Dear Church Week 4: Identifying and Rejecting American Idols: A Deep Dive into Jesus' Warning and the Power of Repentance | Revelation 2:18-29

Hi, it's Pastor Jonathan and thanks for downloading the FBC El Dorado Sermon podcast.

We hope today's message will challenge and help you take the next step as you follow Jesus.

So last week at the beginning of the sermon, I mentioned three names.

I mentioned the name Kelly and Carrie and a guy named I am, and if you were here then you remember that those names, each of them is the first name of a winner of the show American Idol Kelly Clarkson, carrie Underwood and this year's winner, a guy named I am, tongi.

So when you kind of look at each of those singers, you soon realize they have their own style, they have their own look.

In fact, when you look across the winners of the 21 seasons of American Idol, they're all kind of unique.

I mean, if you think about the three singers I mentioned to you, kelly Clarkson is known for like these soaring pop ballads that go to the top of the charts, and Carrie Underwood is known for hitting number one on the country music charts.

And then this year's winner, I am Tongi.

He hasn't hit platinum yet but he's a reggae singer, so he kind of stands out all of his own.

And that's not even to mention those singers who brought the soulful sounds of R&B to that stage, or the singers who strutted across the stage as a rock and roller, or those who sang the blues.

You know, if you kind of study that list of winners of this show, american Idol, what you soon realize is that American idols come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and styles.

And this is a moment when culture can reveal something about the church, because what is true of the American Idol that's on your television is also true of the American idols that are in our hearts.

You see, when it comes to American idols, there is not a single mold into which each and every one of them fits.

We read this definition by Kim Teller about an idol last week and it bears repeating.

It says this an idol is anything emphasis on the word anything more important to you than God.

Anything emphasis on that word anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God.

Anything emphasis on that word anything.

Anything you seek to give you, what only God can give you.

That word, anything tells us what we all know to be true my American Idol, your American Idol, our American idols.

They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and styles.

So the question bears repeating from last week.

What's your American Idol?

So, if this is your first time, or your first time in a long time, we're in the middle of a series called Dear Church.

Each week in this series we are reading one of the letters that Jesus sent to these ancient churches of Asia Minor.

So far we've read a letter to the church at Ephesus, to the church at Smyrna, to the church at Pergamum, and this week we're going to read a letter to the church at Thyatira.

And it just so happens that the problem in Pergamum is the same problem faced in Thyatira it's the problem of idolatry.

So back to back weeks, guys guess what Congratulations.

We're going to talk about idols.

It seems a little overbearing, doesn't it?

A little harsh.

All I can say is I didn't write the letters in this order.

Jesus wrote these letters and sent them in this order Back to back, letters focusing on this issue that plagued the ancient church.

Jesus knows that idolatry is something that must be addressed in everyone's life, because without addressing idolatry, all of the rest of parts of life, kind of, are all in flux.

Life doesn't come together for a person of faith until we address the idols that are in our heart.

I mean, consider this fact.

Exodus, chapter 20, verses three through five, you must not have any other God but me.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens, or on the earth, or in the sea.

You must not bow down to them or worship them.

Those are the first two commandments of the Ten Commandments Jesus wrote back to back letters.

The Ten Commandments have back to back commandments.

20% of the Ten Commandments specifically address the area and the issue of idolatry.

It's the first issue of the Ten Commandments because, as we just said, it's foundational.

It must be addressed.

It is critical.

You see, it's vital for God's people in every generation to understand this, that the rest of life only begins to fall into place when we address and eradicate the idols of our heart.

For those two reasons, this week, once again, we're going to answer the question we first posed last week what's your American Idol?

We're going to follow the same three-step process from last week Reveal, repent, receive.

Reveal the Idol, repent of the Idol and receive the reward.

Let's read together now Jesus' message to the church of Thyatira, revelation 2,.

I'll start reading in verse 18.

It says to the angel of the church in Thyatira right.

These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.

I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

Nevertheless, I have this against you.

You tolerate that woman, jezebel, who calls herself a prophet.

By her teaching, she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.

I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.

So I'll cast her on a bed of suffering and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely.

Unless they repent of her ways, I will strike her children dead.

Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds, verse 24,.

Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets I will not impose any other burden on you except to hold on to what you have until I come To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end.

I will give authority over the nations that one will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery.

Just as I have received authority from my father, I will also give that one the morning star.

Whoever has ears ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Jesus begins his letter to the church at Thyatira by identifying himself as the Son of God.

For those of us who grew up in the church, that doesn't seem all that important.

We talk about Jesus being the Son of God in every single Sunday school lesson that we have.

Every time we gather for worship, we say that Jesus is the Son of God.

But don't forget that in the first century that was a revolutionary claim For Jesus I am the Son of God.

He draws and makes this claim.

He identifies himself this way first because of the way that it connects with culture.

In Thyatira, they worshiped all of the gods of the Roman pantheon, but there was one specific God in Thyatira that they really gave their devotion to, the idol named Apollo, when Apollo just so happened to be well, the favorite son of Zeus, and it was also Apollo's role and job to go down and to communicate the will of his father to everyone who lived on earth.

It's as if when Jesus says he walks to this church, he writes to them and says I am the Son of God.

He's saying listen, I know there is a Son of God who a lot of people in your culture listen to.

His name's Apollo.

Don't listen to him, jesus.

He writes this letter.

He says listen, I am the one true Son of God.

All these idols of your culture, they make claims that they cannot back up.

I am the one, not Apollo.

I am the one who will communicate and teach you about the will and the ways of God.

I'm the Son of God.

Jesus also uses that title because it's connection to scripture.

So first, a cultural connection, but there's also a scriptural connection.

In Psalm chapter two, psalm chapter two, verse seven, through nine, we learned that God's Son is the one who judges the rulers and kings who conspire against God.

Verse seven the Lord said to me you are my son.

Today I've become your father.

Verse nine then says of that same Psalm you will break them with an iron rod and smash them like clay pots.

The Son of God and in Psalm chapter two, do you see this Is God's judge in the world.

He is the one who destroys and brings judgment upon those things in the world that stand opposed to God.

That's who Jesus is.

He's that Son of God who looks at the world, who looks at the church at Thyatira and he sees this ancient world.

And he looks into our church and he says I see all of the idols and I am the Son of God.

I am the one sent to judge the idols.

And the reason Jesus judges them is because, first, he is the one who reveals them.

Jesus has the strength and the power to reveal those idols because we're told that his feet are of burnished bronze as a symbol of strength.

Jesus has the ability to reveal the idols in each and every one of your hearts because we're told that his eyes are like blazing fire.

That means when Jesus looks at you, he looks through you.

When Jesus sees you, he can open up and look inside of you.

Jesus has this insight into what's going on in the deepest recesses of every human heart and every human soul To reveal the idol of Thyatira.

Jesus references the story then of a queen.

Her name is Jezebel, the queen of King Ahab, and Jezebel is infamous, notorious in the Old Testament for leading God's people to commit idolatry by worshiping the pagan God whose name is Baal In Jesus, in this moment, as he surveys and sees the church at Thyatira, what he sees is this is that someone there's a prophetess, so a woman prophet, who is running Jezebel's playbook.

Once again, her name isn't Jezebel, she's just like Jezebel.

She is leading God's people away from true worship and pointing them towards idolatry, and the situation at Thyatira is much like the situation we described last week in Pergamum and this congregation, jezebel, this woman who he calls Jezebel, is telling the congregation you can participate in worship feasts that are dedicated to false gods, to the idols of Rome.

She would probably tell them God knows that he's the one true God and only he is alive, and that these idols are false idols, that they are rocks, they are stones, they are pieces of wood.

There is no power behind them.

God knows that he is the one true God, but he also knows like you're trying to get by in this world.

It's really not all that big a deal if you just want to fit in, if you just want to be where everyone else is going to be, if you just want to participate in the games that they play, if you just want to eat with them, if you just want to see them, if you want to be accepted by them.

Jezebel's just telling them like it's not a big deal, the idols aren't real.

But remember what we talked about last week.

The point is this yeah, the idols aren't real, but joining into that feast, you are by default worshiping them.

You are putting them between you and God.

Jezebel wants them to believe that a small compromise will not matter.

God's going to understand.

It's totally fine if you look at an idol, because you can still love God.

And that's the lie Jezebel continues to whisper in all of our ears.

Jezebel, to this day, there are Jezebel's, there are these cultural forces and even forces within the church that whisper in our ears.

You can look at an idol, you can have an idol and you can still love God.

You can have your cake and eat it too.

You can make a small compromise.

As you hear the lie of Queen Jezebel still in your ear, here's what I want to remind you of.

Don't forget her fate.

Don't forget how Jesus describes what will happen to her.

Jesus says I will cast her on a bed of suffering.

I'll cast her on a bed of suffering.

Let's remember and remind ourselves who Jesus writes this letter to.

Jesus doesn't write this letter to a group of pagan priests.

He doesn't write it to lost people.

Jesus writes this letter to his church.

He writes these words to people who believe in some ways he's the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

Like Jezebel, as much as she lied to the people, she still thought she was a Christian.

She still wanted to gather with God's church.

Yeah, jesus says Jezebel and your followers, if you don't change your ways, suffering will come.

Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 6, says for the Lord disciplines those he loves.

Hebrews 12:6

I think we often believe that Jesus is just going to overlook the idols in our hearts.

They're not a big deal to him, but that's not who Jesus is.

Jesus loves us, so he will discipline us.

And when an idol remains, a bed of suffering awaits.

So here's the irony when this prophetess, jezebel, would have heard the word bed, she would have connected it to an experience of pleasure, to the indecent acts often experienced at these pagan worship feast.

Jesus says but the idol, the bed that you think will bring you pleasure, actually is going to bring you pain.

So think about it.

Think about it in your own life.

We prayed for our children earlier and I think in our culture.

It's easy to make idols of our children.

It's easy to let every single decision that we make be about I want to make sure my child has every experience and doesn't miss out on anything.

I want to make sure my child has the nicest shoes, the coolest clothes we want them to fit in.

We want to make sure that our child has private lessons so they can be on the team and get to play and remember.

None of those things are in and of themselves bad, but it's when they become what the motivating factor in the controlling, the centering idea of our life that they become an idol.

So think about it this way when our children are idols, maybe you suffer the fate of exhaustion, the fate of compounding and growing mounds of debt because you're just buying it all, paying for it all, doing it all, or another idol that may be present in our life.

It could be a career or a promotion.

You just think about it all the time.

You think about I just want to take the next step up on the ladder, I just want to get that next raise.

So you think about it and you plan through it.

When you go to bed at night, it's the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning and you're willing to do anything and everything to get there.

And then one day you get the news, you get the letter yes, you got the promotion, yes, you got the job.

And then you're in the job for six weeks or eight weeks and you suffer the pain of discontent because it's really not all that.

You thought it would be Same old, same old.

Every job has problems.

Or maybe some of us, because of kind of the cultural forces that surround us, we bow down to the idol of personal approval and personal appearance and we hear that suffering word in our mind every single day I'll never be good enough.

Or when we bow down to the idol of financial security, and no matter how much the amount contained in our bank account or our retirement account, no matter how much it grows, no matter the dollar amount we hold, it's never enough.

We experience the suffering of restlessness, suffering that comes when we fear the future.

Or just name your idol.

Just name your idol.

If you've identified it, think about it.

And I think what inevitably happens in all of our lives if we bow down to the same idol day after day, week by week, month by month, season by season, we suffer this.

We suffer because we cannot discern the presence of God in our life.

Are you tired of suffering due to the idol that's still standing in your heart?

That's why we need a judge and we need Jesus with his eyes of fire, to look through us and to reveal to us the American idol that's in each and every one of us.

Do you know what your idol is?

Talked about it for two weeks now.

If you're not quite sure what it is, I hope you'll be bold enough when you go home tonight in the morning to pray.

Hey, jesus, I need your blazing eyes of fire to gaze upon my life and reveal the idol that's in my heart.

Would you be that bold to really want to see what is inside of you?

And once you identify the idol, once it's revealed to you and you admit that it's there, you can move to that second step of the process to repent.

Revelation 2.21, one more time it says I have given her talking about Jezebel.

I've given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.

Notice how Jesus describes his kind of relationship with Jezebel.

There's one word that describes Jesus' relationship with Jezebel up until this point, jesus has been patient with her.

Jesus has given this woman opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to turn from her wickedness and to repent.

So that begs the question are you ready and willing to repent?

Last week we defined repentance as a spiritual U-turn, realizing we are going in the wrong direction.

And doing it about face and orienting our heart, mind and soul towards Jesus and running after him and following him.

And sometimes what we need to realize when it comes to repentance is that a new direction in life also requires a little destruction.

So many years ago, michael Jordan, my childhood idol never was good at basketball, but I idolized Michael Jordan had amazing posters on my wall.

Many years ago, michael Jordan visited the home of his friend Fred.

They had plans to go out to dinner.

Michael had not brought a coat with him and it was cold.

So he looked at his buddy, fred, and said hey, fred, do you mind if I borrow a jacket so I'm not cold when we go to dinner?

Fred's like sure, coat closet's just down the hallway, pick whatever you want and let's get going.

Michael Jordan walks down the hallway.

A few minutes later he comes back.

He's not carrying a coat, he's carrying piles of athletic gear, of tennis shoes, of t-shirts, of athletic pants, and all of them bear the insignia of the brand Puma.

Remember, michael Jordan is still the ambassador for Nike.

Another basketball player that day, ralph Sampson, was also friends with Fred.

Ralph Sampson represented Puma and had given him all that gear.

So Michael Jordan's got all of this gear and he just plops it down in the living room floor and, without saying a word, he walks into the kitchen, he grabs a butcher knife and he gets down on his hands and knees and he chops up all of the clothes and all of the shoes into all these tiny little pieces.

He gets a trash bag.

He puts all the Puma gear into the trash bag, he walks it outside and puts it in the trash can.

When he walks back inside, he looks at his buddy, fred, and he says hey, dude, in the morning let's call my guy Nike, tell him what happened.

He'll replace everything that I just destroyed, but don't ever let me see you wearing anything other than Nike.

You can't ride the fence.

You know, when it comes to idols, maybe most of us are kind of like Fred.

We think we can just store them in our closet and no one will ever see them.

No one will ever know that they're there.

But Jesus sees them.

Jesus knows they are there.

Chapter two, verse 23,.

I am he, jesus says.

I am he who searches hearts and minds.

Literally, that says Jesus says I am he who searches hearts and kidneys.

Okay, jesus is the concrete image that Jesus uses.

In the ancient world, they thought hearts and kidneys Well, those were the two organs that revealed your inner desires, your motivations in life and how you truly felt about the world.

Jesus says I see it all.

I see everything inside of you.

Listen, every repentance demands we pull the idols out of the closet out of our heart, that we cut them up and that we throw them away.

We have to destroy them, because I think Jesus would agree with Michael Jordan on this point you can't ride the fence.

You cannot ride the fence.

You're either in or you're out.

Now, whether we want to admit it or not, the idols in our heart, their hold is strong, right, they draw us in.

They look so appealing it feels impossible.

It's like a tractor beam on the soul, like I don't know how not to let this thing be an idol in my life, something I think about all the time, something that just drives every decision that I make.

You need to be encouraged this morning that you can repent of your idols and you can turn from them, because Jesus has defeated the idols of this world At the cross.

Jesus defeated the powers and principalities of this world.

The powers and principalities that make the idols are American idols look so appealing.

The powers and principalities that allow those American idols to be so deceptive until the most alluring lies, the powers and principalities that just are like this magnetic force pulling us towards the idols.

Jesus defeated them.

Sometimes we forget that's part of the power of the cross at work in the world Is that Jesus defeated the powers and principalities.

Colossians chapter 2 puts it this way that Jesus disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

He shamed them publicly by revealing them to be insufficient, by revealing them to be frauds, by revealing them to be impersonators.

And it's Jesus's victory that gives you the ability and the power and the strength to repent of and to resist the idols of the world.

It's not in your strength that you resist them.

It's the power of Christ in you that allows you to repent and allows you to resist the pull of those idols in your life and when we learn to truly rely on the power of the cross and repentance occurs, then we're ready to receive the reward.

The reward, listen, is nothing other than citizenship with Jesus in his eternal kingdom.

That phrase morning star in verse 28,.

It's a symbol for God's Messiah.

And so those who endure to the end, those who are faithful to Jesus to the end, will receive the reward of living with him for all eternity.

The idols of this world, listen.

They can make you earthly promises, but they cannot promise you anything for eternity.

Only Jesus has that power, only Jesus has that authority.

So a generation of young boys idolized a guy named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the basketball court because Jabbar had, like, the skyhook right.

No one else has ever like mastered that shot.

And in my generation of young boys we idolized Michael Jordan, like I mentioned.

So in my childhood bedroom I had this basketball goal on the wall and I was still not tall, but I could dunk on the wall goal.

And I would practice dunking on the wall goal with my tongue hanging out of my mouth.

And now generations of young boys, they idolized Steph Curry.

And Steph Curry doesn't dunk a basketball, instead he shoots a three pointer and like he is a master at shooting the three point jump shot, like in every which way from such great distances on the court.

You see idols in basketball.

They come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and styles Skyhooks, slam dunks, three pointers.

And what's true of the court is true in the church.

There are idols in each and every one of our hearts.

There's not a mold to which all of them fit, various shapes and sizes and styles.

We may not see them with our eyes, but they are present, they are in our lives and that's why we need to what, reveal, repent, receive.

And just imagine just for a second.

Just imagine If we took seriously that three step process to reveal and to repent and to receive and we eliminated any and all idols that fill our hearts.

What might happen in your life if there wasn't an idol between you and Jesus?

What might happen if Jesus truly was the most important person in your life?

If Jesus is the one who captured your imagination and guided every single decision that you made?

If you look to Jesus for every single need, for your family, how would your life and your family in this church be different?

If we are willing to what, reveal, repent, receive, how might El Dorado be different If we let the Holy Spirit truly eliminate the idols of our heart?

We are anticipating and expecting God to do something through South Arkansas together, but I think, as God's church, one of the things that we have to do is we as the church have to prepare ourselves for a move of God.

Right, and part of that preparation for a move of God is to eradicate and eliminate the idols of our lives.

You see, until we eliminate and eradicate the idols of our lives, we are not going to feel the compulsion to invite, because there's going to be something in the sneaking in the back of our head that I mean, does it really even matter, thinking that maybe someone else can save.

We have to eliminate the idols from our heart so that we're willing to invite.

We have to eliminate the idols in our heart so that we even have the eyes to see when God begins to do something in this community and that we're ready to receive it and we're ready to participate in joining God what he is doing through this event.

These letters were written, you know, a couple thousand years ago.

You know around about, and their message is as relevant today as the day they were written.

God's church must be willing to let Jesus reveal the idols so we can repent of them and receive their reward, so that we can be the church God is calling us to be.

It's foundational, it's critical to the mission God's called for us.

Let's stand together, god.

We bow our heads and our hearts before you now.

Jesus, with eyes of blazing fire, reveal the idols of our hearts.

Look through us, jesus.

Jesus, to destroy and eliminate these idols.

We realize sometimes we have to change our habits, we have to rearrange our priorities, we have to adjust a calendar that's already been set.

We have to just change the way we live our lives.

Holy Spirit, give us the strength to repent.

We think I could never make that a priority.

I could never eliminate that commitment.

I could never say no to this person.

Jesus, we know that you are victorious over the powers and principalities, these forces that animate idols.

Give them strength, like you have defeated them.

We lean into the power of your cross right now, because we know that the reward you promise is greater, it's true and it's good the hope of eternal life.

So, jesus, I pray for the person this morning who's yet to put their faith in you, to trust in the power of your cross and the hope of your resurrection, the Holy Spirit, you would draw them close to you, that they would confess their sins, believing that Jesus is Lord and receiving him into their life.

Jesus, we pray these things in your name, amen.