What a great night to gather with you, Darcy and Genesis, awesome public declaration of faith in
Lord Jesus. That is just awesome. So great to be part of it. If you've just joined us,
this is our second week in the book of Judges, Old Testament book, which is a little strange,
a bit awkward, but a great start last week. Having said that, there's something I need to
address because there's been a little bit of banter lately, I've noticed, in my presence,
mind you, much more outside of my presence, about the length of my sermons. And I thought that I
needed to address that tonight. And I'm going to do it, first of all, I'm going to do it by giving
you perspective on the length of my sermons. I'm going to do that by reading from Acts chapter 20.
Paul spoke to the people and because he intended to leave the next day, he kept on talking until
midnight. There were many lamps in the upstairs room where they were meeting. Seating in a window
was a young man named Eutychus who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on.
When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead.
So the first thing I want to say is that when someone dies from my preaching, then I'll shorten it.
That's the first thing. The second thing I'd want to say is that what I've noticed is the longer I've
been a Christian is that, and delving into God's Word, there is just so much there. So many gems in
the Bible. And this is the other bit of perspective. You don't get the original script. I get the original
script. I write the original script. And every sermon I write, such as tonight's one, is there is another
whole entire sermon which is scrapped before it gets to the final text. And it's the hard yards of trying
to work out what to keep and what not to keep. There's so much more to be said. And so if you were just
engaged in that Bible reading, you would notice that this passage is a preacher's gift. It's a gift to me
because as Nick was reading it, you would have picked up, I'm confident, that it is the second
introduction to the book of Judges. Judges has got two introductions. And so everything that I didn't
get to say last week, I get to say this week, which is a gift to me and to you. Praise God, you know, come on.
So second introduction of the book of Judges. It is a great text. It is what I did say last week,
and I want to repeat here because in all the confusion of this book of Judges, you can lose
this, is that the book of Judges is pure gospel, absolute pure gospel, good news. You see, Judges
is about the God of mercy, the God of long suffering and patience who continually works in and through
and for his people. And what's more, he does that consistently despite his people's constant
resistance to his purposes. God relentlessly offers his grace to people who neither deserve it nor seek
nor even appreciate it, even after they've been saved by it. And so that, it's a great summary of
the Christian life, if you like. And what sets Christianity apart from every other world religion?
Every other world religion says you come up to scratch and then God will love you to perform in
this particular way and God will accept you. Christianity says you can't do anything to be
acceptable to God. God does all the work on your behalf, which is what the baptism was all about,
declaring that God has saved me by his grace. He's washed me clean from my sins by his death on the
cross. And so what we notice in the book of Judges is that the only, even though there's a bunch of
figures in here who are famous Bible characters, the only true hero in this book is God himself.
And so the verses today, which are before us today, they are a second introduction to the book,
but there are somewhat more than that, a little bit more. They are, in fact, a summary of the whole book,
whole book in summary form. And the really sad thing is that if you were here last week,
you would have noticed the first introduction ended with some kind of hope for Israel's future.
Now, this second introduction ends on a much more depressing tone about the spiritual state of
God's people by the time we get to the end of the book of Judges. And have a look at it there. You
can see it in chapter three, verses five and six. It says, the Israelites lived among the Canaanites,
the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and they took their daughters
in marriage and gave their own sons to their daughters to their sons and served their gods.
That's the end of it, if you like. That's the end of the picture for them.
Like the first introduction, the second introduction begins with Joshua. What we see with the life of
Joshua is that he had a life that was lived well. Joshua was supremely a servant of his God. He was a
wholehearted servant of his God, of all the leaders of Israel, from Joseph right through, in fact, to
Joshua. Joshua was the very first of them to have the privilege to die and be buried in the land of
his inheritance. Every one of the leaders before then, if they had the opportunity, he said,
don't leave me in this place. When you leave this place, pick up my bones and take it with you.
But not Joshua. His was a life that was lived well in service of his God. However, those that came
after Joshua served the Lord wholeheartedly. It's what we saw last week. But Joshua saw it,
or at least saw the seeds of it, in his own generation. He warned them at the end of the
book that bears his name. Joshua chapter 24, verses 19 and 20, verse 23, he says this to his generation.
You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God. He's a jealous God. He will not forgive your
rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster
on you and make an end of you after he has been good to you. And then he says, now then, throw away
the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel. And that's the
theme I want to pick up today, which was in the first introduction, again in the second one,
the concept of yielding your heart wholeheartedly to God as opposed to serving him with other gods.
So there's three things I want to focus on. Compromising with idols, identifying idols,
and dealing with idols. So first of all, compromising with idols. As you get to verse 10,
so have your text in front of you, open in front of you, chapter 2 of Judges, verse 10,
we see a significant shift from one generation to the next generation. Joshua's wholehearted commitment
is contrasted with the complacency of his own generation, which is then contrasted to the
slippery slide of compromise with the generation that follows. And so verses 10 and 11 of Judges 2
describe a rebellion. Verse 10 says that the generation after Joshua neither knew the Lord nor what he had done
for Israel. Now, that doesn't mean that they didn't know about the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. It
doesn't mean that they didn't know about the miraculous Red Sea crossing, that they weren't aware of the
crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land. They weren't aware of the walls of Jericho being
torn down without them even raising a sword. What that verse means is that the saving acts of God
were no longer precious to them. They had not learned to revere and to rejoice in what God had done for
them. They had forgotten the good news that they were saved from slavery in Egypt and brought into the
promised land by the gracious, mighty acts of God. That activity of God on their behalf was not
something that was close to their hearts, where they enjoyed it and revered it. Now, there is essentially
a warning here for Christians to never forget the good news of the gospel. The baptism display that for us,
the good news in physical form, visual display of the gospel of what Christ has done for us.
In fact, the Lord's Supper is the same thing that we, Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me.
Take it and remember again that my body was broken and my blood was shed. There's a warning here not to
forget that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, came into this world, took the just and the righteous
punishment from God that we deserve for making good things ultimate things, for making God's good gifts
the ultimate things and forgetting God the gift giver. See, the essence of idolatry is us substituting a good
thing for an ultimate thing for an ultimate thing. Well, the essence of the good news of the Christian faith
is that God substitutes himself for us. We have put created things, good gifts from God at the center of
our lives and build our lives around them. And so God chooses to put himself where we deserve to be.
Though Jesus was equal with God, the Father, he emptied himself of his glory. He came down and took the
place of a servant, our place, and he gave his life for ours. He traded his life for ours. He took our seat
so that we can take his. He died our death so that we can live his life. And as long as we remember who
God is and what he has done for us in the Lord Jesus, we will serve him wholeheartedly, radically,
and joyfully. And it's not just a simple matter of knowing that intellectually, it is actually adoring
that truth, of that truth, building, you're building your life around that truth, wholeheartedly being
determined by that truth. Now the consequence of forgetting is in verse 11 of chapter 2 of Judges,
they did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.
Now what's interesting here is that God's definition of doing evil is in fact turning away from God and towards
loving and serving idols. That's his definition of evil. And it's also interesting that the word Baal
is a Canaanite word for Lord. And so the description here is that this generation forgot
to put the true Lord, they forgot the true Lord, and they replaced him by serving many lords instead.
And it happened within a generation. Commitments replaced by complacency, which is replaced by compromise.
Now, let me just, you know, divert over here just for a moment. We've got kids in kids' church right
now. And if you're a parent here, you're a godparent. In fact, you're someone who's an older generation
with kids amongst us as a church. We as a church have a core value called Christ-centered Bible
saturation. And it says there that we are committed to passing on to the next generation a biblically
informed love of God. And there's a bunch of passages in the Bible that you want to go to to
talk about that. But there's one, a couple that really sort of stand out for me. Deuteronomy 6
verses 4 to 9 and 20-25 are really instructive, I think. Deuteronomy 6 was written to avoid
the generation that does not know God relationally or personally, as you see in the beginning of the
book of Judges. It was written just before they entered the promised land. And they'd obviously
forgotten it somehow in a very short period of time. And Deuteronomy 6 tells us how they and we
should lead the next generation. And ultimately, it's about us. So if you're a parent, you're a godparent,
you're an older member of a congregation here and there's younger members in our church,
firstly, here's a few tips. We must love God ourselves. We have God's Word at the centre of
our hearts and our lives. That means that we're not hypocritical. We're not inconsistent in our behaviour.
God's Word impacts every aspect of our lives. We are confident in it as the Word of God and
transforming our lives by it. You see, young people see inconsistencies so clearly.
Secondly, we are to apply and reflect on the Gospel practically. This is not just an academic or an
abstract exercise for the Christian to just increase your knowledge of the Bible. Deuteronomy 6-7
is, does not promote regular family lecture times. The reference in there in Deuteronomy 6 is when
you're sitting, walking along, lying down, getting up. That is in, it refers to the daily routines of life.
Instruction in God's truth is not so much a series of lectures and classes
as it is showing how God permeates every aspect of your everyday life.
It is a call to be wise and thoughtful about how the values and the virtues of the Gospel
distinctively influence our decisions and our priorities.
Thirdly, verses 20 and 25, 20 to 25 of Deuteronomy 6, tell us that we are to give personal
testimony to the difference that God has made to us. The sort of thing that Darcy was doing tonight.
Personal testimony. How God has brought us from bondage to freedom.
We are not just to speak of beliefs and behaviours,
but of our own personal engagement and experience of God Himself through His Word.
We are to be open about our own struggles and weaknesses as we grow.
We are to be transparent about how repentance works in our life with the younger generation,
which means older people say sorry to kids when you fail them. That's what it means.
Really, really important. How rare it is for parents to humble themselves, for adults to humble themselves
and to bend a knee and look a kid in the eye and say, I have failed you.
Show them how repentance works.
If you don't do that, they will just look at you as proud and arrogant.
We must be consistent in behaviour, wise about reality and warmly personal in our faith.
In other words, love and serve God wholeheartedly.
And to do that, we need to be so real about the idols that lurk in our hearts, the idols of our hearts.
We need to identify them and we need to deal with them,
which is the things we're going to move to right now, identifying idols.
One of the great things about this book of Judges is,
the thing you wouldn't normally think of when you read through Judges is the subtlety of the storyline.
There's not a lot of subtlety in the book of Judges, frankly.
There's a lot of blood and guts, not a lot of subtlety.
But there is a subtlety to the storyline.
Verse 19, it doesn't say that Israel stopped serving God who rescued them from Egypt.
It just says that they opted for some alternative gods.
It just simply says they also served the Baals and the Ashtoreths in verse 13.
They did both.
That is, Israel's spiritual life was way more complex than a simple decision to stop worshipping this god
and start worshipping those gods.
Much more complex than that.
They, in fact, combined the two.
In fact, there's a great verse that you would just read over if you didn't notice it at all.
In Judges 17, verse 3, it's an Israelite woman who gives her valuable stuff to her son
and says this to him.
I solemnly consecrate my silver to the Lord for my son to make an image overlaid with silver.
I consecrate, I dedicate my valuables to God so that my son, with those valuables, can go and make an idol.
Do both things.
Now, when Westerners think of idols, our minds, we sort of wander off into sort of like carvings
and incense and candles and dark rooms and stuff like that.
You know, the biblical concept is much more sophisticated than the Western mind.
And certainly my Western mind.
Idolatry in the Bible integrates intellectual, psychological, social, cultural and spiritual categories.
There are personal idols, such as romantic love and family and or maybe a love of money and power and achievement.
Or access to particular social circles.
Or the emotional dependence of other people on you.
Or...
Sorry, this has gone crazy.
Can I go back to a blank slide? Is it up there?
Yep, thank you.
Romantic love, power, emotional dependence of others on you, health, fitness, physical beauty.
Many people look to these things in our culture for hope and for meaning and fulfilment that only God can provide.
There are also cultural idols.
For instance, military power, technological process, progress, economic prosperity.
In fact, every election that rolls around in this country,
the biggest thing that is there front and centre in front of people is economic prosperity.
We will make you richer.
That's the promise of every government because it's the idol of our culture.
The idols of traditional societies include family, hard work, duty, moral virtue and other stuff.
Those of Western cultures include Western...
Sorry, individual freedom and personal choice and self-discovery, personal affluence and happiness.
Now, all of these good things can and do take on disproportionate size and power with a person and with a society.
These things, when you have them, promise you peace and safety and happiness and identity
in such a way that you base your life on them and they will offer you these things.
Now, to understand our hearts and our culture, we need to be able to discern
what are the idols that influence both our culture and our hearts.
If we don't know them, we can't deal with them.
And if we don't know that they're there, we are defaulting in exactly the same way the Israelites are
of trying to meld gods together.
Now, you might be sitting here and say, I'm not a Christian.
That's fine.
You're just worshipping a certain set of idols.
Christians here are doing both.
So Romans 1, 21 to 23 shows us that idolatry is not one sin amongst many,
but the core issue that is fundamentally wrong with the human heart.
There may be a long list of sins, and there is a long list of sins that create misery and evil in our world,
but they all germinate in the soil of idolatry.
Martin Luther, he's a German monk and a church reformer.
He pointed this out centuries ago.
He said that 10 commandments begin with a commandment against idolatry.
And he argues that you never break the other nine commandments
without first breaking the first commandment.
The other nine is ultimately a breaking of the first.
And so the secret to change is to identify and dismantle the idols in our heart.
So my starting point here is to assume that you're all idolaters, as I am.
I'm just making that assumption.
And that they are hidden in every one of us.
And the important question is what to do with them.
How do we get some clarity on them?
How do we get some clarity so that we don't remain under their power?
How do we free from the idols so that we make sound decisions, wide choices,
and be finally free from all idols that will ultimately crush us?
They never set us free.
They never give us what they promise.
So here's four tests.
First one, look at your imagination.
Archbishop William Temple.
He was an Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury during part of World War II.
And he said,
your religion is what you do with your solitude.
Your religion is what you do with your solitude.
In other words, the true God of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to
when there's nothing else demanding your attention.
In other words, what do you effortlessly daydream about?
What do you enjoy daydreaming about?
What occupies your mind when there's nothing else to think about?
You know, when your head hits the pillow at night,
you've got an opportunity to dream about all the weights of the world on you.
And just what consumes your mind?
Do you develop potential scenarios about career advancement or material goods like the dream home,
a relationship, or one or two daydreams is an indication of idolatry.
But what do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort and escape in the privacy of your heart?
What is your habit there in that moment?
That's the first test.
The second test of a heart's true value is how you spend your money, your spending habits.
And I think I want to develop this a little bit more since even speaking about it this morning.
It's more than what's your spending habits, but what are your habits of your money?
What do you do with your money?
Jesus said your heart is wherever your treasure is in Matthew 6.21.
And our money flows most effortlessly towards our heart's greatest love.
It flows effortlessly towards our heart's greatest love,
to the thing that we get our affirmation, our applause, our security from.
In fact, one measure of an idol is that we spend too much money on it.
And it's the one area where if you're married, your spouse is saying to you,
you need to exercise some more self-control there.
I'm noticing the number of visits in the last two weeks to Bunnings.
You know, or somewhere.
What is it that you need to exercise constant self-control in?
Now, this one's important.
I've made the change from spending habits to what you do with your money
because some of us don't spend it, some of us save it instead.
So if you're habitually pushing your money to investments, saving,
it most likely means that your sense of identity is wrapped up in security.
I need security.
That's the big idol of my heart.
But if it's spending, what is it spending on?
Because you can see that that's a good indicator of where your affirmation lies.
You see, if God and his grace is the thing that we love the most,
we will give our money away to ministry, charity, and the poor in astonishing amounts.
Most, however, tend to overspend on clothing, on travel, on their children,
on success symbols like cars and houses and whatever else.
Okay, third test.
And this is especially for those who profess a faith in Jesus.
It is possible to declare faith in Jesus, be regular at a place of worship,
have an orthodox set of beliefs, be rigorous in practicing those beliefs,
and yet have a different functional saviour at the core of your heart.
And one way to test this is how we respond to unanswered prayers and frustrated hopes.
So, for instance, if there appears to be silence from God,
it is reasonable, I think, to become sad and disappointed.
But if it's not an idol, you won't be crushed by it.
Life goes on.
However, if it's something that you're consistently asking for,
but you don't get it,
and you get angry,
is it that that thing is your functional saviour?
You're using the true saviour to get to your functional saviour,
to provide you with your functional saviour.
If we pray and work for something you don't get,
and you respond with anger and despair,
it's possible that you have found your true saviour in that moment,
your true God, your idol.
Fourthly, this test works for everyone.
Take a look at your most uncontrollable emotions.
If you are angry over something,
ask,
is there something here way too important to me?
Is there something here that I must have at all costs?
And the reason I'm getting angry is because someone or something
is blocking me from getting it.
Do the same with fear,
with despair,
with guilt,
with shame.
Ask yourself,
am I so scared
because something in my life is being threatened
that I think is a necessity for my life
when in actual fact it isn't?
Am I so down on myself
because I've lost or I've failed at something
I think is a necessity
when it's not?
If you are overworking
and driving yourself into the ground
with frantic activity,
ask yourself,
do I feel that I must have
this thing to be fulfilled and significant?
Second,
I think what test number four is suggesting
is that when you grab your emotions
and pull them up from the roots,
you will notice your idols generally attached to them.
So let's deal with them.
You see,
idolatry is not just a failure to obey God.
It is fundamentally setting your heart
on something besides God.
And this can't be fixed simply by repenting
or with a determination to live differently.
It's not less than those things,
but it's so much more than just repenting
and a determination to do differently.
Let's see
how we go about dealing with idols.
And I think Colossians 3, 1 to 5
is a great place to start.
Since then,
you've been raised with Christ,
set your hearts on things above
where Christ is seated
at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on things above,
not on earthly things.
For you died
and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ,
who is your life,
appears,
then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death, therefore,
whatever belongs to your earthly nature,
sexual immorality,
impurity,
lust,
evil desires,
greed,
which is idolatry.
He's saying all those things are idolatry.
So,
see the right beginning,
set,
setting the minds on things above
where your life is hid with Christ.
What that means is
appreciating,
rejoicing,
and resting
in what Jesus
has done for you
in the gospel.
That's what that means.
And it includes
joyful worship
and a sense of God's reality in prayer.
Jesus must become
more beautiful
in your imagination
and more attractive
in your heart
than idols.
That's what
Colossians 3 is saying.
And this
is the only way
to replace an idol.
It's so much more
than just repenting
and being determined
to work harder.
Idols
are removed
by them being
forced out
from the
centre of our lives
by something
that is
greater.
an idol
is something
that we
is dear to us.
It's something
that we love.
We become
enslaved to
what we love.
And the only way
to remove
something that we love
is for
a greater love
to come in
and push it out.
That's what
Colossians 3 is saying.
which means
for the Christian
rejoicing
and repentance
go together.
Repentance
without rejoicing
leads to despair.
Oh,
woe is me.
I'm such a rotten
individual.
Rejoicing
without repentance
on the other hand
is shallow
and at best
it produces
a fleeting
inspiration
to pull up
your socks
instead of
going through
deep,
deep heart
change.
When we
repent
out of fear
of consequences
which fundamentally
is what religion
is all about
we aren't
actually saying
sorry for our
sins
we're actually
saying sorry
for ourselves.
You know,
it's the fire
insurance
just in case
I must repent.
Repentance
because of
fear
is actually
self-pity.
We don't
learn to
hate the sin
we learn
to hate
ourselves
and the
sin
doesn't
lose
its
attractive
power.
On the
other hand
when we
rejoice
in God's
sacrificial
suffering
love for
us
where he
has given
us
everything
even though
we don't
deserve
anything
we learn
to hate
the sin
for what
it is.
We see
what our
sin
costs God
and we
see what
his love
cost him
and
you see
fear-based
repentance
makes us
hate
ourselves
joy-based
repentance
makes us
hate the
sin.
Rejoicing
in Jesus
is so
essential
because
idols
are
almost
always
good
things.
They are
good gifts
that have
been given
to us
from our
God
and
instead
of
honouring
him
for them
we've
made
the gift
the
ultimate.
it's
the
ultimate.
And so
if we've
made
idols
out of
our
work
or
out of
family
or
a bunch
of
other
things
we
actually
don't
want
to
stop
loving
our
family
and
stop
loving
our
work.
That
is
fear-based
repentance.
we
actually
just
need
to
see
and
experience
that
Jesus
is
in
fact
better
that
he's
bigger
and
that
he's
greater.
We
actually
want to
treasure
Jesus
so
much
that
we
are
no
longer
enslaved
by the
attachments
but set
free
in order
to love
them
as they
should
be
loved
as
gifts
from
God.
And
at that
point
we
won't
be
crushed
by
them.
Rejoicing
in
Jesus
is
in
fact
to
treasure
Jesus.
It's
why
we
as a
church
exist
to
treasure
Jesus.
It
is
to
assess
his
value
to
you
to
reflect
on
his
beauty
and
his
worth
and
his
importance
until
your
heart
rests
on
him.
This
is so
much
more
than
just
an
intellectual
assent
and
knowledge
of
the
Christian
faith,
the
core
doctrines
of
the
faith.
This
is
seeing
the
value
of
them,
the
beauty
of
them,
the
worth
of
them
until
your
affections
fall
up.
And
the
way
of
the
idols,
the
tools
that
God
has
given
us
for
that
is
what
has
traditionally
been
called
spiritual
disciplines.
They
include
things like
meditation
on his
word,
that we
might be
flooded
with the
gospel
and God's
graciousness
and his
goodness
to us
consistently.
That
another
one of
these
tools
is
corporate
worship,
what we're
doing
right now,
and private
prayer.
These
disciplines
will
ultimately
over time
take head
knowledge
and make
it life
shaping
reality
for us.
What we're
doing
as we
gather
tonight
with
baptism,
preaching,
singing,
prayers,
all that
sort of
stuff,
you know
what we're
doing,
what we
do tonight
and every
time we
gather
is just
being reminded
again of
the magnificence
of Jesus,
of our
priorities
again
and again
for him
to shape
our lives,
for us
to declare
how good
he is,
to be reminded
of that,
to hear other
brothers and
sisters do
that.
You see,
spiritual
disciplines
are a
form of
worship
and worship
very simply
worship
is the
ultimate
way to
replace
idols in
our heart,
giving God
the due
honour
to him.
You see,
you cannot
get rid of
idols simply
by understanding
what they
are,
just by
identifying
them.
We actually
have to
get the
peace that
Jesus gives
and that
only comes
as we
worship him
as our
merciful,
patient,
sovereign
saviour.
And that
process,
my friends,
is the bad
news for you
quick fix
people.
That's an
entire life
process.
It's a
process of
rejoicing and
repenting,
rejoicing and
repenting all
of our
lives.
You see,
mature
Christians are
not those
who've got to
the bottom
of their
hearts,
you know,
finally hit
bedrock,
clunk,
nowhere
further to
go.
Mature
Christian
are those
who keep
digging,
who never
stop digging
into the
depths of
their hearts
and constantly
rooting out
the idols of
their hearts.
setting your
heart on
Jesus as
your peace
and your
hope and
your life
is the
road to
true freedom,
freedom from
enslaving idols
that crush
us,
that control
us and
will ultimately
destroy us.