Kissing Cows --- Obvious Idols Page 1 of 8 They Were Kissing Cows --- Obvious Idols Matthew 6:19-24, Colossians 3:5 INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES They Were Kissing Cows. Just in case you were not here last week when we kicked off this sermon series, let me explain that this unusual title comes directly from the Bible, itself. Hosea 13:2 laments the people of God s decline into idolatry and declares in disgust and desperation, People are kissing calves! We ve picked that line up and are using it to describe all acts of idolatry. They were kissing cows. They were doing it then and unfortunately, they and we have been doing it ever since. We ve been putting some thing or some one into the place that belongs to God alone. That s our working definition of idolatry for this series. Let s say that together Idolatry is putting some thing or some one into that place in our lives which belongs to God alone. That s what we mean when we say people are kissing cows. I also want to quickly remind you of why we are taking this time to focus on the subject of idolatry. First, it s the Bible s number one sin. The most prevalent sin of the Old Testament, it is the focus of the first two of the Ten Commandments. It is important to God because idolatry is what keeps God from being in right relationship with us and doing all that He so desperately longs to do for us. And it s all the more appropriate at this point in time, because of the current Thrive Initiative THRIVING WITH OTHERS. When God is not in the right place in our lives, thriving is impossible. Okay, that s the review from last week the what and the why. Now, we want to take a closer look at the idols that are most likely to threaten us in our day-to-day lives. This week we are going to look at the most obvious. Next week, we will explore a couple of hidden idols. INTRODUCTION TO SERMON Now in the Old Testament, the greatest threat to the people of God was foreign gods the gods worshiped by the people who surrounded them. You can t read very far in the Old Testament before you will read something about the people chasing after foreign gods or their hearts being turned toward foreign gods. And make no mistake about it; there are still foreign gods in this world. Some estimates place the number of practicing Wiccans in the U.S. at 750,000. (www.religioustolerance.org) The Pew Forum s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey reveals what I found to be surprising shifts in
Kissing Cows --- Obvious Idols Page 2 of 8 American religious life. Non-Christian religions are growing. Those who claim no religious affiliation are growing now at 22.8%. The number of Wiccans is growing. The number of Buddhists is growing. The number of Methodists AND the number of Christians are shrinking. 19.2% of U.S. adults identify as former Christians. We ve got foreign gods, people lots of them. The Old Testament issue of chasing after foreign gods is alive and well. But, for most of us, the idols we will need help recognizing and resisting will come in another form. This is not new; it was true by the time Jesus was alive. The New Testament does not spend nearly as much time talking about foreign gods as the Old Testament did. The Old Testament tells us that the people of Israel were defeated by Babylon and taken into captivity as punishment for worshiping pagan idols. As a nation, they never succumbed to that form of idolatry again. Foreign gods are referenced a bit in the New Testament, of course, as the church begins to branch out and reach past the borders of Jewish world. But for both Jesus and Paul, the warnings about idolatry focus on something else, something we can all relate to. Let s take a look at two quick Bible references. First, let s see what Jesus has to say about this subject. Matthew 6:19-24 19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. And a single verse from Paul writing to the Colossians. He s talking here about how to live a holy life, about the need to set our hearts and minds on the things that are in keeping with God, His will, His purposes, His values and to put aside those things that are contrary to that. Here we go Colossians 3:5 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed --which is idolatry.
Kissing Cows --- Obvious Idols Page 3 of 8 Now, I ve chosen these texts because in them, both Jesus and Paul define for us a particular type of idolatry the one that I believe is the most prevalent and probably the greatest temptation for people like us. Remember, idolatry is putting any person or any thing in that place in our lives which belongs to God alone. In both of these texts, the idol we are warned about is wealth, money, and material things. The actual Bible word for it (and it s a great word, we don t use anymore but it wraps all those things up into one) is mammon. This, my friends, is an idol that will tempt us all, those who have a great deal of mammon or wealth, and those of us who do not, but desperately wish to. Those who somehow believe that our life would be better if we just had a little bit more and so it seems to me an idol worthy of our careful consideration. I believe these texts can help us fight this temptation when it does show up and keep us from kissing cows. They do that by helping us refine those two basic skills that are absolutely necessary in the battle against idolatry. If you were here last week, I hope you can remember them. If not, this will be new information. Our greatest defense against idolatry is first - the ability to remember - to remember who God truly is and what He has done for us. Second, the ability to recognize - to recognize idols for what they truly are. These two texts can help us develop and refine the skills of remembering and recognizing. Let s start with that single verse from Paul: GREED Colossians 3:5 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). Paul is listing several things that should be eliminated from our lives, one of which is greed and then almost as if he is afraid his readers might not be able to recognize greed for what it truly is, he adds this little phrase: which is idolatry. Greed is defined on dictionary.com as excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions. For me, greed pushes the relationship with material things to a different, inappropriate level. Greed means wanting more than you need. It reminds me of that question, how much money is enough money? And the answer? A little bit more. That s greed when there never really can be enough. Always the desire is for more. That s when the things in our life have stepped out of their right place and into the wrong place. Paul is helping us here by giving us a little clue for recognizing when we have stepped over that line. When you want more than you can use, more than you truly need, then that thing
Kissing Cows --- Obvious Idols Page 4 of 8 money, wealth, property has become an idol. You may not realize it, but you Friend, are kissing a cow. When we found out we were moving from Greensboro to Mooresville, we did some major purging. Seriously, cleaned out our huge and easily accessible attic and sent to Armenia enough clothes to outfit a small village. We sent sweaters and jackets that we were wearing when we lived in England 25 years earlier. There were size 10 dresses in there that my mother sent me the eternal optimist. I don t think I ve ever been a size ten. Look, I m embarrassed by this but since then, I ve tried to practice what I preach by taking those blessings that have become burdens and sharing them with others. Don t you see? That turns them back into the blessings they were meant to be. What we are really doing when we go through all those things in our house that we no longer use or enjoy and pass them along to others is fighting back the idol of greed having and wanting more than we need or can use. But we won t fight that battle unless we recognize greed as the dangerous idol it truly is. Paul is helping us to do that so that we don t wind up kissing cows. TREASURE/HEART Jesus helps us with our recognition skill also with his teaching from Matthew: Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Jesus gives us here a little test we can easily and regularly administer to ourselves to see just exactly what is in that first place in our lives --- the place that belongs to God, alone. All we have to do is to track down where our treasure is because that will tell us exactly where our heart is. We can say whatever we want to, but the real test of what our heart is set upon is where we allocate our treasure. At least that s what Jesus says. So, what s the test? It s so easy. Just go through your checkbook and your charge card and your debit card statements. That will tell you exactly where you ve spent your money where your treasure is. Now how do the causes and concerns of God on that list stack up with the other causes and concerns? Answer that question, and you ll get a pretty good indication of what s in first place in your life. And, it just may help us to identify the idols that are sneaking their way into our lives without our even realizing it. We don t always know we re kissing cows. You see, in our society, where consumerism is a way of life, resisting these idols is no easy matter. They ve been stalking us since childhood.
Kissing Cows --- Obvious Idols Page 5 of 8 Listen to these statistics: 70% of kids between the ages of 8 and 18 already have a television in their bedroom. (Los Angeles Times Dec 11, 2012) It is estimated that advertisers spend more than $12 billion per year to reach the youth market and that children view more than 40,000 commercials each year. (Report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Advertising and Children.) Since we ve grown up with these idols, they will be even harder to recognize. No wonder Jesus is giving us a way to recognize them so we can resist them. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ONE MASTER But Jesus does more in this teaching. He not only helps with that important skill of recognizing the idols. He also helps us with the skill of remembering God. Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. With this simple but true declaration, Jesus calls upon his hearers to stop and consider who or what is actually worthy of our undivided service. To whom do we truly belong? And as we answer those questions, we will in fact be remembering God, who God is and what God has done. Studying this passage, I found myself thinking about what actually does happen when we try to serve two masters. It seems to me that one of two things happens. First, we do not serve either well. That often happens when people try to work two jobs. But when it comes to God and mammon, or wealth, I don t think that s the most common scenario. Here s what I think happens most often. We pretend to serve one some of the time but in truth we are always really serving the other. You know what I mean by that? We learn to say the right things and to show up at the right places. You know, we come to church, we give money to Godly causes, we speak out in support of Kingdom issues just enough to make others and ourselves feel okay. But then we go right back to focusing the majority of our time and attention on the mammon of life. We just go back to pursuing more, more, more. To defining ourselves by what we have. To setting our sites on even more. God is kept in the back seat day to day and just brought up to the front seat for special occasions. And the truth is we aren t really fooling anyone except maybe ourselves. Whether we admit it or not, we are actually kissing cows.
Kissing Cows --- Obvious Idols Page 6 of 8 We ve talked about this before but I want to be perfectly clear so I ll say it again. Money wealth is itself a great blessing. You give a great deal of money in this church to do God s work. Sometimes we only have two ways to help right a wrong, to partner with God to address a disaster. Pray and give money to provide needed resources. Money is meant to serve and the money you give to this church does that. Money is what enables you to provide for your family with shelter, clothing, food. It s a good thing. Money is meant to serve and when it is used to provide those good things, it is serving your family very well. A great deal of money is involved in education. That money is providing a great opportunity for people in school. Money is meant to serve and when it is used to secure a good education, it is serving us well. Money is a blessing that is meant to be in a serving role in our lives. But that s not what Jesus is describing here. As is always the case with idolatry, something has been moved from its right place to a wrong place. Money is no longer the servant. It is now being served. When that happens, someone has started kissing cows. God is the only one worthy of our service and allegiance. We belong only to Him. When we remember that, we will be much better equipped to resists the idols that come our way and we won t be kissing those cows. TREASURES IN HEAVEN Then Jesus calls us to remember yet something else something not in the past, but something in the future. Matthew 6:19-20 19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. With this good advice, Jesus calls upon us to remember that the securities, the self-worth, the power that we are seeking are only worthwhile if they last beyond an earthly lifetime. Jesus is calling upon us to remember that our future lasts forever. When we do remember that single truth, then the character of the treasures we seek to accumulate will radically change. The things that end with our earthly life, that disappear at death, will begin to lose their luster and their appeal. We will find ourselves seeking out those treasures that have eternal significance and beloved, there are very few.
Kissing Cows --- Obvious Idols Page 7 of 8 One of the richest men on the face of the earth might seem like a strange one to testify to this truth but really, think about it, who would know better? Listen to what Steve Jobs said in a commencement address at Stanford and Pixar: Remembering that I ll be dead soon is the most important tool I ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is important. Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple and Pixar, at the Stanford University Commencement Address (June 2005) Remembering our past and remembering our future can help us to make the right choices about the idols that attempt to worm their way into our present. Jesus is doing his best to help us with that --- to keep us from kissing cows. CONCLUSION You and I have been living in an era when one of society s great gods has been rising and falling on a very regular basis. And with it, I fear, the security of many has been doing the same thing. It s sad, really, when a person s security rises and falls as day by day the stock markets of the world plummet and rise, plummet and rise. Uncertainty, lack of control, powerlessness. It s ironic really, because I think the reason people put mammon in the place that belongs to God alone in first place is because they are seeking certainty, control, power and security. But that false god just can t come through. Sooner or later, it fails. And it makes me sad. You know why? Because when that happens, I believe God is grieving, grieving for all those people He couldn t help. Why? Because they gave God s place in their lives to someone else. That s the real reason that God hates idolatry so much. Remember? Because when we push Him out of that number one place in our lives (and we are the only ones who can do it) God can no longer do for us what He longs to do, when we need Him most. In His place will be the false god with no power whatsoever to help. Paul, Jesus God Himself They sound the warnings. But their people just keep on kissing those cows. Do we? In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. AMEN Life Application Questions: 1. There are lots of different feelings among Christians about what are truly foreign gods. In our society, we value tolerance and so we attempt to be very accepting of different religions. Spend some time talking about the different gods of
Kissing Cows --- Obvious Idols Page 8 of 8 different religions. Based on the teachings of the Bible, how do you think God feels about these other gods? 2. The sermon talks about how eliminating the things we do not use or enjoy help us to fight back greed before it can become an idol. Have you done anything to eliminate some of the stuff in your life that is more burden than blessing? 3. Which of the statistics about consumerism and children did you find most disturbing and why? 4. The sermon tries to make a real distinction between money as the servant it is meant to be and money when it is the one that is served, which it should never be. Can you share specifics as to why that distinction is so important? 5. The sermon says that treasures with eternal significance are very few. Can you name some of those? How can we work hard to secure and increase those treasures in our lives?