Not Every Idol is a Statue

By Mike Glenn

Huntsville is a military town and a lot of my friends had fathers who served in some capacity in the Viet Nam war. They were stationed in places like Tokyo, the Philippines, Guam, Korea and of course, Viet Nam. We loved hanging out at our friend's homes because their father always had MONSTER stereo systems. State of the art turntables and amps with speakers taller than me. When any of us bought a new album (yeah, the vinyls) we'd head over to our friend's home and turn up the music so loud cars in the driveway would vibrate.

Photo by Samuel Austin on Unsplash

Good times.

It wasn't unusual for my friend's fathers to have met their wives while stationed overseas. A lot of my friends were part Asian. Sometimes, their mothers would bring their religion to their homes. Shrines to Buddha were commonplace in the homes of my friends. When I mentioned this to my conservative, Baptist parents I would usually get a long sermon on the dangers of idolatry and how God had told us in the Bible not to make "graven images." On my worst days, I would get sermons from both my mom and dad.

Mom and Dad would be proud to know that after all these years, I don't have any idols in my home and there are no statues of Buddha anywhere around.

That doesn't mean, however, there aren't idols around. Growing up, I never thought much about idols. Most of my friends were Christians and the closest any of us came to having idols was a few of my friends would have a crucifix hanging on the wall.

Yet, the longer I stayed in the pastoral ministry, the more I had to deal with idols. Again, there were no statues, but there were idols just the same. Usually, I would encounter the presence of idols when a hard decision had to be made. Perhaps, a young lady would be considering a marriage proposal. The marriage relationship would cause her to delay the pursuit of her music career. She would turn down the proposal not because she didn't love the young man who had proposed, but because "music is who she was." Sometimes, I would be talking to a couple about the stress the husband's high pressure job was causing him to be away from home too much. I would see him think about it. Then, I'd see him decide. He would keep his career. The couple may not divorce, but he would have lost his marriage just the same. He didn't know who he was without his career. He needed the title and the prestige to define him.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying women have to be married to be happy and I'm not against working hard at something that brings you joy. The trouble comes when we seek our identity in anything else but Christ. When a career defines us, when a relationship with someone else defines us -- when we seek the blessing of identity in anything else we've committed idolatry. Which brings up an interesting question for all of us. What is it or who is it that you look to "bless" you?

In Scripture, blessing gave a person two things: identity and purpose. God told Abraham this is your name and through Abraham, God would build; His nation. When Simon received the blessing from Jesus, he was told he was now Peter and on him, Jesus would build His church. When the blessing comes from God, we're told first, this is who we are and second, this is the reason we were born. This blessing from God is unrestricted and free. Our identity is given to us -- Jesus speaks in terms of "Your are." The calling, the second part of the blessing, invites the person into a kingdom adventure with God -- building nations, building churches.

The world, on the other hand, offers a conditional identity in terms of "you can be." We hear it when the world tells us "we can be whatever we want to be." (No, we can't, but that's another blog). Or, "we can have anything we want if we're just willing to pay the price." (No, we can't but that's yet another blog!). The problem is, too many people are trying to earn their identity from a world that can't give that to them. They're looking for purpose from a world that has no purpose to give.

And too many of these people are in our churches. They work hard at trying to make Jesus happy. They come to church. They read their Bibles and they're nice to their neighbors. Like their friends in the world around them, many church members are trying to earn their blessing. They come to church and leave empty handed because we think we have to deal with Jesus the same way we deal with the world. We won't take the free blessing from Jesus because we think we have to earn it.

Who knows us better than the One who made us? Who better to say, "This is who you are and this is why I made you." Is there any better life than to live in the freedom of knowing we have been given a name from Jesus' own mouth. We have been given an invitation to pursue a work close to His own heart. That's the blessing we need. That's the blessing we all seek.

And Jesus is the only One who can give it to us. Trying to get either from anyone or anywhere else is idolatry.