Description
FIRST & 10 SERMON SERIES
IDOL MINDS
JANUARY 3, 1999
ED YOUNG
At the beginning of every new year we are all jazzed and juiced and ready to go. Facing us is a 365-day calendar and this calendar is at the forefront of all of our thoughts. So after the holiday gift giving and feeding frenzying and relative seeing and bowl watching, we sort of pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We make pacts and promises with ourselves, others, with our careers, with health clubs and even with God Himself.
We make promises like; I am going to quit smoking. I am going to work less and be with my family more. I am going to work out and watch my diet. I am even going to start attending church on a regular basis. And our minds are rushing and rumbling and we are thinking that this pre-millennial year, 1999, is going to be “my” year. I am going to be a difference-maker in this 12-month span of time.
I want to ask you several important questions. One. How would you like for this year to be the greatest year possible for you? How would you like to face this year with a new confidence, with a vision and some values that truly lead to victory? Would you like that? How would you like to know that your priorities are in sync and you are really doing what you are wired up to do? If you answered yes to any of those questions, this series of sessions is tailor-made for your life. We are launching a brand new series called FIRST & 10. That is something that the Cowboys had trouble with yesterday but something that we are going to talk about.
Why FIRST & 10? Because this is the first of the year, January, and we are going to discuss the ten commandments, the ten priorities, the ten directives of God. If you think about it, life is a bunch of choices and decisions. And they come to you and to me at such a rapid fire pace that oftentimes we make decisions without even thinking about them. We need a base. We need a foundation. We need some absolutes. And the Ten Commandments give us that. They give us something to look to in order to make these important choices and decisions with which we are faced.
The intent of this series can best be explained by something that happened Christmas Eve morning in my life. How many of you attended one of our Christmas Eve services? Would you please lift your hand? That’s a lot of people went. They were great services. I really enjoyed our Christmas Eve services. Well, I have a thing for shiny shoes and that morning I was shining my shoes in my bathroom. My seven-year-old son, EJ, came lumbering in and he asked me this question. “Dad, would you mind shining my shoes.” And I said, “EJ, I have got one better than that, you go get your shoes and I will show you how to shine your own shoes.” He said, “OK.” I a little while he came back with his little loafers and I showed him how to shine his shoes. So I was shining my shoes and he was shining his shoes.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw something that startled me a little bit. I had never seen this before in the history of shoe shining. EJ had turned his little loafers over and was shining the soles. I said, “Son, what are you doing? Why are you shining the bottom? Why are you shining the soles of your shoes?” He said, “Well, Dad, when I walk, when I lift my foot a little bit, people can see the bottom of my shoes.” Well, that is a lot like us, isn’t it? We like to polish up and shine the exterior where people can see. But our scuffed up and scared soles, the place where we really do life and walk and act, we don’t have that too polished and too shined, do we? We kind of keep that to ourselves.
Well, the intent of this series is not just to polish up and shine the exterior, it is to get down to those soleish issues because a lot of us have soles that are scared and stained and scuffed up and these ten commandments will reach us and deal with us and I believe turn our lives over and really polish some areas that we need to get at, that we need to look at, that we need to really shine.
There are Ten Commandments and every session we are going to go through three aspects of one commandment. We will look at the meaning of each commandment. Then we are going to look at the mentality behind it, what was God thinking by giving us this directive. And finally we will look at the implication. Or you could take this little grid and say, the what, the why and the how. So having said all of that, let’s jump right in.
Let’s look at God’s introductory words because God says something very important to us in Exodus 20:2. “I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Let’s do a quick pause here for a second. God’s chosen people, the children of Israel, had been in Egyptian slavery for a long, long time and God miraculously delivered them through his point man, the Prince of Egypt, Moses. And Moses, led by God, dodged death and deception and plagues and he even took his people through walls of water. Finally, the entire Hebrew nation, was kind of doing the KOA thing. They were camping at the base of Mt. Sinai. Moses mountain-climbed. He goes all the way to the top, received the Ten Commandments, comes back down and then imparts these words of truth to God’s chosen people. So God comes along and says, I am the Lord your God. No debate here. A giveness. No explanation here. God is setting forth His authority as God. If God did not have the authority as God, the Ten Commandments would be just ten theories or ten suggestions. It is an awesome thing to consider, to contemplate that God says I am the Lord, your God. We have a faith that is based on personal pronouns, don’t we? The God of the universe, the God of creation wants to have a personal relationship, a personal connection with every single person who is hearing my voice. And that is exciting stuff. That is good stuff. So God sets forth His authority. He goes through this monotheistic mentality and He says, I am the God.
Let’s read the first commandment. Exodus 20:3. “You shall have no other gods before me.” What is the meaning? We are to prioritize God as God. We are to acknowledge His presence. We are to affirm His power. And we are to obey His directives and His commandments. We are to worship God as God. We are to honor God as God. We have a slot in our lives, a space that is reserved only for the Lord, Himself. And He wants us to put Him at that soul place, in that slot. God is saying, don’t waste your worship. Don’t waste your worship on anything else that beckons you to bow down to it.
We need to understand something. Ancient man was not into monotheism, which was a one-god thing. Ancient man was into polytheism. Polytheism simply means that gods and goddesses were in a lot of stuff. There was a god of the moon, a god of the sun, a god of the grass, a god of the weather. It is also vital that we understand some of the polytheistic gods and goddesses, like Zeus. Zeus was very popular in those days. Zeus was a god of power and autonomy. A lot of people bowed the knee to Zeus. There was also a god named Bacchus. Bacchus was the god of gluttony, the party god. There was a statue of him, a rotund figure with eyes kind of rolled back in his head, with a glass in his hand. Oh yeah, that is Bacchus and believe me, a lot of people worshipped Bacchus.
Then there is the goddess, Aphrodite. If you go to ancient Corinth, you will see some hills. Years and years ago on one of these hills was a temple. And temple prostitutes would kneel in front of the temple and they would write on the bottoms of their sandals, follow me. And large blocks of men, without a cover charge, would follow these prostitutes into the temple and have giant sexual orgies.
They also worshipped a god called Mammon. That is the god of material possessions and money and things. And then they worshipped Athena. Athena was a polytheistic goddess of education and wisdom and knowledge. It is important that we understand these gods and goddesses. It is important that we understand that ancient man was polytheistic.
Now one would think in our sophisticated, monotheistic society that we would not be into idol worship. Surely, we wouldn’t be into that. We are too smart for that. Idols. Come on, man. Give me a massive break. But let me stop. Talk about retro. We are still into idol worship. We are still into polytheism. We are not into Zeus worship or the worship of Athena or Mammon. We have taken these gods and goddesses and changed their names and now they are operating under different aliases.
And over the last couple of weeks I have just made up the names of some of these gods and goddesses that I see in our polytheistic mentality. The first one is the worship of self. I call it selfism. Selfism. A lot of us are into selfism. Now if you really think about it, selfism is when we turn and look at ourselves and begin to worship ourselves. We become our own idol. We worship the trinity of ego; me, myself and I. We become little, demented deities ruling over the universe of self. Everything orbits around ourselves. What is in it for me? What makes me look good? What charges me up? What gives me pleasure? It is a very meistic, selfistic mentality. Oh yeah, it sounds a lot like Zeus worship, but it is called selfism. A lot of us have those idol minds. Selfism.
Those in our culture say that you have got to do what is good for you. People say, if I feel like it, I have got to do it. I have got to go with my heart. It sounds cool but it is meistic and selfistic. We have taken our feelings and put our feelings at the forefront of our mentality. Our feelings have knocked away the truth, they have knocked away facts, they have knocked away reality. We just go by feelings. And this mentality, I have got to do what I have got to do, has caused us to jump out of marriages, to bail out of careers and even to turn our back on fellowship with God. Well, I have got to do what I really feel. You know, my feelings are important. Say what? I didn’t feel like putting 30 hours of research in this message. I don’t always feel like loving my wife as Christ loves the church. I don’t always feel like telling the truth. I do it. Why? Commitment. And so do many, many of you. But I have got to be honest with you. Selfism is a tough thing for me. It is a tough thing for all of us.
I am not saying nor is the Bible even hinting that we should have a poor self-esteem or self-concept. We are made in the image of God and God does not make junk. We are special. We were bought with a price. God loves you and me more than we can ever comprehend and He wants us to have a healthy view of ourselves. And is a great self-esteem seeing yourself the way others see you? No. It is seeing yourself the way God sees you. But we have to fight off selfism; it has permeated our lives and our culture.
There is another polytheistic mentality that we are perpetuating. I call it thrillism. What is thrillism? Thrillism is that mentality that searches for that rush, that high, that experience that gives us fast temporary relief from the pains and the problems of life. Thrillism. So what do we do? We sail and ski and fish and hunt and shop and travel ourselves into oblivion. We are pleasureistic. And a lot of parents get into this. I have seen a lot of parents take their children on a safari of stimulation. They go from this video game to that video game, this sports team to that sports team, this practice to that practice, this school to that school. We have so enveloped and insulated our children with thrillism that they don’t know which way is up.
Dr. Ronald Dahl of the Pittsburgh Medical Center was quoted in Newsweek magazine on December 15, 1997, “Surrounded by ever greater stimulation, their young faces were looking disappointed and bored. I am concerned about the cumulative effect of years at these levels of feverish activity. It is no mystery to me why so many teenagers appear apathetic and burned out with a been there, done that air of indifference toward much of life.”
A little earlier this week I was on a Delta flight writing this message. I was praying and asking God for the words to say and I had written out selfism and I was thinking about something that really fits our mentality of pleasure and adventure. So I wrote down thrillism. And when I wrote down thrillism my mind began to wander for a second and I looked at the guy sitting next to me. He was reading USA Today, in fact, this exact paper, because I later got it from him. I glanced at the blue headline which said, High Risk CEOs, Why Billionaire Executives Seek the Ultimate Thrill. Then I underlined this and I want to share it with you. I am really excited about it. “This is the heyday of the CEO thrill-seekers, says Mark Bryan, editor of Outdoor Magazine. The idea of man conquering nature or seeking a sense of conquest is outmoded for most people but for CEOs, it is still a viable means of self-expression and measuring one’s worth. The whole outdoor adventure thing has never been in vogue as much as it is now.”
Well, granted, most of us cannot do what these billionaires do, but we still chase thrillism. Our thrillism mentality is just a microcosm of theirs but we still chase it. Again, I go back to God’s Word. Has God designed us, has God fashioned us as human beings to never, ever experience the thrills and chills of life? Does He want you and me never to get in on pleasure? Does He kind of say, don’t get into thrillism. Well, he doesn’t want thrillism to become our god. But God does want us to experience adventure and a lot of good stuff in life. But with God it is always pleasure within parameters. Turn to your neighbor and say that. Pleasure within parameters.
For example, God has given us the gift of sex. That woke four or five men up. What? Sex is a gift from God. It is a pleasure driven thing. However, the parameters of sex happen to be one man, one woman in marriage. Anything outside of that is committing cosmic treason before God. God has given us the pleasure of cake. A lot of us have experienced the pleasure of cake over the holidays, haven’t we? Do you realize how boring it would be if everything tasted the same. You can go to Sonic and order #1. Everything tastes like cardboard. Go to Joe T. Garcia, good Tex-Mex food, and everything just tastes like cardboard. It would be boring. But God has given us taste and this is a pleasure thing He has given us. We can go to Sonic and, oh boy, #1 tastes great. The beef, the lettuce, the tomato and that crushed ice. I love it. I am getting hungry right now. Go to Joe T. Garcias, the nachos with cheese dripping off of them. The fried tortillas with that little fried haulipena which gives it a bite. Oh, we love Joe T. Garcias.
Remember, I said, pleasure within perimeters. Well, as far as eating goes, the problem develops when we get into gluttony. It happens when we just live at Sonic or Joe T. Garcias, when every day we are like a bunch of blue sharks in a feeding frenzy. That is a sin before God. Thrillism. Has that become your god? Game to game, fun fix to fun fix, activity to activity. Is that your deal?
There is another aspect to polytheism in our modernistic mentality. I call it possessionism. Possessionism. It is something that is really sly. A lot of us lay awake at night dreaming and scheming about ways to collect more and more things. We stalk stuff. I have got to have the next outfit, the next house, the next boat, the next piece of jewelry. And the thing about it is, possessionism always beckons us with one four-letter word. No, it is not a cuss word which we will talk about in a couple of weeks. The word is more. A little bit more. One more. You are one acquisition, one deal, one investment away from nirvana. And the possessionistic mentality possesses us. It is pretty much that the desire to acquire has gone haywire. Wouldn’t you agree? Possessionistic, not me. I love the Lord. I am monotheistic, not polytheistic. But a lot of us are just playing games. We are thinking that things will satisfy. What does the Bible say about possessions? The Bible says possessions are good when they don’t possess us. God has blessed many of us. Some of the matriarchs and patriarchs of scripture were power players. They were wealthy men and women, but they had wealth. Wealth did not have them. Possessionism is alive and well. A lot of us are bowing at the feet of commerce, thinking about cash and money and things.
There is one more that I see, then we will stop and do something else. It is the last of the polytheistic gods that we worship. Knowledgeism. Do you ever worship knowledgeism? We bow before the pristine labs and listen to professors perpetuate their mentality from their bully pulpits. Knowledge is it. Education is it. I have got to get all these facts, have it all downloaded in everything that I do. Knowledge is wonderful. Facts are great. But education isn’t the deal. It is not the deal. I have gone to Jr. Hi School. I have attended High School. I got my undergrad degree at Florida State and a small school in Houston. I have done some master’s work and doctoral work. And I am glad that I have learned from a lot of people, but education does not measure the most important things in life. It does not measure vision. It does not measure creativity. It does not measure endurance. It does not measure people skills. And the last time I checked, those are the most important things it takes to succeed. So knowledge is fine, knowledge is good but knowledge has become a god to us.
I want to stop here and ask you. Don’t you see how much this sounds like Zeus worship? Don’t you see how this sounds like worship of Aphrodite, Bacchus, Mammon and Athena? We haven’t changed. Nothing is new. Same old, same old for us. We are still plagued by polytheism.
Do you ever watch VH1? Raise your hands. A lot of you are not being honest. You are saying that you won’t admit watching VH1 in church. Yeah, you do. I love VH1 and I especially love the program, Behind the Music. Have you ever watched their Rockumentries? I have watched a lot of it lately. KC and the Sunshine Band. Talking about a classic. Leonard Skinnard. Motley Crue. Ted Nudget. Van Halen. All of those people. Rockumentries really does a great job of chronicling what these bands have gone through, whether it is Stevie Nix or Peter Francis. It is really captivating. But after watching all of this stuff during the holidays, I began to see patterns, obvious patterns. I began to see these polytheistic musicians chase after selfism, thrillism and possessionism and knowledgeism. And as you look in these people’s eyes you can see the hollowness, the emptiness and it is so sad. There is not a person here who is going to have the availability like those musicians had to chase these polytheistic gods.
So if you want to know what it is really going to be like to really get into thrillism or selfism or possessionism or knowledgeism, just watch VH1. It shows you that these gods and goddesses will not come through when they are needed the most. Selfism doesn’t satisfy. When you are really down, possessionism doesn’t do it. When you are feeling kind of low, all these gods and goddesses don’t work. That is the mentality behind this directive. God says prioritize Me as God. Worship Me and Me alone. God says that.
Now what is the mentality behind that? Why did God say this? Why was He into the monotheistic thing? Was He trying to corner the spiritual market? Was God worried about His divine ego being bruised? Why did He say these words? I will tell you why. God did not want you, nor did God want me, to be disappointed because these gods and goddesses will not come through. They don’t have the octane. They don’t have the RPMs to help and really see us through and to give us direction and a read on life like God does. That is why He set forth the first commandment, to save you and me from boatloads of suffering.
My mind turns to Psalm 115:5-8. Think about these nameless, faceless gods and goddesses. “They have mouths but they cannot speak, eyes but they cannot see. They have ears but they cannot hear, noses but they cannot smell. They have hands but they cannot feel, feet but they cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them and so will all who trust in them.” I love the mentality and the rational of God. That is the kind of God we serve, a God of love and a God who wants to save us from all this polytheism.
Well, now the implication. We will do a few screen passes and then we will be through. How can this affect my life? How can I take this first commandment and make it real? I want to give you three things that we need to do in order to prioritize God as God beginning now in January 1999.
Number one. Accept God’s review of you. Near the end of the year a lot of companies and organizations do a review. The employees will meet with their managers, or presidents, or CEOs, or boards or whatever. They will go through your good points and the bad points and things on which you can improve. It is a good thing to do. Evaluation. Well, God has done a review of you and you and you and you. And we need to accept this review. The Bible says, that we have all messed up, that we are mistake laden, that we are sin-driven human beings. We fall miserably short of God’s standard of goodness. Some people walk around saying, “Well I keep the Ten Commandments. I live by the Ten Commandments. Yeah, I might break them now and then but they are my guideline. That is enough for me.” Well the Ten Commandments are great. They are phenomenal. But the Ten Commandments will not get you where you want to go. They will not give you the peace that surpasses all understanding.
Remember that I said earlier that the children of Israel were in slavery. What happened to them? God emancipated them. And when God freed them up, then He led them through the wilderness to the base of Mt. Sinai where they were doing the KOA thing. Then they received the law. First they were emancipated, first they were freed up, then they received the law. If the truth were known, a lot of you here are in your Egypt of sin. You are trying to get by on works. At the end of your life, you are going to try to cut a deal with God. “Hey, God, the ten commandments, I really tried to keep them. I had trouble with number one and number four, but I really tried God.” It is not going to get you where you want to go. You are still bound by your performance. If you are enslaved in Egypt, if you are enslaved in sin, you need to allow Jesus Christ to come into your life. I have got good news for you. He has already done the work to free you, to emancipate you. And if you say, Christ infiltrate my life, then you are free from your Egypt. Then you study the Ten Commandments and the other precepts from scripture and begin to live your life the way He wants you to live it.
I ran into the coolest verse of scripture this week. Galatians 3:24-25. “Therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.” You see, back in the ancient culture, there were attendants, custodians, slaves that worked for families and their sole responsibility was to make sure that the little children made it all the way to their schools safely. The slaves would take the little children and lead them all the way to the master teacher. That is what the law does. The law shows me that I will never make it on the performance plan. None of us, not one person here bats 1,000 every time up to the moral plate. We all mess up. The Ten Commandments show us that we can’t make it through performance. But the law can lead us into a relationship with Christ.
The Bible calls the law a mirror. I have another question to ask you. How many of you, today, spent some time looking into a mirror? I think most everybody did. Now, when you looked in the mirror this morning, did anybody here take a screwdriver, unscrew the mirror and begin to shave with it? Anybody style his or her hair with a mirror? Anybody put on deodorant with a mirror? No. The mirror shows us what we need to do. So we picked up the razor, the comb, the deodorant. We did something about it. The Ten Commandments show us, men and women, boys and girls, the futility of trying to achieve something. We are first saved by grace through faith. We are first emancipated by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ and then we live for Him. The law shows us that the performance plan ain’t going to cut it. So accept God’s review of you. And for a lot of you here, you are going to have to take a tough view of your life. If you were to die right now, you are not sure where you would spend eternity. But the great news is that you can nail that decision down in just a couple of moments.
Number two. Tweak the dials of change. As you think about this review, think about the areas that you need to change. Do you need to change anything in your selfistic mentality? Are you into selfism? Are you a demented deity soverignly ruling over the universe called me? Is that what you are doing? If you are, the Bible encourages you to tweak the dials of change, to become an other-centered person, to get outside of yourself and help others.
Do we have any thrillism going on? Are you chasing this and chasing that? Sign up for the thrills and chills of walking with Christ. Talk about adventure. Talk about risk. Talk about a faith thing. It doesn’t get any better than this. How about possessionism? Surely we don’t have anybody who is into materialism here in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, do we? If you are into possessionism, if your possessions have possessed you, if your desire to acquire has gone haywire, here is your homework. Become a giver. Every time I give something, every time you give something, it is a Chuck Norris kick, boom, to the money monster. Give to others. Give to a local church. The Bible talks about giving. It is the essence of our faith.
How about knowledgeism? Are you bowing down at the feet of scientists and listening to professors perpetuate their take on life from their bully pulpits? Are you doing that? Hey, knowledge is fine but why not say in 1999; I am going to learn some of God’s word. I am going to learn how to be a man of prayer, a woman of prayer. Won’t you do that? Just tweak those dials of change.
Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandment.” We don’t just say, “OK, God I will love you but pick and choose the commandments that I will follow. I like number two and number ieght is OK, but the rest….” First, remember that we have the love, the relationship happening, we are emancipated. Then He gives us the power to keep the commandments.
One last screen pass, number three. Constantly check the rearview mirror of your life. Do we have any driving experts here? When I was 15 years old my parents tried to teach me how to drive and they got so frustrated, so freaked out that they called Tony Sellers, owner of a company called EZ Method of Driver Training. One day I was shooting basketball in the back yard and this guy drives up in a little car. He jumped out wearing a polyester jumpsuit that said Tony. He said, “Hello, Mr. Young, my name is Tony Sellers. Come with me and I will show you the EZ method on how to drive.” I was wondering what my parents had done to me.
I had to be behind the wheel with Tony Sellers for hours and hours and hours, looking that the nerdy jumpsuit. He would say, “OK, Ed, excelerate, excelerate. Stop, stop, stop.” One time he had to override my brakes and slam on the brakes for me. But he was always telling me one thing. “Ed, check in the rearview mirror, please. Every 30 seconds, check. Ed, you haven’t checked. Check. Ed, one more time. Check.”
I want you to check in the rearview mirror of your life because I am going to do the same thing. If we put God in the top slot, worship Him as God, honor Him as God, let me tell you what the evil one is going to do. The evil one will have something chasing God, trying to overtake God, trying to elbow God out, trying to take our sovereign Savior and put Him on the back burner and this god or goddess wants to run the show. I have got something chasing Christ in my life and so do you. What? How will you know? When you have idle mind, kind of in neutral, hanging out, what occupies your mind? Is it yourself? Your problem is selfism. Selfism is chasing you. Is it maybe the thrills and chills of life? Well, thrillism could be your deal. Are you always thinking about things, dreaming and scheming and acquiring things? That could be in second place. Or maybe it is knowledge. What is chasing you? Constantly look in the rearview mirror of your life. When you do, when you watch it like a hawk, it will help you to reorganize and constantly reprioritize your life. So today, ladies and gentlemen, I pray that we have taken off our shoes and turned them over. And I pray that we have begun to polish our scarred up and scuffed up soles. This is going to be a ten-part process of polishing. When we really begin to polish our soles, no longer will we ever, ever deal with idol minds.