form of being dead. To the extent to which limited values are exalted to idolatries...when any of those values are lost, boredom becomes pathological and compulsive.... My subjectively experienced boredom may then become infinitely projected toward the whole cosmos.... This picture of the self is called despair [The milder forms are disappointment, disillusionment, cynicism.]"
5. How do I combat sin on the motivational level?
A. Not with the Psychological Approach This approach says, “It’s alright to sin. You’re not perfect. Maybe your mom didn’t read you enough bedtime stories. No wonder you’re struggling with acceptance. God still loves you in spite of your sin.” This is not in line with the Gospel. God loves us the way Christ is, not the way we are. The Gospel is not centered on us, it’s centered on Christ. The psychological approach just makes us feel better about ourselves without getting to the root of the sin and pain.
B. Not with the Moralistic Approach. In this approach Christ's forgiveness is applied simply to behavioral sins. The solution is typically construed in all‑or‑nothing terms: “Let go and let God”, or “call it sin and call it forgiven” in an attempt to deal with the sinful motivations with a single act of housecleaning.
Moralism, whether it takes the form of either scolding or "pep talks", can ultimately only create an awareness of sin and guilt or of behavioral virtues built on will power.... We all gravitate toward the assumption that we are justified by our level holiness, and this focuses our attention not on Christ but on the adequacy of our own obedience. We start each day with our personal security in our present feelings or recent achievements or good behaviors in the Christians life. This leads to self-righteousness, if we are morally successful, and apathy or discouragement if we are unsuccessful.
Summary: The Rise and Fall of Idols
Step # I ‑ Pride. Sin is to seek to be God‑‑self‑existent and sovereign over himself! Sin is a desire to create a secure, independent life apart from God. An unwillingness to trust God, to admit we are creatures dependent on him.
Text: Genesis 3:5 ‑ you will be like God
Step #2 ‑ Fear. Sin‑pride leads to a pervasive awareness of our weakness and guilt. Thus there's a drive to ;get both control and worth, while hiding from God, self, others.
Text: Genesis 3:10 ‑ "I was afraid ...so I hid"
Step #3 ‑ The Lie. Sin‑anxiety moves us to construct an idol‑based belief system by which we seek both power and worth as independent from God. We trust the idols for them. The idol system distorts the way we perceive ourselves, success and failure, God, the world, and others.
Text: Genesis 3:12 ‑ "you will not die ...for God know when you eat it your eyes will be opened."
Step #4 ‑ Self‑justification. The Life‑lie leads to a life of pleasing the idol(s): choices and behavior coherently designed to seek its blessings and avoid its curses. All idol systems are essentially a form of "works‑righteousness" with its own set of standards and laws.
Text: Genesis 3:7 ‑ they ...made coverings for themselves
Step #5 ‑ Lusts. Because we give idols power to justify us, we must have them, creating deep inordinate drives and desires that master us and can't be controlled. Our idols control us by capturing our imagination in the form of vivid, positive pictures of certain conditions we believe will make us happy and fulfilled.
Text: Genesis 3:16 ‑ your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
Step #6 ‑ Varied miseries. Depending on how our circumstances are and how our self‑justifying efforts go, our pain will differ. If someone or something blocks us from getting what we want, there is anger and scape-goating. If some condition threatens our idols there is deep fear and anxiety. If we fail our idol significantly, there is despair and self‑hatred or guilt. If we please our idol fairly successfully, there is still emptiness and boredom.
Comments
Post a Comment