As you may know, the Mega Million lottery is up to about $540 million (and probably will grow higher). Standing in a convenience store today, I considered buying a ticket (just for fun, of course). I began to imagine all the good that I could do with such a prize (think rationalization). Then a passage hit me between the eyes (not literally): "But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction" (1 Tim. 6:9). Whoa. I almost purchased the potential (okay, the odds are 175 million to one) ruin and destruction of my family, marriage and children. Now, there are many other ways to bring my home down to ruin. Nevertheless, have you ever researched the lives of folks who win massive lottos? It ain't pretty, and it is the deceived fool who thinks that he will be the exception. As the Bible wisely warns us, the idol of immeasurable weath is deadly viper. So my prayer today is that I would be more than content to have my treasure stored up in heaven, where God has storehouses of immeasurable grace to dispense forever.  

This Sunday we are going to study Romans 1:18-32, which talks a lot about idolatry. An idol is a "functional lord." It drives my life, gives me security and an identity. Unlike Jesus, an idol deceives and enslaves. In his study on this passage, Tim Keller identifies numerous modern day idols. Here is a partial list:

I am a graduate of Covenant Seminary, and receive the institution's quarterly magazine, Covenant. The latest issue defines the school's reason for being, saying, "The purpose of Covenant Theological Seminary is to glorify the triune God by training his servants to WALK in God's grace, MINISTER God's Word, and EQUIP God's people—all for God's MISSION." I really needed to hear that today. Especially the first part about walking.

As a pastor of fifteen plus years, I realize that I have jumped the gun so to speak by focusing my calling on MINISTERING God's Word and EQUIPPING God's people for God's MISSION. What did I leave out? The most important and essential part of the pastoral process! My first calling is my own heart. My own spiritual vitality. I must make it the priority of my life and ministry to live in a conscious awareness of God's all-consuming grace—to find my identity and ability in the God who uses the foolish, broken and needy to accomplish his will. My sense of self must NOT be in my pastoral role, but simply in being a forgiven, accepted, beloved, adopted and treasured son. Of course that strikes at the heart of my flesh's favorite idol, which is "the glorification of me" through ministerial success. 

So today, I'd like to die to my own craving and pursuit of that success and find my joy, hope and glory in the victory over my idolatry through the propitiatory work of Jesus via the cross. I need to hear Romans 3:20-25a:

 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.  21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25aGod presented him as a sacrifice of atonement [i.e., propitiation], through faith in his blood.

If you are a friend of Creekstone, would you pray that I would WALK in these verses today, tomorrow, and every day? That I would believe them and savor them. Only then will I genuinely be effective at MINISTERING this gospel and EQUIPPING us for MISSION. Thanks.

Sunday at Creekstone we prayed the Lord's Prayer together. One line that we tend to recite without thinking too deeply is, "Thy will be done." Are we sure we know what we are saying? Thy will? To be honest, I tend to be tenaciously committed to the fulfillment of my will. It is that commitment that sows the seeds of worry, anxiety, fear, drivenness, control and self-protection, among other things. So to pray for the Father's will to be realized is a strong statement of humility, faith and dependency upon the all-sovereign, all-wise and all-loving redemptive plan of God. Humility, faith and dependency cannot co-exist with the idol of my playing the role of Lord of my own life.  And as someone has said, being God is way above my pay scale. I'm simply not equipped for that task. After all, if I were God, I never would have planned to rescue the unworthy from their sins  — especially through the heinous death of my own son. Yet, as Isaiah 53 says, "It was the Lord's will to crush him" because "All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all" (NLT). Eternal love. Ungraspable grace.  Thank you, Father, that Jesus prayed "Thy will be done," and followed through with the plan. Now help me trust your sovereign, wise and loving will with humility, faith and dependency as I journey this day on the paths you have laid out for me.

This is the audio from this past Sunday's Creekstone service, as well as a study guide for individuals and families to use as sermon follow up discussion/study. You may also listen/download the audio and discussion guide from the media player on the Creekstone website. And we are now podcasting our audio on iTunes as well. Subscribe on iTunes here. 

Turning From Idols • Luke 18. 18 - 27 by Mckay Caston

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I began reading Keller's Counterfeit Gods over the weekend. In a word, profound. Another word, convicting. And still another couple words, gloriously hopeful. The book is about idolatry. In the first chapter, Keller defines idolatry by alluding to comments on American culture penned by Alexis de Tocqueville, who in the 1830s said that there "is a strange melancholy that haunts the inhabitants... in the midst of abundance" because "the incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy [the human] heart."

Keller asks, "What is the cause of this 'strange melancholy' that permeates our society...? De Tocqueville says it comes from taking some 'incomplete joy of this world' and building your entire life on it. That is the definition of idolatry."  Usually, idolatry takes place when I take a good thing (an incomplete joy) and make it an ultimate thing (like planting a church, or winning a game, or making an income, or whatever). It is that thing that, if I lost it or failed at it, would cast me into despair.

Of course, the gospel offers us that which can truly satisfy, which is to know the God of grace who pours out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given to us. The Spirit who enables me to cry out "Abba, Father," and to be convinced that I am fully forgiven and completely accepted sons. Reconciliation without fear. That is what my heart longs for, and that is what we receive through faith in the promises that are bound to the cross of Jesus. Embracing the ultimate thing as the best thing.

It is the power of the gospel that breaks the power of idolatry and brings genuine peace, joy, hope and soul satisfaction. It enables me to possess something and lose it, to pursue something and fail at it, and to remain sane—even sanctified, possibly sorrowful, but not despairing—in the process.

This morning I was reading in Mark 10 about the rich young man who asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life. There is much that could be said about this incident, but what grabbed my heart is the fact that I am so much like him. Not Jesus. The young man. Well, I would not say that I have kept the law since my youth, but I can't imagine being asked to sell all that I have and give it to the poor before I could follow Jesus. I wonder if I would have walked away, too.

As the commentaries say, Jesus was trying to show the young man that his heart actually was being ruled by an idol. His affections were set on his wealth and the image that gave him. His identity as a rich man was his true god, and all his external law keeping was really a cover to keep his good and important reputation in tact. His wealth had a stranglehold on his heart.

When my affection for Jesus is cold or lukewarm, and causes me to make lame excuses about the radical call to follow Jesus, I can be sure that, whether I am aware of it or not, some idol has a stranglehold on my heart, too. Possessions? My ministry? The dream of future success and recognition which causes me to work so hard in the name of Jesus? Comfort? Fear of exposure? The need to be right or appreciated or in power?

The point is not that I give everything up for Jesus. It is that he gave everything up for me, even his life. It is that amazing, overwhelming grace of the cross that sets me free to abandon and destroy the idols that set themselves up to rival such a Savior. Jesus was offering the young man not another law to fulfill, but freedom from the idol that was keeping him from obeying even the first of the commandments. Jesus was giving him the opportunity to face his idol and crucify it by a radical act. And that's what it takes to kill an idol—radically acting against the influence of the idol by being under the influence of the Spirit. The gospel calls me sometimes to act in big, radical, external ways, and sometimes in smaller, internal ways. Regardless, the power for such an idol destroying life is to consciously believe that Jesus is my true righteousness, hope and joy. As the one who "loved me and gave his life for me."

I confess that my heart is ruled by idols. It is an ugly thing. Sometimes I feel utterly helpless. And in myself I am. But if I will take the cross in one hand (to believe the gospel) and a sword in the other (to act in line with the gospel), God will give grace to face and destroy the idols which rob me of the joy, hope and peace that is available for those who know Jesus as their glorious pearl of great price. For his promises of eternal life through his substitutionary obedience and sacrifice are better by far than the temporary promises of success, wealth, comfort, human praise or any other cheap idol of the heart.