Ancient Modern Idols

I have not heard that song before and I'm going to need to recover from that. I think fear is not my future. You are. Sickness isn't my story. You are. Heartbreak is not my home. You are. Do you believe that? There could not have been a better beginning to the teaching of God's word tonight. Thank you so much church for this opportunity and thank you ministry team for um framing this evening and making this possible and I pray that this will be a very special night for you and tomorrow night Wednesday night. Would you open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3? I'd like to read the first 10 verses. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ siteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things of the earth. For ye

are dead and your life is hid is hid. When you go out to the graveyard, the body is hidden. It's just a tombstone. This is the image that Paul evokes. You are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth that is put to death. Your members which are upon the earth that is your body. Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil, concupisence, covetousness, which is idolatry. For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience in the which he also walked sometime when you lived in them. But now ye also put all these off anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off

the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. This is our text. I'm focusing particularly on verse five. Put to death the members of your body which are upon the earth. And then he named several things that are indicative of the desires of the body. And then he calls these idolatry. Idolatry. I'd like to speak to teach on the subject of idolatry. In fact, I want to speak on the subject of ancient modern idols. Ancient modern idols. Before you're seated and before you pray for me and for uh God to help, um I have a great deal of confidence in this message. I don't have much confidence in myself. And I don't s say that to sound humble. I mean it. I've never taught on this before. Um

but it is upon my heart so strong. When I was a child, we lived in the Kitsap Peninsula in some of the low-lying areas between high hills and so radio signal didn't come on very well. But my mother liked to listen to 98.1 classical King FM. We would listen to WC's Claire DeLoon or uh Brahm's second piano concerto. We listen to all these wonderful classical songs, but the radio signal was very weak. And there was this low wind that would start out and then just rise static in the background. And it was really it was she the shepherd's scale, shepherd's tone, the illusion of infinitely rising tone. And couldn't hear the song, the music very well for the reception. And sometimes I feel that way. What I have here from the Lord is perfect and holy, but there's going to be some human interference. And

I beg I beg you to hear what you can from the spirit tonight in spite of me. This is the most urgent thing. The most urgent thing. Would you pray? Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for your help. May what I say be true to your heart and the whole council, your whole council on the matter. God, forgive me for my inability to fully understand. And Lord, help me. Help me to deliver clearly your word. Thank you for the people that have made time to come here tonight. They are not here for me. I am here for them. In Jesus' name, may I submit to your word and may the hearer submit to your spirit in Jesus' name we pray. In Jesus name. In Jesus name. If you will allow the spirit to change you while the word is being taught. Would you

say in Jesus name? In Jesus name. Thank you for standing. You can be seated. There's a hymn that's a little bit unfamiliar. in the 21st century. You may not recognize the first few lines, but I think you will recognize the refrain. The song goes, "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ, my righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but holy lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. uh when I'm uh preparing to teach or preach, I typically uh center what I have to say, what I prepare around not only a text of scripture, but also a hymn. And this is my hymn for tonight. Jesus Christ, my righteousness. My righteousness, only Jesus. Only Jesus. Um, our world has never quite had uh so much access

to so much to so many resources. We have never been so wealthy. We have not managed to eliminate poverty, but we're coming awfully close. It could be uh barring any major disruptions or any worldwide scale wars, we could be only 20 to 30 years away from eliminating poverty in every nation or rather hunger in every nation. This is sort of been unimaginable even 60 70 years ago. We've never had so much access to so many things to so many resources. There is a safety net system that uh the human uh that human civilizations really have never had. We are living, even the poorest Americans are living nearly at the level that only Roman emperors experienced 2,000 years ago. And yet, though we've never had it so good, the question is, why do we feel so bad? Why do we feel so bad? At least part

of the problem has to do with the way we validate ourselves, the way we go about justifying our existence. And more simply, human beings have this basic need to know that they're good. Um, in fact, it seems to have been built into us a belief that we should be perfect. We might know it's virtually impossible for us to be perfect, but we still seem to bear about in our conscience an unshakable conviction that we were made for some other higher world, for a more perfect purpose. We have the same deep feelings about death. It's deeply unnatural to us. You'd think that a creature like ourselves would be better at dealing with death. It's around us everywhere. We even live on what dies. And there are reminders of our mortality around us every day. We're having a good time. Thoughts of death, though, are never so

far away. We might get out on the highway and see a dead animal lying on the side of the road. We either try not to think about it too much, but if we do, we wonder, how does this fit in the mental world I was trying to live in? Not too long ago, I was driving on an interstate in standstill traffic. We finally crept up to the scene of the accident, and I was utterly horrified by what I saw. A cattle truck overturned and in the ditch a few dozen black steers lying in an awful death stare. Eyes wide shut, mouths open, tongues spilling out over their jaws. one though I could see the whites of his eyes rolling around his whole body except his eyes and tail was paralyzed. I can't quite say why this particular scene of death haunts me so much but

I found myself wanting to get out of the car and shake my fist at the world and its cruelty. These were mere cattle, unthinking brutes. And death, even for these animals, seemed to me, as I'm sure it seemed to everybody that passed by on that day, criminal. You sing of the circle of life to your heart's content. But still, we know somehow that death is the stranger, the foreigner, the alien, the outsider. It does not belong here. And yet here it is. The most natural way of thinking about death is that we live on in some other state. And this is why death is so painful for the living. We're supposed to live forever. But when a loved one dies, we're separated for God knows how long. And to believe that death simply annihilates us takes a lot of practice to believe. We haven't truly

forgotten Eden. We were meant to be deathless. And so we too were meant to be perfect. And we haven't forgotten that. And these two echoes of the memory of Eden live on in our hearts. Our collective memory of Eden and our original perfection. It's never left us. So we really can't deal with the fact that we're a mess. We can't deal with it. At least constructively, it seems we still want to know, am I a good person? And if so, how do I affirm? How do I know I'm a good person? What's the measure, the standard by which I measure myself to affirm that I am indeed a good person? We want approval so badly. Now if you open a very old book like Homer's Iliad or Moses's Genesis or the Hindi epic Bavad Gita the Persian Shaune Sir Thomas Mallerie stories of Camelot and

Lamort Darthur it won't take very long before you'll notice that the characters are very frequently introduced as being someone's son. They're known in fact by their father. Jesus, for instance, in the gospels famously called Peter Simon, son of Jonah. Achilles is referred to not as Achilles the warrior or king of the Mermadons, which is what would be important to the modern reader. Instead, he was called Achilles, son of Pelus, and so on. All the characters are introduced that way at some point or other. Ancient or medieval writers or readers rather um were less concerned about personal achievements and more concerned with what family you came from. Or maybe we should say that the personal merit you could attain was subordinate to family merit. That's because people used to derive their sense of self-worth from their father's reputation or their grandfather's reputation. Your father's name was

a password or on the other hand a red flag to the world around you. But we really don't have that anymore. Modernity teaches people to find their self-worth in themselves alone. You can be anything. Do what makes you happy. Don't worry about traditional notions of beauty and intelligence. Set your own standards. Love yourself. Be exactly who you are. And if you don't meet people's approval, it's their fault. You don't need to change yourself. We've made an idol out of ourselves. And gods don't change themselves. People only fail to see you as beautiful and successful and smart because they have their dogma and their own personal dysfunction and their phobias. Try as me we might though we can pound the pulpit about this culturally forever and ever. But none of these mental gymnastics actually works. There's probably never been so many talented, attractive, apparently successful people

in a world, but on the inside, they're in the vice grip of anxiety and soulc crushingly low self-esteem. And to deal with the problem, we don't think of changing our worldview. And when I say we, I'm not singling you out or this church out. I'm speaking culturally. Please understand, we don't think of changing our worldview and wonder if something isn't wrong with our social engineering. Instead, we fill our cities with an endless supply of narcotics and oceans of alcohol and realitydefying Marvel fantasy worlds and Instagram filters and try to live a virtual life. But time it's not virtual and it passes. It's a sign of maturity that you realize that the sense of alienation you feel is not going to change when you change friend groups or you go and join another denomination or move to another country or get the job you've always wanted

or wake up one day and find that your political party has won the day. The alienation that human beings feel in this world is it's part of us. It's part of being in this world. It's a broken world. The alienation is not caused by all the people around you. It's innate. Historically to deal with this, human beings tend to turn towards idols. In the ancient world, you might worship Jupiter or Venus or Athena or Apollo. Uh but don't think that just because we don't have statues of these figures around anymore and we don't have temples dedicated to them, don't think that they aren't still in effect. Jupiter, the god of power, is still very much an idol today. The love, the lust after power. Venus, the goddess of beauty and sex, very much, very much alive today. She might be sitting at top the parthonon.

Athena, the goddess of wisdom, the educated, the elite. Yeah, that's still with us today, too. Apollo, the desire for fame and notoriety is still very much with us today. Uh, but there's another there's another idol and tomorrow night I intend to spend a little bit more time on some of these culturally important idols. But there's another overlooked idol that I think is specifically relevant to a gathering of of of believers like we have here tonight. And also I I say this I speak these things not only um addressing them to you personally but I'm hoping that you'll not only apply them to yourselves but also that this will be a way of helping you think about the world around you and be able to diagnose some of its problems that you see cropping up in your surroundings. Um let me explain. God gives people gifts.

Sometimes he gives whole nations a particular and peculiar gift and he makes that nation the steward of a certain gift or insight. To the ancient Phoenicians he seems to have given the gift of invention, innovation. They did invent the uh the Phoenician alphabet and really made the modern world possible by reducing the 30 or 40,000 alphabetic characters of the ancient near east down to just 23 letters. It's amazing. uh to the Greeks he seems to have given the gift of philosophy, intellectual nuance, exactitude of thought, precision of speech. To the Egyptians, the gift of provoking awe. To the Romans, the gift of civic planning and scalability across the world. To the ancient Israelites, God gave the gift of the law. He gave them a keen sense of justice. a revelation of God's complete oneness and holiness and our responsibility to one another. I'm reminded of

something that Ellie Visel rather Abraham Joshua Hesshel famous rabbi in the 1960s and Holocaust survivor u after the Holocaust he had some um uh uh uh atheists ask him uh where was your God during the Holocaust when children were dying and Abraham Joshua Hesshel rabbi before the Holocaust And miraculously, Rabbi after the Holocaust had these profound words to say. The question is not where was God in the Holocaust. You see, he was taught by Moses. The question is not where was God during the Holocaust. The question is where was man? Where was America? Where was Great Britain? Where was Italy? Are we our brother's keeper? This was the great Hebrew insight, a gift that God gave. And really, this and the gift of monotheism, the revelation of God's oneness, these are the supreme gifts. And it was given as the Hebrew prophets themselves declared, not

because Israel was the best nation and had the best people, but in some ways because it was the lowliest nation. And Israel was to uphold this law and proclaim this revelation to the nations and be a light to the world and offer it as a gift to the Gentiles so that they too could live accordingly and enjoy its blessing. Unfortunately though, when God gives gifts, whether it's on the national scale or the individual scale or the family scale, we tend to turn God's gifts into a source of pride and arrogance. We assume not that we were given a gift um uh uh um uh graciously but that it is our own and that it is a a a result of us being gifted naturally gifted people. We take God out of the equation. We say we deserve this. We earned this. We worked hard for

this because we're good people. We put God in our debt. God had to bless us. If he didn't, he wouldn't have been just. He said he would bless us if we did this or that. And we did exactly that. So God owed us. We're better people. Look at how we do this or that. So much better than all kinds of people out there. This is why we're a prosperous nation or this is why we're a prosperous family or this is why we're a part of a prosperous ethnicity. This is all idolatry. But you don't even have though to be a dominant nation or belong to a prosperous nation or family to think of yourself as belonging to a superior people or race or family. You can even turn your loneliness, your misfortune, your impoverishment, your oppression into an idol of self-righteousness itself. You can say

our oppression proves we're better people. We've earned spiritual superiority by our suffering. God owes us. Life owes us. In other words, we can turn just about any circumstance or characteristic that is unique to us into a source of self-righteousness and pride. And this is the idol that I'm talking about. The idol of self-righteousness. Now, you might want ask, "Well, why are you harping on this one when there are so many other obvious idols out there?" Well, believe me, if I were standing in front of a university group right now, a group of students, I would be talking about those. But this one hits close to home, very close to home. and hear me. If you have the gift of intelligence, it's usually not long before that gift is turned into the sneer at the common man, the sneer of a college professor lecturing the ignorant

and compulsive, impulsive public. Or if you have have the gift of being normal or a populist, you might find yourself scoffing at education, sneering at the elite, mocking the millionaires for not knowing how ridiculous and entitled they are. If you happen to be the citizen of a prosperous community or nation or family, you can ignore the 10,000 events that brought you to this place and that you had nothing whatsoever to do with and think that your place in the world had something to do with your family or nation's natural or hard-earned superiority. And if you're wealthy, you can fall into the deceit of believing that your bank account is an indication of your self-worth and a tangible way of ranking yourself in comparison to other people. I'm part of the 1%, the cream of the crop. If you're poor, as I've mentioned, you can be

deceived into believing that your poverty entitles you to God's blessings and also entitles you to resenting those who aren't poor. Gives permission to hatred. This is how idolatry works and it is alive and well today. It's the act or the habit of taking a circumstance in life, a gift, a talent, an identity, and putting it in the place of God as the source of your self-worth. Your whole self-worth has to do with the fact that you were made in God's image. Never forget that. Never forget that. None of these things can enhance your self-worth. Not one little bit. You can't by wishing it. add one inch to your stature. You were given the ultimate compliment when you were made when given the stamp, the impress of the image of God. This self-righteousness then is the act of taking God's graciousness out of the equation, making

it your substitute for God. And and hear this this phrase, your functional righteousness. It is the act of taking something good that God freely and graciously gave you and turning around and using it to rank yourself in comparison to others. And the apostles taught us very specifically that we should not be comparing ourselves one to another. Peter, what is that to you? Just follow me. But Israel did what people who have a God-given gift often do. Turn it into a source of pride. The Israel of Paul's day is perfectly embodied in the story that Jesus told of the Pharisee who saw a tax collector down the street heavy of heart, riddled with guilt, trying to pray. And he said, the Pharisee did. I thank God that I'm not like that sinner. I pay my dues and live according to the law. And be careful. Be

careful that you don't find yourself praying. I thank God I'm not like that Pharisee. I'm glad I'm not like those hypocrites that I go to church with. Be careful for this form of idolatry is an equal opportunity employer. Very crafty. There are a number of idols. I've alluded to them already. The idol of wealth, notoriety, sexuality, power, the idol of comfort, etc. And these are really usually easily identified. um they represent the distortion of God's gifts and people are prone to some form and people are all prone to some form of idolatry really which form usually depends upon your nature your personality your circumstances and as I've been mentioning there is this idol though that tends to follow us into the house of God even and tends to haunt the kind of people who want to be good most um it's The most underrated idol,

the idol that wears the best disguise, the idol of my own goodness. I am a good person. Unlike a lot of other people, I value the truth. I don't lie. Unlike other people, I'm faithful to my spouse. Unlike other people, I actually tell the truth. I'm honest. I'm ethical. Unlike others, you can depend on me. I'm a man of my word. Now, none of these things in and of themselves are wrong. In fact, they're all good. They're gifts. But don't use them to compare yourself. This kind of righteousness, this kind of idolatry was the idolatry that the Israel of the apostles day was prone to. And it was heavily chastised and rebuked in almost every book of the New Testament. Responsibility is good, security, dependability, morality, honesty, fidelity. But as a substitute for Christ, as your righteousness, they become an idol, an attempt to save

yourself, to rely upon your own high character, and you're going to let yourself down. And this is why Paul tells the Galatian Galatians, "For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law. Now it is evident that the no one is justified before God by the law. For the one who is righteous will live by faith, but the law does not rest on faith. On the contrary, whoever does the works of the law will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Do you realize that for you to be able to say, "I'm faithful. I'm dependable." All of those things, it required Christ to become a curse for

you and hang from a tree. You might not have had to work for your salvation, but somebody had to work. In fact, your salvation is sometimes described in both in the Old and New Testaments as uh the act of childbirth. I have attended three of those and I pray I'll never attend another. Oh, goodness gracious. Edgar Allen Poe, I I mentioned him yesterday. a horror story. I I cannot imagine fathom the pain. Half of you, half of you adults um maybe understand this better than I do, but I I I just can't imagine. And this is how the scriptures speak of how your salvation was wrought, brought into this world through the absolute agony. the work, the tears, the blood shed for you and me. Now, God had given Israel the gift of the law. The law showed them how to live, how to act,

what to do, what not to do. The law made them different from the surrounding world. but instead of rejoicing in the graciousness of God to give them the law and to call them out from among the nations. Um, and instead of thanking God for the responsibility to teach the nations graciously, Israel instead turned up its nose at the nations and thank God that it wasn't like the nations and became isolated. This is what the story of Jonah is all about. In fact, Israel started hating the fact that their God that they worshiped was actually merciful. It wasn't long before the law of God in this mentality had become a substitute for God himself. It wasn't God that made them special. It was the law that made them special. But look at that right there. Look what's happened. When God is your source of joy, when

God is what gives you your identity, when God and only God is your boast, the self is taken out of the equation. You can't even say that he's your personal God. You end up having to pray prayers like our father who art in heaven. You're you're you're implying by saying our father that he is everyone else's father, too. You can't get the satisfaction that he's your personal revelation or your people's revelation. God is the God of the whole earth. He is the God and creator of all nations and peoples. The self is in no way credited for being uniquely deserving. But when you say, "We want salvation. We want to be good. We want to be holy, but we'd prefer to be given a list of things to do to be able to save ourselves. You're essentially saying that you don't want God to save

you out of his goodness and graciousness and his mercy. You're saying you want to be saved because of your goodness and righteousness. You don't want God to save you by his grace. You want God to look down and say, "Now, he deserves salvation." It's an attempt to put God in our debt. And this, by the way, um is it's it's one especially pertinent way to read that strange text in Exodus in which the nation of Israel gathered at the foot of Mount Si, terrified by the presence of God, begs Moses to ask God not to speak directly to them anymore, but to speak to Moses instead. They want to hear what instructions they should follow minus the awesomeness of God minus the tangible presence of God. Well, u maybe this also um they they they don't want to find their goodness in the goodness of

God. This might explain that uh text in which Moses is hidden in the cliff of the rock with God's hand and God says he will cause his goodness to pass by. Remember the earliest story about human beings. What is it that from the beginning we weren't satisfied to let God and his word be our sole and sovereign king? We tried to build another throne next to his. In the day that you eat of the forbidden tree, you will be like God, like unto him. And this temptation proved to be too much. Something in the human heart is deeply moved by this temptation. This is how the law whose first commandment is to have no idols becomes itself an idol. and as an idol. Think about it for a moment. The law as an idol. It's possible to obey every ordinance in the law and give

away everything to the poor, but to do it all without love. You can do it so that you can put God in your debt. You might wonder why then that Jesus and Paul said that the greatest and second greatest laws were to love God and love your neighbor. But they taught that this was the sum of the law. This is the correct interpretation and application of the whole law. To love God and and our neighbor is the spirit of the law, though it might not be the letter of the law. So when the law is an idol, it's not about or it's not out of love that you give, that you pray, that you fast, that you defer to others, that you tell the truth, that you maintain sexual fidelity. You can do all of these things entirely out of a desire to fortify your

image of yourself. To be able to say with conviction that you're a good person, that you're righteous. You're distressed by nagging doubts that you're a good person. And again, I'm using second person here. You please understand, I'm speaking culturally, not a finger in your face. But hear me carefully. You might be distressed by nagging doubts that you're a good person, that you're righteous. And so when a new form of proof of one's goodness is floated out there, you might be the first one to jump at the chance to practice it. And the more self-denying the proof is, the more sacrificial the proof is, the more it punishes you, the more you might be attracted to it. Now, this is not for everybody, but I know very definitely some folks that this is exactly the case. Um, in this case, you're anxious to dispel doubts that

you're a good person. And Paul warns us about this in Colossians in 1 Timothy. He says, ' Don't let anybody talk you into forbidding marriage, cutting off the flesh, mandatory observances of new moons and Jewish Sabbath, Sabbaths and rituals and feast days. Why? These represent forms of of sectarianism, cultic religious rituals that are aimed solely at being substitutes for the righteousness of Christ and thereby giving one group of people of people a sense of moral and spiritual superiority. I once heard uh uh an illustration that Charles Spurgeon gave. I I I said that funny, didn't I? Um I wasn't alive when Spurgeon was preaching in the late 1800s. Um I heard about someone who heard about who read about who read in one of his sermons. See static and and and and the the illustration went something like this. He said that once upon a

time there was a king and he owned a lot of property of course and next to him there was a there was a poor peasant who uh uh uh raised and cultivated carrots. And uh one day he saw that that in his own garden the greatest, most beautiful and the biggest carrot he had ever seen and certainly had ever raised was there. And he thought his first thought was, "My family is going to enjoy this." But his second thought was, "What if I gave this to the king in thankfulness for being who he is and gracious and kind and ruling well?" And so he went and took it to the king, this great big carrot, and he offered it. He offered it to the peasant or he offered it to the king. He said, "Sir, good Lord, since you have been so kind, a sovereign,

this is the most beautiful carrot you will ever see, and I just want you to have it in gratitude. Thank you." And he turned to walk away, and the king called him back and said, "Wait a minute. Aren't you the one who lives right next to my property?" I'll tell you what. I'm going to give you 10 acres of my property in the most fertile soil. Thank you for being such a gracious subject. And the peasant went away. He went home and he told a neighbor about this instance. And the neighbor got to thinking, "Wow, I know what to do." And so he got the most beautiful horse he had ever bred and he brought it to the king and he said,"King, out of gratitude for your great rule and your wonderful, wonderful reign, your graciousness to all your subjects, here is the most beautiful

horse. I want it to be yours. Thank you." But the king scratched his head and figured out what was going on. And he said, "Uh, sir, this is not a gift for me. Th this horse is a gift for you. You're doing this only so that you can have 10 acres, aren't you?" Yeah. Good illustration of what's going on. of what's going on with these good gifts, with these works of righteousness that we sometimes do to try to make God a debtor to us. It was even possible in the Judaism of Paul's time to be quote unquote blameless concerning the law, as he put it, not in spite of the law, but in the name of the law. He ends up imprisoning, persecuting, and even killing Christians. When you distort the law, when the law becomes your idol, when self-righteousness becomes your idol, when it

becomes your righteousness, you can find yourself capable of doing terrible things, acting harshly and cruy towards people because they're not as good as you are. Paul says that there's a struggle in every soul, a will to do what's right. We all want to be good people. Even very bad people want to be good people. If you ask them, it won't take very long to figure out they believe they have good reasons for doing what they do. But there's another quote unquote law working in them. Paul says it's the law of sin waring against their good intentions. It's a law in the sense that it's always present. It's like gravity. It doesn't go away by wishing it away. You can defy it for a time, but eventually it wins. It drags everything down. It's weighty and powerful and just dares you to wear yourself out trying

to beat it. When you're done flapping your wings, when you finally run out of fuel, when you've used every ounce of strength, sin, like gravity, will still be there to take control. Whatever goes up, must come down. But the situation is even worse than this. Paul says, "The law of sin isn't satisfied to just take control of you when you've exhausted yourself. Sin is so much more ambitious than that. The law of sin actively seeks to corrupt what's good." What's good? Paul speaks almost as if he was surprised when he first discovered this law of sin. He discovered that sin has even found a way to leverage the law of God against us. He said, "When I learned the commandment of the law, sin held a revival and I died. And the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. I I

I I I need to I need to go other places and finish. But I just there's something so deeply autobiographical happening right here. There's a great deal of pain in what Paul is saying right here. He's not saying, "Oh, wretched man that I was." He's saying, "Oh, wretched man that I am." He didn't say in first Timothy that this is a faithful saying worthy of all acceptance that Christ came to save sinners of whom I was chief. He says I am chief. And I alluded to this just a moment ago. What if he's referring here to that act of persecution of the Christians? Sin held a revival. When I discovered the commandment, it slew me. Sin held a revival and I died. He refers over and over and over again to the fact that he's the least of the apostles. He's the least. He's so

unworthy. He's so unfit because he persecuted the Christians. Imagine having on your hands the blood of the the maybe the greatest Christian that was living at the time, Steven. Imagine that. For sin, Paul says, seizing an opportunity in the commandment deceived me. I thought I was doing something for God, but I was actually working contrary in contradiction to his will and callously persecuting. And he says, "It deceived me and through it killed me." I used the law of gravity a moment ago, but Paul uses a different metaphor. He he says that um sin is a slave master. He says that we're like slaves sold into the service of sin. In the ancient world, men and women could be be made slaves under various conditions. And one of those conditions was to be put into debt. And and to work off the debt, you would be

put into slavery. And usually whenever um uh uh you went into slavery, there was no way out. Uh the the slave had no say. The wages were set at the lowest possible minimum. And even there uh then there was no way to be sure that the master would honor the minimum. Enslavement usually meant a lifetime of it. And your body could be sick and tired and wounded. It didn't matter. Off you go to the mines. You carry heavy stones for 14 to 16 hours a day. In other words, your whole life was now spent not in the services of your own dreams, your lofty goals. Your whole existence now belonged to someone who had no regard for you. And when you wanted rest, the bell rang and out you went into the hot fields. When you needed food or treatment or to visit your dying

father, the whip lashed your back. And against your will, you rose up and work for the wealth of a hateful stranger. You essentially lived with a knife at your throat. And this is how exactly how Paul describes the human being's relationship to sin. He said, 'For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I don't understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Do you hear that? I don't get to do what I want. That is, I don't get to do what's best for me. I'm constantly in the service of something that hates me. Even when I set out to do something that I want to do, I wind up being caught in some kind of a web, a slave to some obsession,

some ambition, some lust that I can't quite describe, but I know is definitely there. Maybe you try to start a new relationship. You bring all that you've learned into this one and try to avoid the pitfalls, but soon you're right back where you were before. Only worse, there's yelling and shouting and anger and hatred and disloyalty. indifference. Or you want to be faithful to your spouse, but your eyes wander, your heart and imagination wander. You have a good time with your spouse. You go out on a date, you go to counseling, and you go to therapy, and you learn about what you need to do to avoid unfaithful thoughts and unfaithful acts. You're great. You're good to go. You now have the knowledge you need to stay faithful. You've learned that some maybe childhood problem has made you this way. You had a bad example

growing up, but now that you know it, you'll be able to fight it. All is well, right? But then an hour later, you're back where you started. You couldn't even pass the first small test. Or maybe it's problems with people and relationships. You tell yourself or your counselor tells you how you can stay in control of your emotions. You feel strong and equipped and ready to try again. So, you venture out. But it isn't long until something someone says bothers you and you feel trapped again. Your mind starts walking down dark roads and you hate people again and blow everything up. And this is the way it is everywhere you go. What in the world is wrong with me? Either I'm a really bad judge of character or I'm just a terrible person, a person that no one wants to be close to. These are

the kinds of thoughts and self-loathing that you might feel under the slavery of the law of sin. The trouble is deeper than our knowledge or strategies or feelings or therapy. Go back to Paul's words. I am of the flesh and sold into slavery under sin. The truth is, you aren't in control at all. We're not just living in a broken world. We're part of that brokenness. We're no more free of sin than a slave is free of the powerful master. We're sold into slavery. So we spend our lives working against our own good. That's the common human universal problem. Well, Paul goes on to throw up his hands and I've alluded to this verse already. He says, "Oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" And remember, Paul's describing an insurmountable problem by human standards. Jesus was teaching

his disciples one day very tender tenderly and he was talking about the father's love and the way that God loves you and he made this statement and it's maybe the most wounding statement I've I can find in scripture. Jesus is talking about the father's love how he already knows what you have need of before you even ask. And he says, he says, um, which one of you fathers, if a child asks you for something to eat, you give them a stone? You would give them something to eat. And then he says, if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto children, how much more shall your father in heaven give good things to them that ask him? But it's that phrase, if you being evil. And I've tried I've tried to explain that away by saying Jesus was using hyperbole because we

really don't believe that. We believe that we're basically good and in need of repair or correction or higher knowledge or just maybe a new start in life. But think about it for a moment. has Jesus diagnosed something something very important. Um the truth is is under our old nature our flesh the truth is you don't need to be a better person. You need to be a new person. You don't need to be a self-improved person. You need to be a new creation. And this is what Jesus offers. And this is what Paul said. But thanks be to God. He has delivered me from this body of death. One of the earliest works of grace in your life. And you know that the gospel is at work when you come to realize your true situation. It's when you know who you are. Now, the world believes

the world believes that we're basically good people, but there's this gnawing anxiety, something in us that tells us we'll never quite live up even to our own standards. But the church, we know better. We should know better. The the scriptures have taught us over and over and over again. We need to be new people, a new humanity. Our old humanity is not going to get us there. It's going to fail us again and again and again and again. Don't rely upon it. But don't worry, Jesus saves us. He gives us a new nature, a new person. So, one of the earliest works of grace is this truth, this painful truth that this isn't going to cut it. I remember hearing a story about a a man that uh he he he buckled his three children back of a car and this was in the 1980s

I think maybe 1990 and uh he was parked on a bank near a lake and u he got out for some reason and um and then got back in the car a few minutes later or got went to go back into the car a few minutes later but he had for forgotten to put the car in park or maybe he had put it, I don't know, but the brake didn't work, the gears didn't work, something didn't work. And what I remember is the car rolled into the lake and the three children inside that were buckled were were they drowned. And this was national news. It was absolutely horrible. And when the funeral was held, it was kind of had become a national story. And so some journalists picked it up and and um there was great relief in the community to see that this husband

and wife um they had uh the wife didn't blame the husband and the husband felt great grief for it but then he relied upon the grace of God and and uh and and he was able to bear himself up uh and speak graciously at the funeral. And uh they seemed to do so well for so long, but then somebody followed up on the story about 15 years later and found out that the uh that the husband 15 years later become a deacon in the church. He uh he he confessed to his pastor that he uh uh had started having unfaithful thoughts. And so uh he had asked his pastor for help and and uh the pastor gave him uh you know biblical teaching on the subject and there was uh they were going to work through all of this and and uh the problem was

though that he just went into a spiral an absolute spiral. uh he was haunted by this uh uh uh uh realization that that he was um uh uh being unfaithful to the person who loved him most. He believed that he was basically a good man, but this was starting to crush that idea. and uh he ended up having to go on um prescription drugs uh to try to help stabilize him mentally. He couldn't quite deal with it. Then he was committed to a psychiatric hospital and then he committed suicide over the issue almost 20 years after the death of his three children. How could you go through the most horrible thing a person could go through but then commit suicide after being haunted by adulterous thoughts? I'll tell you why. Because he believed he was basically a good man and that what made him a

Christian was his faithfulness to God, his faithfulness to his wife, his faithfulness to his reputation. He really didn't know that what made him a Christian was God's faithfulness to him. The man discovered that there's evil in him. That deep down he's a traitor to this one he loves the most and he couldn't take it. He believed that he could either be evil or he could be loved, but not both. In every other religion of the world, you can either be evil or you can be loved. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is entirely different. The gospel says that yes, your old nature is evil, but you are loved nevertheless. Again, like I said yesterday, Christ did not wait until we were lovable to love us. He loved us while we were yet sinners. And when we don't know this, when we don't understand this, when

we don't understand what makes us a Christian, it's his faithfulness. We can develop an idolatry of self-righteousness. And the idols, there's a devil behind them. They might be nothing in this world, but behind them, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, the Apostle Paul tells us that there's a devil behind the idols. And they intend to humiliate us. They make us stand naked in the world, depending on ourselves for salvation. And when we fail, we're not just humans who failed. We're gods who failed. And that's a whole different story. The gospel of Jesus is entirely different. The word of God tells us the truth about our old nature but removes our humiliation with the love of God. The question to ask is what is it in our own view that makes us feel good about ourselves? What is it that justifies our existence? For some people it's being

powerful. A man might not really feel like he's anything unless he's able to influence people or get them to act or be seen as highly respected and important. For other people, what justifies their existence to themselves is um uh what makes them feel good about themselves is their ability to be exceptional and stand out from everyone else. They don't really feel alive until they have eyes and ears on them. uh what really brings them to life is the opportunity to make other people maybe even a little jealous. For others, what justifies their existence is their attractiveness, having the ability to get people to like them quickly. For some people, it's about their stability, their stable people. They're crushed when things get out of order or they're not prepared or their bank account takes a hit, investments go bad. as someone else might get their sense

of happiness from their privacy being in control of where they're at and in control of their schedule. What these are or could become very easily are idols of self-righteousness. What we use to make us happy. I've purposely used the word justify and paired it uh repeatedly with the phrase what makes you feel good about yourself. Because in the New Testament, the term that's translated to justify or to be righteous comes from the same Greek term. The word essentially refers to that which gives you a sense of rightness, that which satisfies your desire to be a good person. Now, in our faith, Jesus is supposed to be our righteousness. He's supposed to be that which justifies us. He's supposed to be our identity. What makes us feel worthy as a person? what makes us feel good about ourselves. Our identity is supposed to be grounded in

what he did for us. And if we try to ground our identity in what we've done, we're going to fall apart. We know too much about ourselves. We know how much of a mess we really are and that we're barely keeping it together. We're deeply troubled by the revelation sometimes that crops up in our minds of our motives and we wonder where did that motive come from? But when we put our uh power or influence or attractiveness or reliability or abilities or financial prowess or talent in God's place, we're bound to crash and burn. And we're still in the service of this idol of self-righteousness. We're actually going to find ourselves committing sins in its name. What we're doing is substituting the righteousness of Jesus with our own functional righteousness. And even when we come into the church, we're not exempt from doing the same

thing just in a more complex form. The question to ask the Christian is not, "Do you believe that Jesus is our righteousness?" Of course you believe this. The question to ask is, "What is your actual righteousness or self-indication? How are you justified? What actually justifies your existence? What makes you feel good about yourself? What act or status or achievement convinces you you're a worthy person and worthy of other people's love? Whatever that is, that's your functional righteousness. The biblical word for this is idolatry. And we get confused about what makes us good. Um uh I I I've I've I've heard about the guy who he's known as a ladies man in high school and college and then in high school and college he leaves them once he's been intimate almost like the next day or the next week just dumps and u then one day

he he uh gets in church and I'm not telling a fable true story swears off fornication becomes highly disciplined in this area. His testimony was compelling. He ended up being put in leadership. But a few years into his term, people are finding out that it's impossible to work with him. Um, uh, he has to be in control of every meeting. He's the one talking all the time. When he has an idea, woe to those who don't put that idea into action. Woe to the pastor who doesn't put the idea into action. Um, he takes great offense at the smallest slights. So, what's happened here? Uh, you might ask, what happened to his conversion? Well, in fact, what had happened was that he was still worshiping the idol of control, power. Everyone thought that his idol was fornication, but that's only the surface idol. The devil

underneath, the deeper devil was control and power. And the same idol that led him to set out in conquest of new women every week and dominate them was now trying to dominate others through the church. Only he didn't know it. He didn't know it because he thought he had beat the idol of fornication only to find that fornication was a symptom of a deeper idol. What made him feel good about himself, what justified him in his own eyes was being in control and getting people to submit to his charisma. So, so um the Apostle Paul said, "If by the Holy Spirit you put to death, you mortify the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you

have received a spirit of adoption where we cry, "Aba, Father." It's the very spirit of God bearing witness with our spirit that we are in fact children of God. Mortifying or putting to death the deeds of the body. It's Paul's way of saying, "Let the Holy Ghost cast out your false idols, your false righteousness, your false sense of what makes you a good person and worthy." God has made you his child. Don't go back now to finding your identity in your own goodness. That's the world's way. That way is the way of slavery and anxiety and fear and depression and ultimately failure. Cry out to God and call him your father. That is call him your identity. Call him your righteousness. And when you do this, this is the power of the Holy Ghost working through you, confirming that idols are being removed and the

true God is taking his rightful and loving place in your life again. You've been set free from having to save yourself. You've been freed from having to justify your own existence. You hear me? Jesus gave us the gospel in John 17. That they may know that you, Father, have sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me. You are loved. Loved. Loved. You've been set free from having to find your own happiness within yourself. Set free from having to rely upon your own rightness. He is your rightness. He is what justifies your existence. He is your boast. If any man boasts, Paul says, let him boast in the Lord. He is your pride and joy, not your own goodness. He's your happiness that you are loved by him. You don't have to run around and secure compliments from people to feel

alive. And you don't have to have full bank accounts to feel secure. You have joy unspeakable, full of glory. You have a peace that passes understanding. You don't have to have everyone's attention. You don't have to be in charge to fulfill your calling in life. God has called you. What made you a Christian is not that you came to know the Lord. It's that the Lord knows you. You only love him because he first loved you. So put away, mortify, put to death false righteousness and let his righteousness reign. Give your heart over to this one matchless truth, this one lifesaving truth. Give your life over to the glory of God. He is all you really need. Turn your back on all forms of self-righteousness. The word of God speaks to you. So, how do I do this? How do I do this? Well, I

close with this scripture. I would propose that what Paul is about to do here is he's going to teach the Christians of Ephesus whenever there's the temptation and the sense of self-righteousness that rises up within you and your sense of happiness comes from that idolatry of self-righteousness. Here's what you do. Turn to the Lord and give praise to him. Watch what he says. Watch what he says. Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. Be careful then, how you live, not as unwise people, but as wise, making the most of your time. The days are evil. Don't be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do you see how ourselves is being emptied out and he is being put in? Do not get drunk with wine. Be filled with the spirit as you sing psalms

and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus. that is in the one who saves. So whenever you face that temptation, what I want you to do, that lifelong temptation, that lifelong weakness, turn around and give praise to God. You are my righteousness. You are my glory. You are sufficient. Your grace saved me. Now to the one who is able to keep me from falling. Be all the glory and the honor forever and ever. Give praise to him every time. And let songs and hymns and spiritual songs rise up within your heart and defeat temptation through the power of the Holy Ghost. The overlooked verse in Amazing Grace. The Lord has promised good to me. His word my

hope secures. He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures. Yes. When this flesh and heart shall fail and mortal life shall cease. I shall possess within the veil a life of joy and peace. The earth shall soon dissolve like snow. The sun forbear to shine. But God who called me here below will be forever mine. So I end where I began. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ, my righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but holy lean on Jesus name. Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. When darkness fails his lovely face I rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale my anchor holds within the veil. His oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives

way, he then is all my hope and stay. When he shall come with trumpet sound, oh may I then in him be found. In him my righteousness alone, faultless now to stand before the throne. Are you a Christian? Don't say I'm trying. Don't say I'm working on it. He already did the work. What makes you a Christian? Jesus did. Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be all glory and honor forever and ever. May your people return again and again to this one solitary and matchless truth. Jesus saves. Jesus, my righteousness. God, help me. Destroy idols. Unseat them and take your rightful place upon the throne of my heart. Brothers and sisters, come to the altar before you go home. Come to the altar before you go home. Come to the altar. Let's pray together. Can we pray together? Jesus name. Praise

God. I give you glory. I give you honor. I give you praise. Jesus Christ, my righteousness. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, there's something about Thank you for saving me. Thank you, Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Jesus. Jesus. Lord, this world is running itself ragged, trying to save itself. Lord, Jesus, help your church to rest upon this solid rock. Jes Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There's just something about that name. He's my master. Master Savior Jes. If you believe this, sing it. If his name is precious to you, sing this song as a prayer. Church, lift up your voice and sing. Yes, my Jesus. Church, lift up your voice and Sing this song. Teach others this song. Oh Jesus. My Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Oh, there's something. Master, master, savior, savior, savior. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. My love Jesus. Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Let all heaven and

earth proclaim kings and kingdoms shall all pass away. But there's something that name. Praise God. Praise God. Let this be the night that you stopped relying upon yourself and you gloried in the Lord. You made him your boast. That's good. You see, we repent and we're baptized in his name and we're filled with the Holy Ghost, but there are still stages in Christian disciplehip and we wonder, "What in the world? I thought all of this was gone at the altar." But remember, you still live in the body descended from Adam. But you're being remade in his image. And one day you will stand before him and you will see he will see his own reflection in your face. So you have to die. Die daily. You are dead. Paul said, "And your life is hid in Christ." Bury that old nature that wants to save

itself and put on Christ, your only hope and your glory. Let's praise him. Let's praise him. Jesus, praise you. Let your people, let your people follow your word and wholly lean upon your name, Jesus, I give you glory and honor and praise. Thanks be unto you. Thanks be unto you. Thanks be unto you. Jesus name. Thank you Jesus. Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Hallelujah. Thank you Lord. Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus.