A Story to Tell: Broken Eikons
06/07/09
Genesis 3
Pastor Greg Smith
We got off to a great start in the "A Story to Tell" class last week. If you weren't there, don't worry about missing a session. Just stay, enjoy the lunch and the discussion.
As we saw last week, the Story we have to tell begins with creation. God made this glorious universe and all that is in it. And God declared that it was very good. At the pinnacle of his creation are human beings, the Eikons. Genesis 1:27 says,
So God created human beings in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
The word "eikon" is Greek for image. Like the icons on your computer desktop, human beings point to the creator. We are his eikons. Human beings have great worth and dignity just by who made us.
At the same time, we know something is very wrong. We are still made in God's image— we are his eikons. But we are Cracked Eikons, cracked and broken. This, too, is part of the Story we have to tell. Listen:
God made human beings in his image, with ability to reason, relate, love and rule. We are accountable to God for what we do with the capacities we've been given.
From the beginning, we human beings have lost our innocence by choosing to become independent from God, and setting ourselves up as our own gods. In addition to spiritual death, the result of that Fall has been self-destruction, injustice and violence in all dimensions of human life.
Today we are looking at that part of the Story. What are some things that are real good to eat but are really very bad for you?
The big question is this: How can something so good be bad for you? That question has been echoing through the ages. It’s a question that is at the heart of one of the most important “Tactics of the Tempter.”
The classic example that demonstrates this Tactic of the Tempter is in Genesis 3. This is the story of Adam and Eve: "Humankind" and "the Mother of the Living." It is our story. We will see in the conversation between the serpent and the woman the tactics of the tempter that still threaten to disrupt our relationship with God. We need to understand the tactics of the Tempter so we are not confused.
Look at Genesis 3:1-7.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
The first thing to notice is how the serpent introduces himself: He is a pious, completely serious and religious beast. He doesn't say, "Hi! I'm an anti-God monster and I have come to take away your paradise." Instead, he says, "Friend, let's talk theology."
So he begins:
"Did God— this God whom we all revere— Did God tell you not to eat fruit from any tree in the garden?"
Here is an important tactic of the tempter: temptation often operates in disguise.
The Tempter does not whisper, "Come on, I will teach you to sin." Usually we would recoil from that kind of suggestion. Instead the tempter says something like,
➢ "Come on, I want to show you some the most exciting things that life has to offer.
➢ Come on, I can't believe that God would want you to miss something so wonderful. He wants you to live your life to the full. He is the Creator! He made you to be attracted to this sweet fruit. He gave you the desires! So, come on, be all that he has created you to be.
➢ Wasn't it God that put that passion in your veins? Wasn't it God that gave you your freedom to explore and your mind to imagine? God made this wonderful world. Would he want you to miss so much of what his creation has to offer?"
"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye..."
… She began to think: "How could anything so good be bad? I'm sure that God want me to taste something this wonderful!"
• So says the young couple deeply in love, full of passion, but no where near being married.
• And it's not just kids! So says that middle aged man who has an affair that makes him feel young again with the sweep of passion and romance.
How could anything so good be bad?
Temptation often operates in disguise. Temptation can come is as a call to virtue— to be something that on the outside looks really good. For instance, when it comes to giving,
• We don't say to ourselves, "I'll give a little but no more. I'm selfish. I want to have it for myself."
• Instead, "I must be wise and save. I need to have enough to help the kids.”
Temptation comes in the form of the wisdom of thrift and love for our family.
Or how about these:
• “I’ll cheat on the test so that I don’t disappoint my parents.”
• “It’s OK to tell my friend’s secret— people need to pray for her!”
There is another tactic of the tempter that we need to recognize. Let's look at Genesis 3:1-5 again.
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Can you see it? In these words, the tempter is making an accusation against the goodness of God. He is calling into question God’s good intentions for us. This the second Tactic of the Tempter. The serpent is saying something like this:
God has forbidden you to eat this fruit only because he knows very well that if you eat it will endow you with a special knowledge. Knowledge is power. And God is afraid for you to have it— he wants to keep it for himself!
God wants to keep you on a short leash so that you women and men will not get out of control. He is afraid of the competition if you find out that you have a will of your own.
You can see what the tempter is doing: he is trying to get Eve to doubt God's goodness and loving intentions.
Maybe you have been tested this way yourself.
• Why is it that the really fun stuff is all wrong? God must not want us to have fun!
• Your parents split up in divorce and you wonder, "Does God even care?" "A God who asks me to go through this cannot be a good God."
• You see a friend suffer: "How can a God who permits something like this be a good God!" "A God who lets this happen cannot be a good God."
• I remember the 4 year old girl that was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. All treatments were experimental. We prayed and prayed. But she still died. I remember more than once doubting either God’s power or that God cared.
We know that God was in fact wholly and completely on Eve's side. Everything that God did— he gave them a wonderful garden, and even the rules that he made— it was all for their good. That is proven as the story unfolds. And we know the sad outcome:
If only we could see our lives from God's perspective! If only we could see how God's loving plan has been working from beginning to end in our lives! Then we would trust him for a little while longer when we suffer! Then we would trust that God has our best in mind he asks us to give something that he calls sin so that we will not be hurt as result.
The next time you are tempted to go the easy way, to doubt the seriousness of God's word, to doubt the goodness of the way of life that God has set before us, remember that God is on your side. He wants you to have life in its fullness, not experience your life come crashing down around you. We need to hear and do Jesus’ word.
Genesis 3 ends with the first human pair led out of the Garden of Eden, barred from ever returning.
Let’s look at a passage from the New Testament that shows that this is not just history. It’s the story of “every-person.” Look at Romans 1 beginning with verse 18, page 1673.
When I read through this first chapter of Romans, I am struck by the abrupt change in feeling in verse 18. Paul has been warmly greeting the sisters and brothers at Rome. Then he declared some inspiring promises about the gospel and salvation by faith and then, BOOM!
"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness..."
What happened? Did Paul take a break from dictating his letter and come back in a bad mood, fresh but sour?
I don't think so. Paul meticulously organizes this letter. In Romans more than any other of his letters, every thought is carefully placed. Paul’s purpose is to declare the good news. But before his message will make sense, Paul has to explain the bad news that makes the good news so good!
Paul is like a doctor examining a sick patient. The sick patient is the entire human race. After carefully giving the patient a thorough exam, Paul gives his diagnosis: the patient suffers from a relationship disorder.
• If left untreated, this disease has a mortality rate of 100%.
• And the tragedy is that this disease has already struck at the heart of every human being. It’s a relationship disorder that affects every human being.
The sickness that Paul writes about begins with a broken relationship with God. And this breaks down every other relationship as well: with self, with others, with community, with nature, the created world itself.
But before Paul names the sickness, he describes God's reaction to it. The word he uses is wrath. “Wrath” is a good word to reserve for God. “Anger” for God doesn’t seem to fit because our experience of anger is often so out of control and so erratic.
God's wrath is not like that at all. God's wrath is tempered by God's character. It always has a just reason and purpose. Paul says that God's wrath is expressed in a particular way. Look at verse 24.
24 Therefore God gave them over…
26 God gave them over…
28 … he gave them over …
God permits human beings to experience the consequences of their actions. He gives them over to the results of their poor choices. Sin is unleashed; the expression of sin goes unchecked.
Paul explains is the foundational sin behind all sins.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.
Yes, like Psalm 19:1 says,
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
This fact is made clear by Paul in Romans 1:19-20.
19 … what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made….
The heavens declare the glory of God. All humanity has the opportunity to observe “his eternal power and divine nature.” We may indeed be filled with reverence and healthy fear as we contemplate our place in the universe.
Now it would be wonderful if that was the whole story, but it isn’t. Our knowledge of God leaves us without excuse. We are responsible to God and apart from Christ we are under his wrath.
Look again at Romans 1 but start at verse 18 and let’s read all the way to the end of verse 20.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of human beings who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
The heavens declare the glory of God. God’s “eternal power and divine nature” are there for all to see. But this knowledge, instead of bringing life and a relationship with our creator, has only confirmed our sinfulness and death as our destiny. The truth about God is suppressed in the human heart by our sin. And the result is that God rightfully condemns us as sinners without excuse.
Does this describe just a few particularly evil women and men? No. According to the Bible, all human beings are without excuse. We suppress the truth. We close our eyes to the reality of God’s power and might. We live in denial. Paul states the human problem in verse 25.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.
Worshipping a created thing instead of the Creator is the definition of idolatry. This is not a problem that just other people have. Idolatry is the basic problem of the human heart. What is an idol? An idol is a God substitute, something that in my life takes the place of the true God. Frederick Buechner in Wishful Thinking puts it like this:
Idolatry is the practice of ascribing absolute value to things of relative worth. Under certain circumstances, money, patriotism, moral principles, family loyalty, physical beauty and so on are fine things to have around; but to make them the standard by which all other values are measured, to make them your masters, to look at them to justify your life and save your soul is sheerest folly. They just aren’t up to it.
We know what he means. Things that are fine and useful in themselves can easily become the all-consuming center and goal of our lives.
Money is easy to understand. We all need money. But we all know that money can easily become a power, a god that pushes aside everything else of value in its path.
Saving for the future is a good thing. Whether its preoccupation with investing your money, schemes to save, steps towards family financial security— again all good things in themselves— if they push out faithfulness towards God and love for people, then there may be an idol in your life. A simple test, like your willingness to tithe out of faithfulness to God, may save you from slavery to a false god that cannot save you.
Yes, even things that are very good in themselves can become idols. There’s a great illustration of this that begins in the Book of Numbers, chapter 9. Poisonous snakes were attacking the people of Israel and they cried out to God. So they asked Moses to pray that the Lord would save them from the snakes and their poison. Moses did pray and then God responded.
8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
That bronze snake was a gift from God. It was a symbol and tool used by the Lord to heal the people. So far, so good.
But years later this gift from God became a stumbling block to the people. It became an object of worship. In 2 Kings 18 we learn that King Hezekiah had to “break into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.” They had taken a gift from God and corrupted it by giving it a place in their lives it was never meant to have. They made it into an idol.
How many things can become like that bronze snake! That’s why God is a “jealous” God. Exodus 20:5, in the section on the Ten Commandments where it says to worship God alone. God is jealous because idolatry has consequences. But God would jealously guard you from this. He wants your undivided loyalty. Why? Everything else will disappoint in the end.
What is at the center of your heart and life? Is there anything, even things that are good in themselves, that lead you to compromise your obedience to God?
• God has revealed himself through creation.
• But human sin has blinded us to this truth.
• But then God shared what we could never discover on our own: God has revealed his love and mercy in the good news of Jesus Christ.
We are broken Eikons. But we can be restored. The “relationship disorder” disease can be cured. Jesus has taken the steps to fix the problem.
Pastor Greg Smith
We got off to a great start in the "A Story to Tell" class last week. If you weren't there, don't worry about missing a session. Just stay, enjoy the lunch and the discussion.
As we saw last week, the Story we have to tell begins with creation. God made this glorious universe and all that is in it. And God declared that it was very good. At the pinnacle of his creation are human beings, the Eikons. Genesis 1:27 says,
So God created human beings in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
The word "eikon" is Greek for image. Like the icons on your computer desktop, human beings point to the creator. We are his eikons. Human beings have great worth and dignity just by who made us.
At the same time, we know something is very wrong. We are still made in God's image— we are his eikons. But we are Cracked Eikons, cracked and broken. This, too, is part of the Story we have to tell. Listen:
God made human beings in his image, with ability to reason, relate, love and rule. We are accountable to God for what we do with the capacities we've been given.
From the beginning, we human beings have lost our innocence by choosing to become independent from God, and setting ourselves up as our own gods. In addition to spiritual death, the result of that Fall has been self-destruction, injustice and violence in all dimensions of human life.
Today we are looking at that part of the Story. What are some things that are real good to eat but are really very bad for you?
- A Double-Double with fries and a milkshake at “In and Out Burger”
- Quizno's Tuna
Melt (large)
2,090 calories
175 g fat = 12 1/2 tablespoons of oil!
2,190 mg sodium - Romano's
Macaroni Grill Primo Chicken Parmesan
2,220 calories
148 g fat (53 g saturated fat)
4,440 mg sodium
126 g carbohydrates
The big question is this: How can something so good be bad for you? That question has been echoing through the ages. It’s a question that is at the heart of one of the most important “Tactics of the Tempter.”
The classic example that demonstrates this Tactic of the Tempter is in Genesis 3. This is the story of Adam and Eve: "Humankind" and "the Mother of the Living." It is our story. We will see in the conversation between the serpent and the woman the tactics of the tempter that still threaten to disrupt our relationship with God. We need to understand the tactics of the Tempter so we are not confused.
Look at Genesis 3:1-7.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
The first thing to notice is how the serpent introduces himself: He is a pious, completely serious and religious beast. He doesn't say, "Hi! I'm an anti-God monster and I have come to take away your paradise." Instead, he says, "Friend, let's talk theology."
So he begins:
"Did God— this God whom we all revere— Did God tell you not to eat fruit from any tree in the garden?"
Here is an important tactic of the tempter: temptation often operates in disguise.
The Tempter does not whisper, "Come on, I will teach you to sin." Usually we would recoil from that kind of suggestion. Instead the tempter says something like,
➢ "Come on, I want to show you some the most exciting things that life has to offer.
➢ Come on, I can't believe that God would want you to miss something so wonderful. He wants you to live your life to the full. He is the Creator! He made you to be attracted to this sweet fruit. He gave you the desires! So, come on, be all that he has created you to be.
➢ Wasn't it God that put that passion in your veins? Wasn't it God that gave you your freedom to explore and your mind to imagine? God made this wonderful world. Would he want you to miss so much of what his creation has to offer?"
"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye..."
… She began to think: "How could anything so good be bad? I'm sure that God want me to taste something this wonderful!"
• So says the young couple deeply in love, full of passion, but no where near being married.
• And it's not just kids! So says that middle aged man who has an affair that makes him feel young again with the sweep of passion and romance.
How could anything so good be bad?
Temptation often operates in disguise. Temptation can come is as a call to virtue— to be something that on the outside looks really good. For instance, when it comes to giving,
• We don't say to ourselves, "I'll give a little but no more. I'm selfish. I want to have it for myself."
• Instead, "I must be wise and save. I need to have enough to help the kids.”
Temptation comes in the form of the wisdom of thrift and love for our family.
Or how about these:
• “I’ll cheat on the test so that I don’t disappoint my parents.”
• “It’s OK to tell my friend’s secret— people need to pray for her!”
There is another tactic of the tempter that we need to recognize. Let's look at Genesis 3:1-5 again.
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Can you see it? In these words, the tempter is making an accusation against the goodness of God. He is calling into question God’s good intentions for us. This the second Tactic of the Tempter. The serpent is saying something like this:
God has forbidden you to eat this fruit only because he knows very well that if you eat it will endow you with a special knowledge. Knowledge is power. And God is afraid for you to have it— he wants to keep it for himself!
God wants to keep you on a short leash so that you women and men will not get out of control. He is afraid of the competition if you find out that you have a will of your own.
You can see what the tempter is doing: he is trying to get Eve to doubt God's goodness and loving intentions.
Maybe you have been tested this way yourself.
• Why is it that the really fun stuff is all wrong? God must not want us to have fun!
• Your parents split up in divorce and you wonder, "Does God even care?" "A God who asks me to go through this cannot be a good God."
• You see a friend suffer: "How can a God who permits something like this be a good God!" "A God who lets this happen cannot be a good God."
• I remember the 4 year old girl that was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. All treatments were experimental. We prayed and prayed. But she still died. I remember more than once doubting either God’s power or that God cared.
We know that God was in fact wholly and completely on Eve's side. Everything that God did— he gave them a wonderful garden, and even the rules that he made— it was all for their good. That is proven as the story unfolds. And we know the sad outcome:
- yes, the command about the tree did need to be taken with utter seriousness;
- yes, the tempter was a liar and the outcome was death.
If only we could see our lives from God's perspective! If only we could see how God's loving plan has been working from beginning to end in our lives! Then we would trust him for a little while longer when we suffer! Then we would trust that God has our best in mind he asks us to give something that he calls sin so that we will not be hurt as result.
The next time you are tempted to go the easy way, to doubt the seriousness of God's word, to doubt the goodness of the way of life that God has set before us, remember that God is on your side. He wants you to have life in its fullness, not experience your life come crashing down around you. We need to hear and do Jesus’ word.
Genesis 3 ends with the first human pair led out of the Garden of Eden, barred from ever returning.
Let’s look at a passage from the New Testament that shows that this is not just history. It’s the story of “every-person.” Look at Romans 1 beginning with verse 18, page 1673.
When I read through this first chapter of Romans, I am struck by the abrupt change in feeling in verse 18. Paul has been warmly greeting the sisters and brothers at Rome. Then he declared some inspiring promises about the gospel and salvation by faith and then, BOOM!
"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness..."
What happened? Did Paul take a break from dictating his letter and come back in a bad mood, fresh but sour?
I don't think so. Paul meticulously organizes this letter. In Romans more than any other of his letters, every thought is carefully placed. Paul’s purpose is to declare the good news. But before his message will make sense, Paul has to explain the bad news that makes the good news so good!
Paul is like a doctor examining a sick patient. The sick patient is the entire human race. After carefully giving the patient a thorough exam, Paul gives his diagnosis: the patient suffers from a relationship disorder.
• If left untreated, this disease has a mortality rate of 100%.
• And the tragedy is that this disease has already struck at the heart of every human being. It’s a relationship disorder that affects every human being.
The sickness that Paul writes about begins with a broken relationship with God. And this breaks down every other relationship as well: with self, with others, with community, with nature, the created world itself.
But before Paul names the sickness, he describes God's reaction to it. The word he uses is wrath. “Wrath” is a good word to reserve for God. “Anger” for God doesn’t seem to fit because our experience of anger is often so out of control and so erratic.
God's wrath is not like that at all. God's wrath is tempered by God's character. It always has a just reason and purpose. Paul says that God's wrath is expressed in a particular way. Look at verse 24.
24 Therefore God gave them over…
26 God gave them over…
28 … he gave them over …
God permits human beings to experience the consequences of their actions. He gives them over to the results of their poor choices. Sin is unleashed; the expression of sin goes unchecked.
Paul explains is the foundational sin behind all sins.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.
Yes, like Psalm 19:1 says,
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
This fact is made clear by Paul in Romans 1:19-20.
19 … what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made….
The heavens declare the glory of God. All humanity has the opportunity to observe “his eternal power and divine nature.” We may indeed be filled with reverence and healthy fear as we contemplate our place in the universe.
Now it would be wonderful if that was the whole story, but it isn’t. Our knowledge of God leaves us without excuse. We are responsible to God and apart from Christ we are under his wrath.
Look again at Romans 1 but start at verse 18 and let’s read all the way to the end of verse 20.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of human beings who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
The heavens declare the glory of God. God’s “eternal power and divine nature” are there for all to see. But this knowledge, instead of bringing life and a relationship with our creator, has only confirmed our sinfulness and death as our destiny. The truth about God is suppressed in the human heart by our sin. And the result is that God rightfully condemns us as sinners without excuse.
Does this describe just a few particularly evil women and men? No. According to the Bible, all human beings are without excuse. We suppress the truth. We close our eyes to the reality of God’s power and might. We live in denial. Paul states the human problem in verse 25.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.
Worshipping a created thing instead of the Creator is the definition of idolatry. This is not a problem that just other people have. Idolatry is the basic problem of the human heart. What is an idol? An idol is a God substitute, something that in my life takes the place of the true God. Frederick Buechner in Wishful Thinking puts it like this:
Idolatry is the practice of ascribing absolute value to things of relative worth. Under certain circumstances, money, patriotism, moral principles, family loyalty, physical beauty and so on are fine things to have around; but to make them the standard by which all other values are measured, to make them your masters, to look at them to justify your life and save your soul is sheerest folly. They just aren’t up to it.
We know what he means. Things that are fine and useful in themselves can easily become the all-consuming center and goal of our lives.
Money is easy to understand. We all need money. But we all know that money can easily become a power, a god that pushes aside everything else of value in its path.
Saving for the future is a good thing. Whether its preoccupation with investing your money, schemes to save, steps towards family financial security— again all good things in themselves— if they push out faithfulness towards God and love for people, then there may be an idol in your life. A simple test, like your willingness to tithe out of faithfulness to God, may save you from slavery to a false god that cannot save you.
Yes, even things that are very good in themselves can become idols. There’s a great illustration of this that begins in the Book of Numbers, chapter 9. Poisonous snakes were attacking the people of Israel and they cried out to God. So they asked Moses to pray that the Lord would save them from the snakes and their poison. Moses did pray and then God responded.
8 The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
That bronze snake was a gift from God. It was a symbol and tool used by the Lord to heal the people. So far, so good.
But years later this gift from God became a stumbling block to the people. It became an object of worship. In 2 Kings 18 we learn that King Hezekiah had to “break into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.” They had taken a gift from God and corrupted it by giving it a place in their lives it was never meant to have. They made it into an idol.
How many things can become like that bronze snake! That’s why God is a “jealous” God. Exodus 20:5, in the section on the Ten Commandments where it says to worship God alone. God is jealous because idolatry has consequences. But God would jealously guard you from this. He wants your undivided loyalty. Why? Everything else will disappoint in the end.
What is at the center of your heart and life? Is there anything, even things that are good in themselves, that lead you to compromise your obedience to God?
• God has revealed himself through creation.
• But human sin has blinded us to this truth.
• But then God shared what we could never discover on our own: God has revealed his love and mercy in the good news of Jesus Christ.
We are broken Eikons. But we can be restored. The “relationship disorder” disease can be cured. Jesus has taken the steps to fix the problem.
- First, the relationship with God is restored through Jesus.
- Then, God begins the work of complete restoration. This is Good News to share!