“All the sin that men commit is what they do in the service of their idols: there is no one act of sin, but what is an act of service to some false god.” | Jonathan Edwards -- Men are Naturally God’s Enemy
Idols are our functional saviors, or to say this differently idols are what we use in our lives to supplement (or replace) the living and true God. We use our idols to save us from the realities of life in a sinful and fallen world. They offer us pleasure, distraction, hope and other benefits but the interesting thing about idols is that they cannot deliver on these promises. Regardless of this fact, people still rely on idols and their false promises, anyway.
Tim Keller says the following about idols:
"Idols are often good things. That's right, I'm not talking about little statues we bow down to each morning. I'm referring to normal every day things which function as gods in our lives. They have our allegiance and we rest our sense of security on them. As John Calvin noted, our hearts are factories of idols. Not that we create idols, but we turn good things into idols. The problem is not “out there”, but “in here” [our hearts]."
Take a look at Genesis 1:26-31. This is a story of creation [before the fall]. These verses show us how God created everything, including man and woman...and then gave Adam and Eve dominion over all creation and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth and subdue it. God did this both for their joy and for his glory.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 1:26-31 (ESV)
But now the bad news. Because of sin, even the things which God gave to mankind for our joy are now often times turned into idols instead. We see a number functional saviors in the verses from Genesis above and the sad reality about idols is that instead of bringing people the joy which they were created to find in God's provisions and blessings...they instead begin to entrap or enslave people and keep them from experiencing true joy.
Here are a few functional saviors (idols) found in the verses in Genesis:
Religion: We see in these verses that God blessed Adam and Eve, he had a relationship with them, and they saw value in their relationship with God. But sin destroyed their relationship and sin's destructive nature is still destroying our relationships with God, today. People make efforts to replace a genuine relationship with God with something else. Religion is a great substitute…where true connection with and faith in God are replaced by our leanings towards ritual and legalism which can provide us with a false sense of assurance.
Marriage: Marriage is also a favorite idol for many people. We see in the Gen. 1:26-27 how God created and then blessed the bond between man and woman. However, many people today don’t see marriage as a way to glorify God and instead look to marriage to become a refuge from loneliness, economic insecurity and hopelessness. Single people often think that life would be tolerable if they were married and many married people live in fear of their marriages ending so they don’t take the necessary steps to make that relationship healthier and more godly. And to some, marriage -- which was ordained by God as a covenant between a male and a female -- has become another way for people to rebel against God's holy design for this sacred relationship.
Sex: We live in a culture that has, without question, turned sex into an idol. God divinely connected sex to marriage…but it has been disconnected from marriage by humanity. People think that sex will offer them enough pleasure to overcome the pain and/or boredom of their lives. People think sex will offer them intimacy, but they forsake its intended intimacy through perversions and objectification of various kinds. And the sad reality is that sex, outside of God’s divine plan, often destroys the very relationships people so desperately desire.
Children: Also connected to marriage by God, and increasingly disconnected from marriage by people, are children. God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, but this was always intended to happen within the confines of a marriage relationship. Apart from children being born outside of the marriage covenant, many parents today also seek love from (rather than giving love to) their children. They seek to fulfill their own failed goals through their children lives and by doing so they place intolerable burdens on their children, destroying them as a result.
Control: God commanded that Adam and Eve subdue and have dominion over creation. However, this was always supposed to happen under God’s authority. Instead, we try to play God and make everything bend to our authority. Because of sin, we crave control (Genesis 3:16). Fear drives many of these efforts as we feel unable to handle unexpected events or circumstances which fall outside the realm of our “control”. Control destroys relationships. Control is fueled by pride and our resistance to trust God. We were created to be dependent but sin drives us towards independence and control.
Creation: Because of sin, people often make a god out of God’s creation. People begin to worship the created things instead of the creator (Romans 1:25). Sin causes our idol making hearts to twist God’s command of stewardship for his creation into a neo-environmentalism, where the environment and/or animals become more important than people made in God’s image. People often times look to their pets to fill the desire of their hearts for God's unconditional love. No doubt we are commanded to care for the environment and animals, including our pets, but unfortunately many people give these things an ungodly and unhealthy status in their lives.
Work: is another functional savior for many people. Sin entices people to seek independence, security and safety through their work. For many, work provides an ultimate meaning for them that only God was intended to have. God works, and he calls us to work as a means of providing for our families and ourselves. However, God never intended for us to work as a means of obtaining our righteousness or self-worth. We were created to have our identities firmly-rooted in Christ, not our personal accomplishments, achievements or recognition.
“A true hope looks forward to the obtaining of happiness in no other way but the way of the gospel, which is by a holy Savior, and in a way of cleaving to and following him.” | Jonathan Edwards in Charity and Its Fruits
As the verses we read in Genesis show us, all created things were given to Adam and Eve (and us) by God and he called them very good (Genesis 1:31). However, because of sin, we continue to elevate created things to inappropriate levels in our lives. Instead of receiving these things as blessings and pointers to God…we instead put them in the place of God in hopes that they will provide us satisfaction, security, pleasure and even salvation. Anything that has become a functional savior in our lives will only be returned to its rightful and godly place if we make efforts to seek & find our significance, meaning, security and satisfaction in Christ alone. This will only happen if we choose to believe in the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ as both Creator and Redeemer. As Jonathan Edwards argues, “only when we see Christ as sufficient to bestow all the happiness we need, will we forsake other means to secure earthly happiness.”
Some more (audio) resources on Idols:
http://www.1031sermonjams.com/media/idols.mp3
http://www.1031sermonjams.com/media/americasidols.mp3
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