Are you tired of the endless pursuit of happiness, peace, and control? Fear often drives us to seek fulfillment in all the wrong places and people, turning them into idols along the way. But what if there’s a better way? Pastor Jeremy DeWeerdt is here to show us how to break free from the grip of these false gods and give Jesus the rightful place He deserves in our lives.
Notes 📓✏️:
Fallen Idols – Pastor Jeremy DeWeerdt
An idol can be defined this way:
Something that does not have God’s power to give me what only God has the power and authority to give.
I love how Tim Keller described an idol:
“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. Anything that is so central and essential to your life, that should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.” -Tim Keller
“Whatever controls us is our Lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves; we are controlled by the lord of our lives.” -John Calvin
“Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.”
Idols are often good things we make into ultimate things.
“The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves; we are controlled by the lord of our lives.”
Here’s the problem with idols:
1. Idols are made. Since they are created, they cannot create.
2. Idols must be carried. They give weariness to their adherents.
3. Idols have no life. Therefore, they cannot give life or happiness.
C.S. Lewis said (Mere Christianity), “There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it (happiness) to you, but they never quite keep their promise.”
Idols tend to be manufactured in our hearts during seasons of WAITING or WINNING.
We have become, what one author coined, “Quickaholics”
We fear that when God says, “not yet” that means “not ever.”
Obadiah 1:3 (NLT) “You have been deceived by your own pride because you live in a rock fortress and make your home high in the mountains.”
We think, “I did this. Therefore, I have great value and importance.”
Theologian Dallas Willard once said that the fundamental question every human being asks is…
“Who has ‘the good life?’”
I Samuel 5:1-5 (NLT) “After the Philistines captured the Ark of God [presence of God], they took it from the battleground at Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod. They carried the Ark of God into the temple of Dagon and placed it beside an idol of Dagon. But when the citizens of Ashdod went to see it the next morning, Dagon had fallen with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the LORD! So they took Dagon and put him in his place again. But the next morning the same thing happened—Dagon had fallen face down before the Ark of the LORD again. This time his head and hands had broken off and were lying in the doorway. Only the trunk of his body was left intact.”
“Jesus, You are my source, my happiness, my joy, my security, my hope, and my protector.”
Discussion Questions 📝❓:
- How does fear drive us to create and rely on idols?
- What are some examples of idols in our lives that we may not be aware of?
- How do seasons of waiting and winning make us vulnerable to idolatry?
- In what ways to idols leave us feeling empty, and how can we find true fulfillment in God?