Killing the Religious Idol

The last post dealt with the types and symptoms of religious idolatry. I want to be clear that I don't believe that religion in and of itself is bad. Religion can be a good and beautiful thing, as long as it's kept in its proper context. Formal religion (liturgies, creeds, systems, structures, denominations, etc) is simply a tool to help us know Jesus and grow in our faith. We are finite, linear creatures that need structure, even in our spirituality - thus, religion comes into play. God himself is the author of this, when he first gave Moses the law.

But where everything gets jacked up is when people put too much stock into the form of religion and not the object of religion, namely Jesus. The result is a heavy, weighed down, performance-driven life that doesn't free people to love God, but enslaves people and puts fear into them, because if they don't "do things right", they will no longer be acceptable to God (nor the religious community).

How can this religious idol be killed? The answer is one word: faith.

We see this in verses 13-14 of 1 Corinthians 10. Verse 13 is an oft-quoted verse about being able to get out of a sticky situation where you'll be tempted to sin. But what we need to keep in mind is the context of the verse. Paul exposes the religious idol in verses 1-12, and then writes the refrain in verse 14 "Therefore my beloved, flee from idolatry." The context is of utmost importance.

Here's what's going on, I believe: at the heart of religion is our efforts to be acceptable to God and be about his work. It's basically what we "do." And I will propose that this is the default of the human heart, particularly in American culture. If we want something done, we need to do ourselves. We believe that if we work hard enough, we can accomplish anything. People really, really believe these statement. And since they really, really believe them, they really don't need God to do anything for them. They can do it themselves. Enter the religious idol. The "temptation common to man" is the temptation to depend on moralistic, legalistic, religious effort and performance to be acceptable to God.

The point of verse 13 is that we may be able to endure the temptation (or "testing", which is the root word). If we always had a tangible "escape" from all testing, the result would be an extremely weak faith. Think of it like lifting weights. You strain (or test) your muscles in order for them to grow and get stronger. Same with your faith. The only way for your faith to grow is for it to be tested. And every time you are able to endure a testing of your faith, you can endure a greater testing the next time. And what's more, as a Christian you have the ability to endure any temptation. Why? Because as a Christian you have the Holy Spirit - God Himself - dwelling inside of you. And nothing is too great for God!

So what is the way of escape then? It's the exercising of your faith. Sometimes the "escape" we need is simply to wait on God and let Him be God. When you find yourself in an apparently overwhelming situation, don't look to act right away; pray and wait on Jesus. (what I don't mean is intentionally putting yourself in a sinful situation - sometime you do need to flee like Joseph did from Potiphar's wife; I'm just saying that's not exactly what this particular passage is talking about). But if you try to do God's job for him simply because you refuse to wait on Him, then you will fall into religious idolatry; just like the Israelites did with the golden calf in Exodus 32 (they stopped waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain, so they took things into their own hands, and paid a dear price for their idolatry).

So in order to fully kill the religious idol, we must first keep religion in its proper place and remember that it is a tool to help us connect to God and grow in Him. Secondly, we must exercise faith in Jesus when we feel tempted to simply get something done on our own. We need to remind ourselves that through our faith in Jesus and his finished work on the cross, are we fully accepted by God. And as we wait upon the Lord, we will find our faith strengthened and will experience a very real reality of God in our lives, and will experience much joy and give much glory to God.

Gospelizing Your Idols

We are an idolatrous people. Not that this is anything new, but it's more prevalent than you'd think. Culturally, it is quite easy to see our current "temples" of our "gods", namely: shopping malls, restaurants, sports stadiums, strip clubs, and even technology centers in California and the Pacific Northwest (had to include this since I really can't say that the Internet is a "place"). Everyone on the planet falls into either one of two categories: worshipper or idolater. A worshipper is a gospel-centered Christ-follower who understands and strives to live out Romans 11:36 "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever." An idolater is then anybody who is not a Christ-follower OR a Christ-follower who has gotten their eyes off of Jesus. This is what Paul has been confronting the Galatians on. The issues beneath their issue of legalism is that of idolatry. This is exactly what he confronts them on in Galatians 4:8-11. He makes a direct comparison of their legalism to their former life of pagan idolatry.

So how do we figure out what our personal "idols of the heart" are? What do we do with them? Tim Keller gives us some great counsel regarding this.

1) Diagnose yourself to begin to identify the areas of idolatry in your life. Ask yourself these telling questions:

• Am I anxious? Am I prone to be fearful and worried?
• Am I angry? Am I prone toward bitterness and guilt?
• Am I empty? Am I prone to boredom, feeling despondent, or having a negative view of myself?
• Has my thinking been clouded, distorted, full of assumptions, and not rooted in reality?
• Do I struggle with intense over-desires or inordinate longings?

2) Identify what your primary idol may be.

• Comfort. A comfort idol has "dialects" of seeking salvation in things that bring you pleasure, always seeking new experiences (or the flip side, never taking risks), a high need for independence, or materialism.
• Approval. An approval idol has the dialects of a high need of being loved or respected by other people, overly-conscious of your image, having others dependent upon you, and an unhealthy perspective on being in relationships (finding Mr. or Mrs. "Right", being included in a certain "inner ring" of people, putting all of your hopes in one friend/family member).
• Power. A power idol has the dialects of needing to be influential, always achieving more, having your particular ideology in the majority (ie, Republican or Democrat), or positioning yourself so people always need you to accomplish whatever they're needing to do.
• Control. A control idol has the dialects of a meticulously maintained schedule, a predictable work environment, or a rule/tradition-laden religious expression.

3) Heal from your idols.

• Reject moralizing. Don't simply think all you need to do is repent and practice behavior modification. It just doesn't go deep enough.
• Reject psychologizing. Don't simply think you need to embrace and rejoice in that God loves you as you are. This goes a little deeper in addressing feelings, but it's still not deep enough.
• Embrace "gospelizing". You need to realize that you are looking to something or someone apart from Jesus for happiness and meaning (this is called a "functional savior"). And you need to : Remember Jesus' work on the cross and your identity in Him; Repent of your idolatrous attitudes, thoughts, & behaviors; and Rejoice that God does indeed love you as you are, but loves you enough to continue to pursue you so you don't stay that way!

The only way to truly find healing and victory over sin in your life is to identify the idol underneath it and root it out! This begins with being "known by God" (Galatians 4:9)...that it's His work in you and that according to 2 Peter 1:3-4, we have everything we need for life in the gospel. It then continues by living in community where you have gospel-leadership to submit to and have gospel-friendships where you can be transparent and have others love you and encourage you. This is called "discipleship"...but maybe more more appropriate to refer to it as "gospelizing" one another.

How to Gospelize

I'm a pastor, in particular a church planter.  And given the three perspectives of pastoring (as seen in Jesus - prophet, priest, and king), I'm foremost a prophet - but not in a Nostradamus-end-of-the-world type of way.  It's more like a "I love you, so I'm going to yell at you from the bible for 45 minutes every week."  Things like truth, confronting sin, and right doctrine are important to me.  But, if that's all I did all the time, I would be a terrible pastor, because people also need priests (who love and care for people) and kings (who organize, administrate, and strategize for ministry).  This is why it's so important to have a plurality of eldership in the local church to the lead the church, and why the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers is important as well.  The bottom line is that although God does specifically call some into vocational ministry (or lay ministry, like elders who don't get paid), the truth is that we all are called to minister to each other, which is what Ephesians 4:11-16 is all about.

But back the pastoring thing.  You just can't yell at people all the time.  Yes, truth must be stood up for and sin confronted (in a spirit of sincere love), but you have to put your arm around somebody's shoulders and gently communicate your heart for them.  This is what Paul does in Galatians 4:8-20.  He's been hammering them for three chapters, calling them "foolish" and "bewitched."  But now in this section his tone is completely different and uses terms like "brothers and sisters" and "little children."  Paul really loved them like family and that's why he had been so firm with them up to this point.  He now talks to them like a priestly-pastor.

It's important to note that as you seek to minister to people (or as I'm beginning to like to say "gospelize" people), two elements are pretty important.  First, is having a sincere emotional investment with others.  We see this in 4:12-16.  Paul recalls their time together, how they cared for him, and experiences they shared.  Relationships take time to develop.  There has to be significant time invested in others so they deeply know you desire nothing but Jesus' best for them.  The second element is the goal of ministry, which is Christ.  This is what Paul brings out in 4:17-20.  He didn't want to reproduce clones of himself; he wanted the Galatians to be formed into the image of Jesus.  Because now, Jesus is the only one who really has disciples.  If any church or church leader calls you to anything or anyone other than Jesus as the goal for the Christian life, knock the dust off your boots and get out of there!

So what does "gospelizing" really involve?  On it's most basic level, it is helping people to move from being an idolater to a worshipper.  Every person on the planet will "proclaim worth" to something - a tree, the ocean, a relationship, a bank account, a pro sports team.  But if the object is anything other than Jesus, that is by definition idolatry.  And idolatry is something that Christ-followers can be guilty of as well.  Remember, in Galatians Paul has not questioned their salvation.  In 3:27, he affirmed them being baptized into and clothed with Christ; but they've gotten distracted.  They have begun to seek to "please man" rather than pleasing God (Galatians 1:10).  What Paul has really been doing the whole letter is not just confront their legalism, he has been confronting their idolatry (see how he tied idolatry to legalism in 4:8-10).

This post is getting a tad long, so I'm going to hit the "pause" button and finish it up tomorrow.  The next post will be on how to diagnose, identify, and heal from our idols.  Peace out.