Grounding Today’s Idols in God || Sins of the World #4

American Idols

Welcome back to “Sins of the World.” I’m taking a deeper dive into the words of Galatians 5:19-21 to talk about what we need to avoid and how they can lead us to the Fruits of the Spirit. In Part 3, we talked about lust. Lust, as Paul talked about it, is the unchecked sensuality that flaunts moral restraint. The early church called out the desires of pagan entertainment. The way the Bible talks about avoiding desires of lust is as follows: crucifying our flesh, walking by the Spirit, and proclaiming grace. We landed in Romans 13:13 to talk about the debauchery – an excessive indulgence of sensual desires. Christians are called to claim our bodies as homes of the Holy Spirit. We broke down what it meant to experience a sensual desire – an intense bodily gratification. The struggle with lust wrestles with the concept of portion control – recognizing when enough is enough. The struggle happens when our emotions drive us to excess.

In part 4, we’re moving to talk about idolatry. Idolatry is the worship of idols, replacing the position that Yahweh held for the ancient Jewish audiences. What does it mean to commit idolatry? Do we have idols in our modern world?

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: What idols do you see in our world? How are those things considered idols?

Idols Across Time

The Greek word that Paul uses for idolatry is eidólolatria (i-do-lol-at-ri’-ah). It describes the respect, trust, or service given to any one thing or person instead of God. From household golds (statues, shrines, and rituals) to syncretistic worship (merging of different religious beliefs), the struggle with idolatry was consistent in the ancient Jewish cultures. Idolatry violates God’s unique worth and glory. Worshiping idols deforms the image of God instead of conforming to believers. There were many pagan cults in the first century. From the imperial worship in Rome, Artemis in Ephesus, to Aphrodite in Corinth. Everything that people would participate in were mixed in with idol rites. Paul wants them to stand apart from the pagan cultures.

There’s subtle idols that we see in our world today: money, power, pleasure, and ideologies. We’re called to put those idols to death. Our allegiance to idols drive our struggles like addiction, anxiety, and struggles in our relationships. We need to keep our focus and trust on Christ. Anymore, we see consumerism, digital obsession, and nationalism guide our idolatrous natures. The teachings of Christ frees us from the bondage that our idols can have over us. Consumerism often strangles us, with the rising costs of basic groceries and utilities to the culture wars that marketing tends to push us towards. Digital obsessions refers to our focus on creating the ultimate social media presence. The influencer culture teaches us to focus on the strongest X profile, the most aesthetic Instagram presence, and the most watchable TikToks. We do this to chase likes, views, followers with the attempt of living a lavish life and a dream job. Some people get to do this, but most of us will not, however the drive is both a blessing and a curse. Nationalism is such a buzzword in today’s culture. Christian nationalism has been pervasive in our government, trying to drive ourselves to lead by a conservative Christian ideologies. The struggle has been there’s such a focus on the blend of politics and Christian nationalism, that the true message of the Gospel has been lost.

How did Paul wrestle with idolatry? Let’s head to Colossians 3:5 to find out.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: When we look at the idols of consumerism, digital obsession, and nationalism, which do you believe is the biggest struggle in society right now? Has any of these idols affected your daily life?

Focusing on the Idol

AMP – So put to death and deprive of power the evil longings of your earthly body [with its sensual, self-centered instincts] immorality, impurity, sinful passion, evil desire, and greed which is [a kind of] idolatry [because it replaces your devotion to God].

NRSVUE – Put to death, therefore, whatever in your is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).

VOICE – So kill your earthly impulses: loose sex, impure actions, unbridled sensuality, wicked thoughts, and greed (which is essentially idolatry).

We are to decisively act against any sinful behavior, desire, and temptation. We create a final break from these behaviors. The “earthly” aspect refers to the sinful tendencies that inherently come with our world, which is compared against the new nature Christians find in Christ. Paul highlights sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed – all totaling idolatry. Sexual impurity talked about all forms of illicit sexual behavior that was pertinent to the early Jewish audience (adultery, homosexuality, etc.) Impurity describes the thoughts and intentions that are morally unclean. Lust described the intense and uncontrolled desires. Evil desires is a broad ranges of sinful mindsets that goes beyond sexual lust. Greed is an intense desire for more, often at the expense of others.

Idolatry is the worship of anything other than Yahweh. By equate greed and idolatry, Paul shares the danger of allowing desires for material things to take leadership over our relationship with God. Our relationship with God should guide how we should treat and care for our neighbors. These things come through leaning into God’s teaching through studying Scripture, consistent prayer, and healthy relationships with other people. Again, the foundation needs to be through our relationship with Christ, so we can properly reflect that to others. Through idolatry, our foundation is not based on God. It’s not on reputation, unhealthy desires, and things that bring us short-term happiness, but eventually fade over time.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: Think of the idols that we’ve discussed. Have any of them affected your life? If so, how?

Grounding Today’s Idols in God

Let’s bring back the idols that we mentioned earlier – consumerism, digital medias, and nationalism – and talk about how we can ground these things in God’s love, mercy, and justice. To shift our focus on obtaining the best items, creating the most views and influence, and uniting under flawed ideologies to sharing with our neighbors God’s compassion, forgiveness, and ability to live a life that is best for us starts with God.

Consumerism teaches us to always get the best product. There are billions of dollars pumped across social media, TV, movies, billboards, newspapers, and more to entice you to think: “I need this product.” This is regardless if you truly need this product though. The minute we recognize that there could be a lapse in living our best life possible, we start to get anxious and panic. We start to spiral down what-ifs to see if our lives would be better if we had this thing. We would even go into debt to obtain said thing. All of this to find out, we didn’t truly need it – and we have what’s called “buyer’s remorse.” God teaches us to be grateful with what we have. To see how we can learn to love and live the little we have, and extend those blessings to our neighbors. It’s easy to look at our neighbors and see that they have more, yet we struggle. It’s easy to scroll through Facebook and see the highlights of someones life, when we dread ours. However, if we shift our focus over to gratitude and mindfulness. We may start to recognize that our life isn’t so bad. To recognize the blessing of being able to walk into an air conditioned home, with food in our fridge, with running water, with a bed to sleep in, and with close in the closet. To recognize the flexibility to going to see a movie or hanging out with friends. To learn new hobbies and habits that create fulfillment and joy within us. God wants us to live our best life, and lead it with gratitude. To be grateful for Christ did for us, and to be grateful that God sent His one and only son to die for us so that we can have a restored, fulfilling relationship with Him. The next time marketing pushes you to question yourself, ask: “Do I really need this?”

With digital medias, we are constant chasing likes, views, clout, content, streams, and more. Some people do it for their job, and that’s wonderful. It was (and still relatively is) a goal of my own. However, we see influencers lose their sense of identity because of it. The see what other creators do to get more viewers and not only do they try to match it, but they try to one-up it. To create something bigger, better, bolder – and it may work. It also may fall. It also may derail someone’s livelihood. We see influencers doing things at the expense of the general public, and then get banned from events, arrested, lose sponsorships, lose streams of income, and more. We chase this high, and forget that every high has a low. I am not one to tell you not to chase your dreams. Go do it. Go do it excitedly. Go do it passionately. Go do it faithfully. The biggest mistake we can make is not doing it. The other mistake, is that when we our goal, we say: “I did it.” God gifted you the skills and talents to get you there. The strength and energy of studying, trying, perfecting, struggling, re-trying all came from our Heavenly Father who put these gifts inside of us. It takes years to recognize our path in life, and what we’re called to do. When we lean on God’s guidance, we start to understand it, embrace it, and live it out.

Nationalism teaches us to love our country more than God. Christian nationalism has been on the rise in the United States over the past 10 years (and longer I’m sure). For those that might not have heard about it, Christian nationalism is an ideology that says that Christian views should be prominent and dominate our political, cultural, and social life. This view peoples that our founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, were “divinely inspired” and written by the Christian men to preference Christianity. They support the openness of Christian symbols, inviting schools to have mandated prayer time, singing “God Bless America,” and having plays about the Nativity scene and Good Friday. It prioritizes an ethno-cultural, -religious, and -nationalist framing about fear of the other. What does that mean? Fearing people like immigrants, and racial and sexual minorities. They believe our systems should support the patriarchy, white supremacy, nativism (promoting/protecting the interests, of native-born or indigenous people over immigrants), and heteronormativity. NONE OF THIS is what Jesus called for. There was no one group of demographics that were to be elevated about the other. There was no mandate that any legislation was to built on by God’s teachings, for Jesus came to fulfill the law. Meaning, to me, that if you want to follow God’s law – FOLLOW JESUS’S WAY OF LIFE. There was no priority about national pride, but the Kingdom of God. Jesus was not nationalistic. Jesus was about the divine Kingdom led by Christ. We can absolutely love our country. However, if we want to love it based on the foundation structures of the teachings of Jesus, then we have a lot of work to do. We need to bring structures and systems provides for the needs of our marginalized communities. To provide food and access to affordable groceries for those that hungry. To provide shelter and reasonable living conditions and costs to the homeless. To provide clothes and access to obtain them shame and guilt free for the naked. To provide affordable education, healthcare, child care, and more. To provide proper educational aid and job aids for people struggling to get into the workforce and/or graduate with their GED or degree. This list can and will go on, but it’s a reminder that our ideology is centered on loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbor as Jesus loves us.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: When we break it down, which idol do you struggle with? How can you overcome your idolatry?