 We're going to start in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and I just want to read to you verses 1 through 5. And it says, For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. If indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked, for while we are still in this tent we groan, being burdened. Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the spirit as a guarantee. In verse 1 it talks about having tents. Now I have to be very honest, I really do not like camping in tents. Actually camping to me is like a two-star hotel. That's like camping, because I like having a bed and I like having a shower and I like to stay clean. I like that, so I'm not a big camper. And so I like this verse, how it talks about how in this tent we groan, because I don't like tents. They break and the rain comes and the wind comes and it's cold and it gets wet and it's frustrating. Yes, I like buildings or like an RV or something, that's like as far as I'll go. But in this tent we groan, because this is not what God has for us. This is not His final purpose. Our goal is heaven, but while we're on this earth, we have our purpose here in our tent and we groan in our tent, because we long for heaven and we long to be with Him someday. I love it like if you skip down a little bit in 2 Corinthians 5-9 it says, so that whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. So while we are here in this somewhat unreliable tent, we make it our aim to please Him. No matter what we're doing in everything, we please Him. But Satan also has a purpose for us. He doesn't rule our lives, but he rules this world and he has his plan that he would like to see come to pass and that would be that we would die in our sins. And so he has set up so many distractions and temptations in an attempt to succeed. Our culture has become so consumeristic. We are so just obsessed with consumerism. It's almost become our new American religion with just stuff. And we're just consumed with the things around us that we fail by worshiping the created over the Creator. Satan is winning with idolatry when it comes to our lives. This study I titled Idol Free Purpose, because we have a purpose, but Satan also has his purpose. And that's to make us basically be guilty of idolatry and to die that way and to die in our sins. And so what I want to look at is more idolatry and what it does to us and just some different things about it. Idolatry leads to slavery. Our idols lie. They lie to us. They promise things only God can deliver. They promise us things that only God can do, but yet they enslave us. That's why the worship of God alone is so important because he frees us while our idolatry enslaves us. You know, it's funny because we use the word addiction a lot. I have this addiction like I am addicted to goldfish. And so like I don't buy it for my kids. I use them as my excuse, but then I eat it. But if I were to look at my addiction to goldfish because I love them and then I hate them because I can't stop eating them once I start. But if I were to look at my addiction at goldfish and say, actually I'm enslaved to goldfish, then it kind of sounds really bad. And it's not so much like, oh, I just, it's funny, but like, wow, I'm enslaved to this. I need to do something about this. And so when we look at the idols in our lives and we say we're addicted, we shouldn't be saying we're addicted, but we should be saying the truth that we're enslaved to these things. Because that brings us to the place where God can do the work and he can set us free from these. I just have some statements about idols. Number one, an idol lives in our heart before it escapes into our lives. Number two, an idol is a good thing that becomes a God thing, which is a bad thing. Number three, an idol is something that keeps you up at night and it gets you up in the morning. And number four, an idol is anything that replaces Jesus as the center of your life. Number five, an idol is any created thing that takes the creator's place in your life. And number six, an idol is what you turn to instead of God to get what you want. Our first and second commandment in Exodus 20 verses three through five, our first commandment is that we shall have no other gods before us. And our second one is that we should not make images and that we should not worship anything else. But like I said, our culture has become so consumerism. We're so just consumed with worshiping things. God created us as worshipers, but to only worship him, not to worship the created things that he put on this earth. But it's so easy for us to fall into this, for us to fall into placing something else where God should be, but putting something else there and worshiping it, giving it our all, giving it our everything. It seems so easy to do it because Satan makes it so tempting. And so Deuteronomy four, Deuteronomy chapter four verse 24 says, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Idols are not jealous. Our God is jealous. He is so jealous. Not in the sense, well more in the sense that if you're on your wedding day and you came down with like your boyfriend walking down the aisle to your husband and if he, you know, who like in their right mind would do that, that's pretty dumb. But that man in the front, I think would be kind of upset if you came walking down with someone else. But that's the kind of jealousy that God has for us. He doesn't want us to be tainted. He doesn't want our focus to be on anyone else or anything else or anywhere else but him. He is our, we are his bride. And so he is our jealous God. Idols are not jealous, jealous. They don't care. They will let you worship anyone, everyone and everything. Because behind the idols that we worship are Satan and his demons and they do not care as long as they can enslave us. They don't care how it happens or what it does. Our one true God is jealous and he loves to set his people free. Maybe you don't even realize that you're doing this. Maybe you don't realize that you are guilty of idolatry. So I have an acronym that I want to go through for idols. Of the different idols that we have in our lives and how destructive they can be. So for the word idols, I have a point. So for I is items. There's so often that we make items are idols. Advertisements are over just overflowing everywhere. We're constantly with the message that we need to spend money that we don't have on things that we do not need to impress people that we don't even know. And so they tell us, you know, spend your money, do this thing, impress these people. We don't even know people but we get so consumed with like, what are they going to think about me? And we constantly go on and on. Stores in the malls have become these inviting like palaces of worship where their doors are so big and they say, come inside, come in. I will fulfill you. I will make you pretty and cute. And we walk through there and we see the mannequins and we're looking at them. Well, I do that because I don't really have much of a fashion sense. But I look at the mannequins because I'm like, at least they can put it all together. I can't put it all together. That's just not one of my gifts. And we go through and we look at these things and we think, oh, that's what I need. The gap. We go to the gap. And the gap, I think, when I think of gap, I think of a jean jacket. And so I put on my jean jacket and now I represent the gap. And that's a lot of times what we do is that we take home these pieces from these stores and it's a part of us. And items, they can become our idols. Things that we own. Maybe it's what you drive or where you live or how you decorate or your house or anything. These idols of stuff could just ruin our lives when we place them as value, as worth. And we can't live without them and we put them on there. You know, one of the pastors at our church, he came in and he built my husband and a whole entertainment center and it was really high. He built it across almost an entire wall. And at the top of it, he said, oh, look at this. This is the perfect space on the very top where I can't even reach. And he said, this is where you should put your sitabouts. A what? Oh, a sitabout. What is a sitabout? I don't even know what that is. He's like, well, no, those are those things that you put up on the shelf and they sit there because you can't even reach anything. I was like, well, first of all, I'm not a decorator. So I don't think I'm going to do that. And second of all, I don't even know what that is. But that's what we can do with our stuff is that we put it on the top shelf. We put it in a place of value. We never touch it sometimes. And we put it there and think that is where that is. Don't touch the sitabout. Don't move the sitabout. Because that is its place of worship. And we do that when we spend money and give value to items that fill up empty space. When consumerism is your religion, the things you own end up owning you. It's not a sin to purchase items or appreciate and enjoy them. But when those things become the source of our identity, we are guilty of idolatry. I have my husband and I, we have three boys and they're all under six years old. And so my house is crazy. So if you would like a cure to the idolatry of items, have little boys. Yeah, we don't have anything nice. And if we do, it's broken or has scratches on it or has stains on it. Like my clothes, like my outfit is probably the nicest outfit I own because I bought it yesterday. Because, and I'll go home and it'll be ruined in a couple of days. I have little kids and boys are wild and they run outside and they play in the mud and get all dirty and then they run inside. I don't, sometimes I'm just like, why do I even clean? Because I just, I spent all this time cleaning while you were sleeping and then you get awake and it looks like I did nothing. And so if you would like a cure, that is it. I'm just kidding. But it's a good one. But don't let the stuff that you own, own you. This second one for D would be duties. The idols in our life, we have items and we have duties. We all have things to do. It's actually difficult to not have something going on. I mean, we go through our week and people are like, so what did you do all week? What's new? I have no idea, but I know it was a lot. And sometimes we don't know what we do, but we just start like, I don't know. I'm just so busy. And somehow we have given value to being overly committed. It is so easy to become overly committed. I have been born and raised in Calvary Chapel. My dad has been a worship leader my entire life. And so I have grown up in the church and I've grown up serving in the church and I love serving in the church. And when I started having kids, all of a sudden I wasn't really allowed to serve anywhere anymore because I had these little boys who were like, I need you. But I want to serve. What are you doing? And I just remember the Lord just had to really break my heart when it came, or not break my heart, sorry. But just break me of being over committed and serving. And so I was on the worship team every week for lots of years. And the more kids that I had, the harder and harder it got to serve. And it's okay to say no because God puts us through different seasons. And I think we need to sometimes it's healthy to learn to say no to things and to do things because we don't want to be over committed. We don't want to be known by what we do. And so we need to learn to say no because there is freedom with the word no. It's so easy to think like well as long as I'm serving, then that means that I'm doing what God has me do as long as I'm serving. Because see, I'm raising my kids. I'm being a wife. I'm following Jesus. And then I'm singing on the worship team. And then I serve in the college ministry. And then I go help the children's ministry. And then somebody else helps me to ask me to help with an event. So I go do an event. And then I go do this. And the list goes on and on and on of the things that we can end up doing. And they end up defining us. The things we do should not be who we are. But it should be God and what he has called us to do. So don't let these duties be your identity. And don't let them become idolatry. For the next idols that we can struggle with for the O is others. This is probably one of the hardest ones that I deal with. Others. Because we idolize people. We can idolize people positively or we can idolize people negatively. And I'll explain what I mean by that. A lot of time we look at people and we can just idolize them. We go through this. We compare ourselves. We look at them. We're like, wow, they're a lot prettier than us. And they sing better than us. They do this better than us. I should be like that. Honestly, just the other night I was looking through my friend's Pinterest page and it was in her closet. That was her page. I look at Pinterest to find ideas for how to wear clothes. So I'm scrolling through. And I'm just looking at her Pinterest. Wow, that is so cute. Oh, my goodness. That outfit is so cute. Oh, I want to own that. Oh, I want to own that. Oh, my gosh. These girls, though, are so stinking skinny. Oh, my gosh. They're like 100 pounds. I would never look good in that outfit unless I was like 100 pounds. Oh, my goodness. Fine. I will throw away my fishy crackers that are hiding in my nightstand. And we go on and on and on. But sometimes it becomes where it becomes an idol. And we, like, pour everything in. And we want to be like that. We want to look like that. We will do anything to make sure that we look like the people that we idolize. The other side of this is idolizing people negatively. And I just have to be so honest with this. But there are people who rub us the wrong way. But what's funny of when it becomes more idolatry is when, okay. So if there's someone who I don't really like, but they like me, I'm okay. Everything is fine as long as they like me. And I know that, then I'm okay. But if there's someone who I'm not really fond of, but they don't like me back, well, then we have issues. Because nobody should not like me. Everybody should like me. And so if this person over here doesn't like me, well, why? What did I do? And we can go on and on with that. And think like, well, I heard that they went to this thing the other day and they didn't even invite me. I couldn't believe they invited me. What did I do? And then even if they invited us, it wouldn't matter because we wouldn't want to go in the first place. And so we go round and round and round with this whole, like, but we're idolizing people because we care what they think and we shouldn't care what they think. I think that people should like me as much as I like myself. That's idolatry. That's putting me into a place of idealizing yourself even. But that's where, I mean, we can become so consumed with what people think and how this person over here who does serves in this ministry, she said this to me and I just, you know, and I just don't like that. And we go to bed thinking about it. We go to bed sick thinking about it. We wake up sick. I can't believe she said that to me. And we end up putting them in that place of worship. It's kind of intense when I think of someone that I would actually put a person that I don't, that I'm in conflict with as I'd be worshiping them. I don't want to worship people. I want to worship God. But so often it can be so easy to idolize other people. And so the next one for L is longings. Longings. We can be guilty of the idolatry of longing. Longings give us hope that tomorrow might be better. So that's the reason why we live today. That's the reason why we persevere today. Because we think tomorrow will be better. When we act like this or when we give in to longings and just live this way that tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is going to be different. It gives us towering highs when things go our way. But it gives us defeating lows when they don't. I mean, honestly, my emotions are already out of control as it is. And so I already have towering highs and lowering lows no matter what happens. And so I can be super happy. And then a kid, one of my kids comes running in and like throws something up. Well, they don't throw things at me, but they could spill something on me. And then I'm just really upset. I mean, our emotions are crazy. They're just like constantly going, but God is constant. We should not be living thinking that, well, being discontent with what we have, thinking that tomorrow is going to be better because today is better. Because we have the gospel because we have Jesus living for us today. That it doesn't matter what tomorrow brings because we serve him today. And so when we give our, when we think that the future and that's what we're living for, we are guilty of the idolatry of longings because God has a plan for us today. Don't miss his gospel. Don't miss the freedom that Jesus is working in and through you now. I find that when we're single, all we want to do is be married. And so all we think is I just want to be married. I mean, that's how I was. My husband was my first boyfriend and I was like, I was like, I just want to be married. I was 21 when I got married. That's not that long of a wait, but we think that it is. We think that like we're waiting so long. And it's, and a lot of times it's not, but we're not content with being single. So we want to be married. So we get married. And then we're like, I'm discontent because I want kids because I just found out that my husband doesn't fulfill me like I thought he would. And so maybe kids are going to fulfill me. So now I want kids and we live for wanting to have kids. And then we have kids and they're crazy. And you can't have nice things and you can't have nice clothes and they, but they're such a, I love having kids. I love, I love my kids. They're so fun. But then we, but then we think, okay, well I just can't wait till I grow up and move out of my house and then I'll have grandkids. And then we'll get there. But it's constantly, constantly looking at the next step, the future, when God says I have something for you now. I have a plan for you now. Walk in what I have. Don't be guilty of the idolatry of longings. And the last one for idols is S. And it's sufferings. And we all face sufferings. We all will go through sufferings. Some sufferings, for everybody it's different. Everybody goes through something different, but we all will suffer. I mean, we're promised like trials and tribulations. And so that's why we groan in this unreliable tent. And so, but sufferings, I think is one of the easiest idols to be guilty of, but one of the hardest to destroy because a lot of sufferings are out of our control. And honestly, who really likes to be out of control? I want to be in control. One of the reasons why being asked to speak here was just so sweet. A couple months ago, my husband, I went through a miscarriage and I was asked to teach just right after that had happened. And I was 16 weeks pregnant. It would have been our fourth. And I don't really know what happened. My body went into labor and I had to be rushed to the hospital and I had our baby in the hospital. And even though he was only 16 weeks, we found out he was a boy because he had every little part. I mean, we held him in our hand. And you know, when I was asked to speak here, the first thing I did was I looked up the verses. And verse one says, for we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God. And you know, God, he was so cute to me during that time and through these verses because he just spoke so sweetly to me that that little baby, even though he didn't have a chance at life, that his little tent just didn't work. And it was okay because he had a building now. I mean, I hate tents, so enjoy your building without me. But it was okay. But that was, it was rough, you know what I mean? Because our bodies are not created to produce death. Death is not natural. Our bodies are created to produce life. And to hold a little 16-week-old baby in my hand, it's like that's not really, this isn't natural, but it's out of our control. I don't know what happened. Nobody can tell me what happened. And so when we suffer and we go through sufferings, a lot of times we don't know why it's going on. And it's so easy to think, what did I do? Did I, was I, you know, I didn't like meat when I was eating. Is that my problem? Did I not have enough protein or something? And we go through like, what did I do? What did I do to do this? But God, he is so sovereign. Because Matthew 10, 29 through 31 says, are not two sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. He spoke this verse to me as well, that it doesn't matter, because our baby was like a little tiny sparrow and the father was there. He doesn't promise us answers, but he promises us his presence. And it's so often that we long for answers and we need to know why, because we want to be in control. But idolatry is when we put something else in control of our life that's not God. And so a lot of times we can take our sufferings and we can be guilty of idolatry through it because we're looking for the answers. We're trying to figure it out. We're trying to, and we're consumed by it instead of allowing the Lord to pour his grace and his mercy on us and allowing the Lord to just wrap his arms around us and carry us through it because he doesn't give us answers. He gives us his presence and he says, I will be there. And he held, as we were holding our baby in our hand, he held, he was holding him in his hand and he was holding me in his arms and he always has been. And he always will with all of us because I don't know what you struggle with. I don't know what you're suffering with but don't let your suffering be your identity. Don't let that... I don't want to go around and say, yes, I am a woman who has survived a miscarriage but I love Jesus. I want to love Jesus. I want to be a woman who stands for Jesus, who Jesus is my identity and the suffering that I go through just makes me closer to him. And it brings maturity through it. Our purpose is not to question God but just to simply please him. Philippians 4, 11 through 13 says, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I think that the root of idolatry is pride but also discontentment because just like those first statements about idolatry, we end up doing... we can be guilty of all of these things that idols live in our heart and then they come out in our lives. It's when we take a good thing that is like normal but we make it a God thing and it becomes a bad thing. Idols, they keep us up at night. They get us up in the morning. They're anything that replaces Jesus as the center of our life because oftentimes we're discontent with what God has done doing for us now. Our idols will destroy us. They will destroy us, defeat us and Satan and his demons are standing behind them wishing that they will defeat us. So we have to smash our idols. When we learn of what we are guilty of in idolatry, we need to smash them and crush them and destroy them before they destroy our lives. And so how do we do that? We stop worshiping anything but God. We start worshiping God. We respond to the gospel. We respond to his calling and maybe you're sitting in here and you didn't even realize that you might have an idol in your life and maybe you're sitting in here and realizing, wow, like I totally do that and wow, that's totally, like I've totally have given into that. Respond to the gospel and to his calling. Respond to while God is speaking to your life and repent, repent of these idols before they destroy you. It's so easy to fall into idolatry and at one point in my life right before I went to, Hawaii, I just really wanted to be a professional snowboarder but it became a complete idol in my life and so it's kind of silly but I took a good thing and made it a God thing and long, long story short but I just remember God saying if you don't give this up then I'm going to take it from you. I don't want God to take things from me. I want to give them up because he gave everything up for us. I want to repent of these idols because I want to live for him and I want to be used by him. I don't want to be used by these worthless things where the enemy has this awful plot behind it. I don't want him to receive the glory. I want God to receive the glory and so when we repent, we receive, receive his grace, receive his forgiveness, receive how he has set us free and how he forgives us for these things and how he still loves us, how he still longs to use us. I mean he died for us while we were sinners. He died for us while we didn't like him. He didn't die for us while we were pleasing him. He did it when we didn't like him and he uses us so receive what he has done and allow your life to be restored.