This week we're going to be talking about modern idolatry. And I know I, personally, growing up had a pretty simplistic, kind of naive view of what idolatry actually was. I always thought idolatry was this thing where ancient, primitive, uneducated people would carve their funny, little half-naked statues and they'd dance around them and sing their songs. And I thought they did it because of what skeptics today will refer to as the god of the gaps. 

God of the gaps is this idea that ancient, unenlightened people, because they didn't have a scientific understanding of the world, they didn't understand natural phenomena, they would look at whatever happened out in nature and say, "Well this must just be the gods." So if it rained outside, they thought the gods must be sad. Or if it thundered outside, they thought the gods must be angry. Then I actually started to do a little research on idolatry. And I discovered that some of the most influential thinkers in world history, including some of the best Bible scholars, said that idolatry wasn't just a sin, or wasn't just a problem in life - and it's certainly not just an ancient problem - it's the overarching problem of life. It's the reason the world looks the way it does today. And the reason humans behave the way we do. 

For instance, Martin Luther once said that, "Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God." In other words, what he's saying is, it doesn't matter so much what you say on Sunday mornings. On a day-to-day basis, throughout the week, whatever you run to for security and hope and purpose in life, functionally, that's really your God. Another reformer, John Calvin, said something similar. He said, "Every one of us is an expert from our mother's womb in inventing idols." 

Even before these guys, one of the early church fathers named St. Augustine said something similar. He maybe said it best. He said sin in idolatry isn't so much loving bad things and doing bad things. It's loving good things too much. It's loving good things and making them God things in your life. It's loving the blessings of life ahead of the blesser. It's loving created things ahead of our creator, God. So how do we get to the point in life where we have rightly ordered loves in our heart? Well, all of the good things of life, you have to remind yourself, you have to sacrifice for. You have to work hard to get them. And even when you do get them, they often disappoint. Kind of like a little child on December 29th, pushing the presents into the corner of their room. You're not fully satisfied. 

Jesus is the only God that if you get him, he won't disappoint you. He'll actually satisfy you. He's the only God that if you fail him, he doesn't curse you. He forgives you. Jesus is the God that you don't primarily sacrifice for, but he sacrificed himself for you. 

If you'd like some more practical helps on implementing God's Word right into your life, and valuable resources like this, we would encourage you to go to our website, yourtimeofgrace.org and you'll find hundreds of videos just like this one. So click on the link, and we'll see you tomorrow.