We last looked at the “4 Gs” - four truths that summarize well who God is and what He’s all about. We were made to see those truths and celebrate them in our hearts. We were made to be in communion with Him. Beyond that, we were made to worship Him.

Tragically, just like God’s people in the Old Testament, we’ve turned from worshipping the true God. We’ve broken the first of the Ten Commandments. We’ve put other “gods” before the one, true God. Maybe we’ve not bowed before golden calves - or idols of metal or stone, but we put other things in the place of God. This is what we all do. Rather than delighting in Him, as we were all made to do, we put our hope in lesser, earthly things. We make them everything. If we hold them in our grasp for awhile, we’re in heaven. If we lose them, we’re practically in hell. They’re our saviors. They’re our gods. They’re most often good things. They’re just distorted by sin. They’re pushed front and center. Paul, in Romans 1 puts it this way:

Rom. 1:19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 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.

There are a lot of bad things that we do that are listed at the end of this passage. But underneath each of those is something more primal. It’s called idolatry. We were created to worship the Lord. It’s not if we worship, but whom or what we worship. And the Bible says we’ve turned away from Him to false Gods. Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:17, “Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.” Idolatry, the deepest sin in the heart, erupts in sinful actions. It’s not one sin among many. It’s where everything else comes from.

What we most desire, what we worship, results in fruit, good or bad. David Powlison, in his helpful article, “Idols of the Heart and ‘Vanity Fair,’” holds three important truths in tension. First, we’re responsible for our sins. That’s the fruit. Second, we’re driven by fallen desires. That’s the root. But third, we’re impacted by the sinful world around us. Our families, our cultures. We’ll call that the soil. So idolatry moves us on the inside and pulls at us from the outside. And it all spills over in behavior for which we’re responsible.

Surface Idols and Source Idols

Let’s take things a bit deeper. We’ve got to get to the sin beneath the sin. Richard Keyes is the first person who came up with two ways to talk about idolatry. There are idols that are more visible at the surface. There are idols that are hidden deep within our hearts. We’ll call them surface idols and source idols.

Surface idols might be things like work or possessions or sex or family. You work 85 hours a week. Therefore, you worship your work. You guard your car or your house and keep them clean and protected at all times. You worship your stuff. All you think about is sex. You worship that. You spend every possible moment with your kids, trying to make sure they succeed, protecting them at all costs. You worship your kids. Those are idols. We’ve put them in a god place. Calvin said our hearts are perpetual factories of idols. Kierkegaard said it’s the “natural state of the human heart to try to build its identity around something besides God.” Ira Glass of This American Life fame admitted this. He said, “I used to completely identify myself through the work I did. It completely absorbed me.” I can identify with that. Most pastors, in fact, put all their identity into their church. An idol is anything that, if taken away from us, we’d be devastated. It’s what we place our trust in. It’s what we give our time to. It’s what gives us joy.

Tim Keller puts it like this:

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give...An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, “If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.” There are many ways to describe that kind of relationship to something, but perhaps the best one is worship.

But underneath are what we could call four source idols. To be clear, the Bible doesn’t list these. This is just a helpful tool, I think, for understanding our hearts. Why are we at the office all the time? Why must our house be spotless? What are we looking for in sex? Why are we so obsessed with our children? There’s something going on deeper. The things in and of themselves are good. That’s for sure. But we’re wanting things from them that can only come from God. And that will destroy them. And us.

Control

The first idol is one of control. We’re known for self-discipline. We love certainty. We hold high standards. We’re highly organized. Our main struggle is with worry. We do whatever we can to attempt to manage our surroundings and circumstances.

Comfort

A second common idol is that of comfort. We desire privacy. We fear stress. We love maintaining freedom and avoiding commitments. We do whatever we can to avoid boredom and pain. We run toward entertainment and distraction.

Approval

A third common core struggle is one of approval. We live for affirmation. We get our value from relationships. We fear rejection, and because of that, we tend to smother people with our presence. We far too much concern ourselves with what others think of us.

Power

Our fourth and last common source idol is that of power. We long for success. We feel like we must win. We need to be in charge. And we’ll run over others - and use others - to get there. Common with this idol is a struggle with anger.

Idols on Trial

Now we can pursue these surface idols for some time. We may be ignorant of what’s going on under the surface. But we’ll be forced to hand them over at death. As we come face to face with the one, true God, our idols will look as worthless as they truly are. In His presence, we’ll be fully exposed, as will be the false gods in which we trusted.

In addition, God uses trials to show us the foolish gods we worship. If we have eyes to see, they show us we’re building upon a sandy foundation, instead of on the rock of Jesus (Matthew 7:24-27). Oh, that the trials we’re experiencing today would turn us to the our Creator and Redeemer! Struggles like this current pandemic can result in a forced detoxification from the things of the world, things that truly do not satisfy.

For Discussion:

What have you learned about yourself as we’ve discussed these source idols? What bad fruit do you see in your life? From what bad root do you think it flows?
What is this current trial today showing you about ways you’ve worshipped falsely?
What truths about God do you need to believe? What lies do you need to turn from today?

Four Idols - Lies that Distract, Disappoint, and Destroy