22nd March 2024

22nd March 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (1 John 5:18-21 focus v21)


Message (Alan Burke)


Where on earth did idolatry come from, like if you’ve been following along with these devotions you will know that there is not one reference to idolatry in this entire epistle and then all of a sudden at the every end John says “21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.”. What a way to end the epistle, if it had have been me I’d have written something like; “I hope to see you again soon, until then my you know the love of Christ more and more”, but John just drops this in at the very end, “keep yourself from idols”. This wasn’t that John had just ran out of paper it is his pastoral heart warning those whom he wrote to, dear children keep yourselves from idols.


Most of us though don’t have a shrine to an idol or idols hidden in our homes, we don’t give offerings to idols, nor do we bow down to them so we might imagine that we are safe from John’s final exhortation. But this exhortation of John to keep ourselves from idols comes because as the reformer John Calvin put it “man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols” (Institutes, 1.11.8).


In the book of Romans where the Lord God speaking through Paul speaking about his wrath that is revealed from heaven. We are told verse 19, what may be known about God is plan to them, speaking of all people, since the creation of the world, God’s invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world. But what happened verse 23 is that they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and reptiles. People engage in all kinds of false religion and idolatry (v22-25). 


But our idolatry is not only that which is make to look like moral man and birds and reptiles, it is also what we are devoted to. In the Sermon on the mount Jesus explains to his disciples the reality of discipleship that is lived in the everyday world. The teaching within this section gives practical and ethical teaching for the believer. Within that we read the words; “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Mt 6:24).


These words of Jesus help us to better understand the idea of idolatry. I’ll start by saying the issue Jesus makes with money isn’t money per se, it’s the devotion of the one who has money. As Jesus uses the word service, it is the service that is denoted by the work of a slave, being bound to something, and Jesus explains we cannot have divided loyalties, we are either a slave to God our money. What I want you to see from this is that we can be bound by something, we can give our service, our devotion to something that is not God, something that is not a false religion or the making of images, it’s not one or the other. Whenever we exchange the glory of the immortal God for anything else in the created order and are devoted to it then that becomes our idol. 


Our hearts are idol factories, it may not be with wood or stone, it may not be with images made to look like mortal man and birds and reptiles, but it may be our stomach or anything so subtle the temptation is to replace the glory of the immortal God. Nothing should rule our lives or become the centre of our attention other than our Creator, our marriages, work life, home life, our shopping, our free time, our money, that romantic interest, the list goes on and on. Idolatry is putting anything in our lives in the rightful place of God. If there are things in our lives that mean we are unable to worship the Lord with his people have we put that thing in his place in our lives, has it become an idol? What about how much time we spend fixating on things that are of no value. Instead of putting things in the place of God we should be those who cling to the hope we have in Jesus Christ, the kingdom that we belong to. Clinging to Christ is the cure for our idolatry, when we put him in the rightful place in our lives.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q100 What doth the preface of the Lord’ s prayer teach us?
The preface of the Lord’ s prayer, (which is, Our Father which art in heaven, (Matt. 6:9)) teacheth us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a father, able and ready to help us; (Rom. 8:15, Luke 11:13) and that we should pray with and for others. (Acts 12:5, 1 Tim. 2:1–2)
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