Darrin is the pastor of The Journey in St. Louis.
Darrin Patrick
Romans 1:18
How people change … how you can change?
Human beings were created to serve and worship their creator. Satan said you can’t really trust God.
Paul describes the “fall” as an exchange: the glory of God for things that are created – the creator for the created.
We literally exchange our object of worship.
Genesis 1: worship and serve God, rule over creation.
Instead: we worship creation which causes us to be ruled by creation, instead of God.
God gives the moral law to deal with this exchange, Ten Commandments: don’t have any other gods and don’t want your neighbors stuff.
You either worship the creator as God or you worship something in creation as god.
You were made to worship. You were made to be captivated by something greater than yourself. If God captivates your heart and imagination, you worship Him.
Last verse of 1 John, “Little children, keep yourselves free from idols.”
The way to love God and love others is to keep yourself from idols.
The way to love, server, prefer other people, is to keep yourself from idols.
Idolatry is the root of all sin.
Anything can be an idol for you. (even the role of being a pastor)
You either look to God or you look to ___________ (fill in the blank) to feel emotionally secure and personally significant.
Sin happens because we treasure our idols more than we treasure our God.
Sin is when you build your identity on anything other than God.
The reason for any sin is idolatry. If we engage in sin, it is because we have broken commands 1 & 2.
Idolatry is the sin beneath the sin, it is the root that powers internal and external behavior.
You usually only know your idols when they are threatened or disturbed.
Who am I if I’m not a _________ (insert what you do here)?
Everyone of us looks to something that we do (or have) for position …
You’re not just here to learn techniques, but because you want to know God more … you want the things of God, you want to know what OTHER THAN JESUS you are substituting for God to make you happy.
Questions to identify your idols:
1. What do you worry about the most?
2. What if I failed or lost would cost me to not want to live?
3. What do I rely on to feel better?
4. What do I think most easily about?
5. What does my mind think about when I am free?
6. What preoccupies me?
7. What do I daydream about?
8. What makes me feel the most self-worth? What am I the proudest of?
9. What do I lead in with conversations?
10. What do I want people to know about me early on in conversations?
11. What prayer unanswered would make me seriously think about turning from God?
12. What do I really want and expect out of life? What is my hope for the future?
13. What truths in the scripture do I continuously resist? What are the clear patterns in my life of disobedience?
Here’s the problem: even as you get serious about finding your idol, it hides deep in your heart.
Idols hide in “root sins” – a few levels deeper than surface sins
Idols don’t hide in behaviors but in motivations.
Power, comfort, approval, control are all root sins – create idols
I am completely sinful – through repentance (see your sin, own your sin, turn from your sin), begin to see that “I am a bigger sinner than I thought” – arrive at root sin – through faith (Jesus lived for me, Jesus died for me, God sees me in Jesus, Jesus lives in me), begin to see that “he is a bigger savior than I thought” – I am fully accepted (graphic …)
What do you see when you realize that ALTHOUGH you are a bigger sinner than you thought that Jesus is a bigger savior than you thought?
As I read the list of questions to help me find me idols, I think of the questions that would lead me to dream what God want to do through me. The fine line of my desires and the God given desires of my heart is eternally important.