580. When Does A Desire Become Idolatry?

[Music] Welcome to the Paul Trip podcast where Pastor and best-selling author Dr. Paul David Trip connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ every day life. When does a desire, even a good desire, venture into the territory of idolatry? In today's episode, Paul wants to help answer that question as we listen to another session from his conference, Portrait of a Struggle. If you enjoy today's content, you can purchase the full conference at store.PaulTrip.com. Here's Paul helping us avoid the traps of idolatry in our lives. [Music] There's grace for the heart. Turn if you would to 1 Corinthians 10. You see, it's not just grace for my external struggles of people and things. There's grace for that internal struggle. I don't always want the best thing. I mean, you know that. Have you ever -- I mean, I'm sure you've never done this. Have you ever eaten anything that you knew was unhealthy? Who wouldn't think of doing that would you? Have you ever said something to a person that you knew you shouldn't say? Of course you have. I've been in arguments with my wife where some point in the argument I knew that she was right. I hate when that happens. But I didn't stop arguing because I wanted to win. You see, that struggle is not just about the people around me. It's about what's going on inside of me. I love this passage. I'm going to begin reading in the first part of the chapter. I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea. And all were baptized into Moses and the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. And the spiritual drink for the drink from the spiritual rock that followed them and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. You get the subject. The subject is what? Desire. It's the struggle of desire. Everything else that Paul writes about is about this heart struggle of desire. I think we've misunderstood this passage. We've made it about sort of the external temptations that we face. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about the struggle of desire. Do not be, verse 7, "Idolaters of some of their them were as is written, these people sat down to ink, eat, and drink, and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23,000 fell on a single day. We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer." Now, these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the age has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands, take heed, lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that it's not common to man. What is the common temptation of 1 Corinthians 10? Anybody know? You can talk. "Idolatory." That is the struggle of every sinner. All of us somehow, someway end up replacing God with other things. We attach our identity, our meaning and purpose, our sense of well-being to something other than God. That's a universal struggle of what? The heart of everyone. God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation will also provide a way of escape. Now watch this, that you may be able to endure it. God is working in your heart. So, although you're still in a situation where you're tempted to desire what you should not desire, to serve what you could not serve, to attach your life to things that you should not attach them to, to be ruled by things that you should not be ruled by, God will give you the power to resist that, to stand against those temptations, to endure them, to not let them set the agenda for your life. Now, I hate this paragraph division. This paragraph division was not in the original. The punchline of the passage is verse 14. "Therefore, my beloved, flee idolatry, because you have the power to say no to idols." Listen, wife, you don't have to attach your identity to your husband, and ride the roller coaster of that man's responses to you, and live with huge ups and huge downs. You have turned that man into an idol. He has become your own personal Messiah. You don't have to attach your identity to your job, and the power and the praise you get there, that's turning your job into your own personal Messiah. You don't have to attach the good of your life to the size of your pile of your possessions, that's turning your possessions into your own replacement Messiah. Listen, the war of wars, of wars, of wars is the war that's fought for the rulership of your heart. That's the greatest temptation of all. Your greatest temptation is not your wife or not your friend or not your boss or not your possessions. The greatest temptation is that temptation to give the rulership of my heart to something other than the Redeemer, and all of us are in the midst of that war. But not without help. Because the grace of God gives you the ability to say no to that idolatry. Listen, it's perfectly okay to desire comfort. Something we're wrong with you if you didn't desire comfort. But hear this, you must not be ruled by it. It's perfectly appropriate to want respect and appreciation. Those are healthy things in a relationship, but you cannot live for other people's respect. You cannot live for their appreciation. It's perfectly okay to want to be a success, but you cannot be ruled by success. It's right to want some control because you are meant to live an orderly life, but you cannot be ruled by control. It's not wrong to want nice things around you. God has given us all an eye for beauty. It's the wonder of being a human being. We change the environments we live in because we're wired for beauty. But you must not be ruled by that. Listen, I'm going to say this again. I know this is a fence of talk, but we are overweight. We are in debt. We are addicted because we're asking things to fill our hearts that do not have the spiritual organic capacity to fill us. And so you have to go back again and again because the buzz is short term. And for long, you're in ill health. You're hopelessly hooked. You're in debt. You wonder what's happened to me. What's happened to you is you've turned something into a Messiah that can never be your Messiah. Now God knows that that's your core battle. God knows, oh, this is humbling, that your biggest problem is you. God has provided a way of escape so that you can stand up, you can endure, you can conquer, you can flee. You know, some of us are in houses way bigger than what we need. Let's be honest. Some of us have closets way fuller than they need to be. Some of us daily eat way more than we need to consume. Some of us are busier than we ever actually need to be. Some of us invest way too much in luxury and entertainment. Oh, we come here and we say that we're followers of the Most High God, that He is the sinner of our lives. But He's pushed to the borders of our lives by things and people. I would never judge your spirituality by the size of your house, but I'll get you to ask questions about it. Why do a man and a woman need to live in a 4,000 square foot house? Why do we actually rent storage? For stuff we won't touch for years, but it's our stuff. Imagine if all of that across America was poured into planting new churches in our cities. Because we're so fulfilled by the glory of the Messiah. We are not feeding on glories anymore that won't fulfill us. They won't. And all those things that seem so delightful just don't last, do they? You know, you have that great meal at that expensive restaurant and you walk away saying, "Ah, I ate too much." How wonderful. I'll be sick in the morning. Honey, do we still have any mailbox? That car that's so cool and smells new won't. Have you been to the car wash places that sell the little vials of new smelling stuff? How dumb do you think I am? I put it on the carpet of my car and I think it's new. Because it smells new. Wow. That's amazing. The screens are getting bigger, aren't they? Pretty soon we're going to see people's houses and as you drive by the screen is sticking out of the wall of the house. You have to watch inside and outside. You have to run outside the door like this. It's sort of a robic television. All of that is exactly what's being addressed in this wonderful passage. Let me say it to you this way. The biggest war in your life is the war of desire. And there's grace for that war. You're not left by yourself. There is the promise of deliverance. Turn over a few chapters to 1 Corinthians 15. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. Now listen to what he's about to say. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ we are of all people most to be pitted. Listen, Christianity makes no sense whatever if there is not a forever. This struggle has to be a struggle unto something. This struggle has to go somewhere. This struggle has to have a culmination or it makes no sense. And so Paul says, don't you understand Jesus being raised from the dead is a guarantee that you will be raised out of this struggle to be in a place where you will struggle in no way ever again forever. Now wonderful, those creepy moments will be done. Those wrong desires will be done. That racism will be done. That physical suffering will be done. Sin will be done. It will all be over. And for thousands and thousands and millions and trillions and billions of years you will live in a place that has no more struggle. The struggle will be over. Praise him. Do you believe that? Do you believe that it's not just your sort of like a hamster running around that circular thing and it just keeps turning and you just keep running over the same spot again and again and again. And every day is another struggle and you struggle and struggle and struggle and life ends. No. As much as you may not be able to see it, you are marching, you are marching toward an end. That will be brighter and beautiful and more glorious than you have ever imagined it would be. And you look back and you will say, "It's all been worth it." You know why revelation is in the Bible? I give you one reason. In the book of the revelations we are able to hear saints on the other side. We are able to ease drop on eternity. We can hear what those who are on the other side are saying. Those people on the other side are not saying, "We had the greatest cards." Or maybe chariots. We lived in the best houses. We ate the best food. No. What they're saying is, "You did it, you did it, you did it." Every provision you promised, every promise you made was given. You won, you won. To yours be the glory. Yours is the honor. You see, there's a promise of deliverance. There will be a day when the struggle is over. That's grace. There's grace for your failures. Turn to 1 John. I want to look at this very familiar passage. Verse 8, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." There's grace for your deepest moment of failure. There's grace for your rebellion. There's grace for your refusal. There's grace for your idolatry. God knows that in the process of the struggle, as you are being reformed through that struggle, you will fail. You'll think things that you should not think. You'll desire things that you should not desire. You'll say things that you should not say. You'll do things that you should not do, and you don't need to run and hide. You do not need to be beaten apart by your guilt. You do not need to be paralyzed by regret. You come out of the hiding, and you come into God's light, and you confess your sin, because every sin you have committed, every sin you are committing, every sin you will commit has been fully and completely covered by his blood. You can stand as an unholy person before a holy God, and be utterly unaffraid because you have been forgiven. What a wonderful message. You see, you serve a dissatisfied redeemer. He will not sit. He will not relent. He will not quit until his work has been completed. But hear this. His grace is with you in every moment and every location of the struggle. Grace for your relationships. Grace for the war of desire that's in your heart. Grace for your failure. There is grace. There is grace. There is grace. There is grace. Here's what you need to say. Buy God's will. My life is a story of struggle. Buy God's will. My story of struggle is a story of grace. You've got to say both of those. You can't just say it's grace because it is struggle. You can't just say it's struggle because it is grace. This story of struggle is a story of amazing grace. And when we have been there 10,000 years, we will still be singing the song of that grace. Thanks for tuning in to the Paul Trip podcast. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please leave us a review. Each review helps us reach more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you were blessed by what you heard today, would you consider supporting Paul's not-for-profit ministry? 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