Let It Go (Joel Giesbrecht)

I'd like to start off by asking a question, Not something you

have to answer out loud, but something to think about.

If you took one thing away from your life, what would make you

feel like I don't know who I am anymore?

One thing that you would take away that would make you doubt

or make you unsure of who you are?

Maybe for you that would be your coffee.

I know at Junior Youth some of us leaders have joked that we

wouldn't know who we are without caffeine in our systems.

But on a more serious note, maybe it's your job, the

position that you hold at work. Maybe it's your hobbies, the

things that you are slightly better at than most others.

Maybe it would be your family, your parents, your kids.

These different areas of our life make up who we are.

Our work, our hobbies, our interests, our likes, our

dislikes, our family and friends.

They're all pieces of the puzzle that come together to form and

describe who we are. But what happens if one of those

pieces gets taken away? If you've ever tried to complete

a puzzle with and would have a missing piece, you'll know the

frustration of not being able to have a whole finished puzzle.

That feeling of incompleteness. You may even spend a significant

amount of time looking for that one missing piece just so that

you can complete the puzzle. For myself, I know if something

is lost, or at least if I can't find it, I'll spend hours

looking for it. Even if I don't need it at that

time, I have to know where it is.

I can't let it go. I have to find what I'm looking

for. And that's how I see our life

sometimes, as a combination of puzzle pieces that all come

together to form who we are. But the problem with that, and

at least for me, is that we begin to see ourselves as less

than and incomplete if we lose a piece.

If you were the athletic guy or girl and you can no longer

perform to the level that you were once able to, you may feel

like you're not completely you anymore.

If you were the hardest, toughest worker on the job site

and someone shows up and outworks you, you may feel like

you've lost a piece of you. Contrary to what Elsa sings

about in the movie Frozen, it's not that easy to just let it go.

Those these are real things in our life and they've probably

been there for a long time and letting go of them could be very

difficult. But as we look into Judges

Judges 17 · chapter mention

chapter 17 and 18 this morning, we will see the danger of not

letting go. And when I speak of not letting

go or speak of letting go, I don't mean that we need to stop

having hobbies, quit our jobs, or stop loving our friends and

our family. What I mean is that we should

not use those things as replacement for God.

Through the passage, we will read today that seeking idols

leads to craving control, cascading consequences, and

compromised convictions, and we need to let go of the idols and

hold fast to God. Before we go to our Scripture

this morning, let's pray. Lord.

God, we thank you for this morning and for the singing that

has already taken place and for the conversations I trust were

helpful and edifying before the service.

Lord, it's a privilege to come together here as a body of

believers. And Lord, as we look deeper into

your word this morning to Judges chapter 1718, I pray for

understanding and honesty that we will rightly understand the

Scriptures and that we will be honest to examine ourselves and

to see if there are idols in our lives that we are seeking as

replacements for you. We ask in Jesus name, Amen.

So as I mentioned, we'll be reading Judges chapters 17 and

Judges 17 · chapter mention

18. In the past couple weeks, we've

read the tragic stories of Samson and Jephtha.

They were two major judges of Israel and each one of them had

deep character flaws, but still God works through them not

because of who they were, but because of who God is in His

character. The Israelites have continued to

go through this cycle of rebellion against God, followed

by oppression from the outside enemies, and then finally

deliverance from God by the hands of a human judge.

When we pick up in Judges 17, there is no judge though, no

deliverer for the people. The previous chapter showed

flawed deliverers and today we will see a flawed people group.

In the previous chapters, the main threats against Israel came

from the outside, from external people groups, but in today's

passage, the threat against Israel comes from the inside,

from their own people. The Israelites are a group of

people that constantly turn to idol worship instead of

worshiping the God that brought them out of the land of Egypt.

Idolatry was frequent and it was a consistent sin for the

Israelites and today's reading is no different.

Through the passage today we will look at what seeking idols

can lead to. So with that, let's read Judges

Judges 17 · chapter mention

chapter 17 verses one through 6. There was a man in the Hill

Country of Ephraim whose name was Micah.

And he said to his mother, the 1100 pieces of silver that were

taken from you, about which you uttered a curse and also spoke

it in my ears, Behold, the silver is with me.

I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be

the son by the Lord. And he restored the 1100 pieces

of silver to his mother. And his mother said, I dedicate

the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son to make a carved

image and a metal image. Now, therefore I will restore it

to you. So when he restored the money to

his mother, his mother took the 200 pieces of silver and gave it

to the silversmith who made it into a carved image and a metal

image. And it was in the House of

Micah. And the man Micah had a shrine

and he made an ephod in household gods and ordained one

of his sons who became his priest.

In those days there was no king in Israel.

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Here in Judges 17 were introduced to a man named Micah.

This isn't the prophet Micah that will read that you can read

about later in the Bible, but a separate individual from the

Hill Country of Ephraim. And one thing that we can see

from the account of Micah is that seeking idols leads to

craving control. The story of Micah starts off

with him admitting to his mother that he was the one that stole

the 1100 pieces of silver. We don't know why he took it,

but we know that the mom was pretty upset over it.

Upset enough that it says she uttered a curse over it.

But then in a turn of events, the mother does not rebuke her

son for stealing, but rather she tells him that he is blessed.

She then uses the She then uses some of the silver to have a

carved image and a metal image made as idols.

What the mother is trying to do here is to control her family.

She should have disciplined her son for what he did, but instead

of confronting the sin, she glosses over it.

Instead of confronting, she comforts.

The Bible doesn't explain her reasoning, but I think it's safe

to say that she had an ideal for what her son should be and for

what her family should be. She doesn't want to be the

mother of a son who stole from her, and so she decides to

become the mother of a son who has done no wrong.

She couldn't control the actions of her son, so instead she

attempts to control the perception of it.

She ignores the sin that took place in her own home and

instead pretends that it didn't happen.

She even uses religious language as a cover and claims that she

will dedicate this money to the Lord.

But then she goes and has idols created for worship.

But the real idol for the mother is not the carved images, it's

her son. She will bend and break the laws

of God so that she can keep control of her son.

After all, if she scolds her son and disciplines him, he might

get angry and leave. Then she would have no control

of him. She sacrifices what is right to

keep the relationship she has with her son and Micah.

He also craves control of his family and after creating an

ephod in these household gods, he goes and ordains one of his

own sons to become his own personal priest.

Michael want Micah wants to keep his son close and for someone to

approve of his actions, and what better way than to give that

ability to his own son? Of course, his son was not

qualified to be a priest as he wasn't a descendant of Aaron or

even a Levite, but that didn't matter much to Micah.

Micah wanted control and he would do what was necessary to

have it. If we continue reading, we see

that seeking after idols also leads Micah to crave control of

his worship. Let's read verses 7 through 12.

Now there was a young man of Bethlehem and Judah of the

family of Judah, who was a Levite.

And he sojourned there. And the man departed from the

town of Bethlehem and Judah to sojourn where he could find a

place. And as he's, as he journeyed, he

came to the Hill Country of Ephraim, to the House of Micah.

And Micah said to him, where do you come from?

And he said to him, I am a Levite of Bethlehem and Judah.

I'm going to sojourn where I find where I may find a place.

Micah said to him, Stay with me and be to me a father and a

priest. Now we'll give you 10 pieces of

silver a year and a suit of clothes and a suit of clothes

and your living. And the Levite went in.

The Levite was content to dwell with the man, and the young man

became to him like one of his sons.

And Micah ordained the Levite, and the young man became his

priest and was in the House of Micah.

So at first, this kind of seems like a solution to Micah's

problem. Micah finds a Levite who we

don't know much about yet, and he hires them as his own

personal priest. In one sense, this setup was

better because this man was actually a Levite, but Micah's

intention for hiring him are selfish.

Again, Micah wants to control how he worships.

To this point, Micah has created a shrine and ephod and household

gods and has now hired his own personal priest to have control

of how he worships. In other words, idolatry led him

to the led him to create the place where he worships, led him

to create the items of his worship, all while being

supported by the person he put in charge of the worship.

Kind of like a build-a-bear workshop of worship.

And it wasn't like that was his only option.

The Tabernacle was in Shiloh and it was accessible for him to go

worship there as he was supposed to do.

But instead he creates his own place to worship how he sees

fit. He creates an ephod, a sacred

garment that was only to be worn by the priests and the ephod by

itself. It was a good thing, it was

ordained by God. But like the ephod that Gideon

created in few chapters prior, it became an idol.

He then hires this priest and again there was priests in

Shiloh, but he hires this Levite in attempt to buy the blessing

from God. Verse 13 then it shows the end

of Micah's craving for control. Seeking after idols leads Micah

to craving control of God himself.

Verse 13 says Then Micah said, Now I know that the Lord will

prosper me because I have a Levite as a priest.

Micah believes that because he now has this Levite as a priest

that God will bless him. Micah is trying to control how

God works. I'm sure if you could go back

and ask Micah, he wouldn't say that he's trying to control God,

but his actions tell a different story.

Micah was not content with the true worship that God had

instructed, and he tried to create his own rules, but at the

same time, he still wants God's blessing for how he goes about

it. Craving control is a dangerous

mentality. It focuses everything on me and

it leaves no room for anything else.

It prevents you from seeing reality and instead it replaces

what is real with what is imagined.

There's a story of a new boss who wants to clean shop and get

rid of workers who aren't productive.

One day he sees a young man leaning on the wall not doing

anything and he asked him, what are you doing?

Just waiting to get paid, Is the answer that comes from the young

man. The boss asks, how much money do

you make? About $250, says the worker.

The boss pulls out a lot of cash and quickly counts off $1000

bills. Here's 4 weeks pay, the boss

says. Now get out of here, I don't

want to see you again. Feeling quite emboldened, the

boss turns to his employees and the surrounding area and he asks

them, Can anyone tell me what just happened here?

And a voice pops up from the back.

You just tipped the pizza delivery guy.

The boss's idol in this case was power.

He wanted everyone to feel like he was the head honcho, and

seeking that idol of power caused him to crave control of

his people, which ultimately made him look like a fool and do

something he probably would never would have done elsewise.

Micah and his mother not might not have started trying to

crave, might not have started trying to control God, but

seeking after idols LED both Micah and his mother to reject

God and crave control of their family, of their worship, and

ultimately of God. Micah and his mother use some of

the right language and they have parts of what is real in their

worship, but they combine it with things that are forbidden

by God. We see examples in the Bible

where something is created for good, but it gets corrupted by

evil and judges. We see the example of the Ephod

being used as something to worship in First Samuel.

We see the Ark of the covenant being used as a good luck charm.

And then in Second Kings we see the bronze serpent, the one that

God told Moses to build for the sick people to look at and be

healed. We see it being torn down

because the people of Israel started to make offerings to it.

Those are all examples of religious confusion and improper

worship of people trying to maneuver their way to God.

Like Micah, they want the approval of God without the

rules of God. And doesn't that sound like a

pretty common situation in our time, too?

Yeah, I'll come to church on Sunday, so long as I don't have

to wake up too early. And I had better have a good

parking spot. And the coffee better tastes

good. And they better sing the songs I

like. Sure, we might say we want to

worship God, but so long as it's on our terms.

I want the blessings of God, but don't expect me to follow any of

His rules. That as we will see, it didn't

work out for Micah and it doesn't work out for us either.

Our family, our friends, the church building, and the various

things that are in the church are good things.

But when we hold on to those things and we make idols out of

those things by prioritizing them over God, we are in danger

of of craving control of God. The next danger we see in

seeking idols is that seeking idols leads to cascading

consequences. Cascading means something

happens in a way that it follows or spread step by step, where

one thing leads to another, like a chain reaction.

You can think of it like dominoes lined up.

When you push one domino over, it knocks over the next one,

which knocks over the next one, and so on and so on.

One action causes many others, and that's really what the whole

book of Judges is. But specifically we'll see that

here in Judges Chapter 18, chapter 18, verse one, it reads,

Judges 18 · chapter mention

in those days there was no king in Israel.

And in those days the tribe of the people of Dan was seeking

for itself an inheritance to dwell in.

For until then, no inheritance among the tribes of Israel had

fallen to them. The first step or the first

domino to fall was that the Danites were ran from

responsibility. The Danites were a tribe of

Israel stabbing from Dan, one of Jacob's sons.

And last week we heard the account of Samson.

Samson was from the tribe of Dan.

He too was a Danite. And the Danites and the Danites,

along with the rest of the tribes of the, along with the

rest of the tribes of Israel, except for the Levites, had been

allotted a portion of the land of Canaan, the land that would

become Israel. But they didn't take that land

that was originally allotted to them back in Joshua 19.

If we remember back to Judges chapter one, it says the

Amorites press the people of Dan back into the Hill Country for

they did not allow them to come down to the plain.

The Danites did not dare to go against the iron Chariots of the

Canaanites. And so they were forced back

into the Hill Country and were not able to, or more accurately

chose not to take possession of the entire land that they were

given. The previous sin of not trusting

God to give them victory came back to have consequences.

The domino cannot be knocked over without knocking over

others as well. And that's true of all sin.

It comes with consequences. When the Danites chose to run

from their responsibility to reject God's plan and hold on to

that idol of safety and security, they didn't

immediately feel the consequences, but the

consequences still came. Paul writing to the Galatians in

chapter 6, verse seven and eight, he puts it this way.

He says do not be deceived, God is not locked.

For whatever one sows that will he also reap.

For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap

corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the

Spirit reap eternal life. There's no such thing as casual

sin. Sin will always lead to more

sin, as was the case with the Danites.

Their lack of trust and rebellion LED them to not take

the land, which would then lead them down to further sin.

The next domino to fall was that the Danites sought direction

from God without having devotion to God.

Let's read verses two to six. So the people of Dan sent 5 able

men from the whole number of their tribe, from Zora and from

Ishtaol to spy out the land and to explore it.

And they said to them, Go and explore the land.

And they came to the Hill Country of Ephraim, to the House

of Micah, and lodged there. When they were that by the House

of Micah they recognized the voice of the young Levite.

And they turned aside and said to him, Who brought you here?

What are you doing in this place?

What is your business here? And he said to them, This is how

Micah dealt with me, he has hired me, and I have become his

priest. And they said to him, Inquire of

God, please, that we may know whether the journey on which we

are setting out will succeed. And the priest said to them, Go

in peace. The journey on which you go is

under the eye of the Lord. The Danites, they, they send

spies out to the Hill Country of Ephraim where Micah was, and

they find this Levite there and they question him.

The Levite explains the situation and the setup he has

with Micah. And then the Danites asked the

Levite to inquire of God for them.

The Danites were Israelites. They would have known that this

arrangement that Micah had formed with this Levite priest

was improper, but they show no hesitation to it.

In fact, they welcome it. The Danites too.

They had access to go to Shiloh and to seek directions from the

priest there, but they chose not to do that.

They were already on their way to go spy out the land when they

happened to come across this Levite.

It seems like they had already decided what they wanted to do,

but now that they had the opportunity, they also wanted

God's blessing. Like Micah in the previous

chapter, they had not devoted themselves to following God's

command and instructions, but they still want the blessings

from Him. The idol they are seeking here

is themselves a common theme for the Danites.

As it turns out, Samson, as mentioned, who is also a Danite

and though instructed by God, consistently chose to follow His

own desires rather than the guidelines laid out by God.

Self idolatry is spread all throughout the history of the

Danites and it always led to greater sin.

The priest ends up telling them go in peace, but the wording

leaves some uncertainty. He says the journey on which you

go is under the eye of the Lord. He does not say that it is

approved by God, but rather that God sees it.

But the Danites having no objection to this corrupted

priest, they continue on their journey taking yet more steps in

their sin. The next step that we will see

from the Danites is that they chose comfort over obedience.

In verses 7 to 10, the spies go to Laish and they find people in

wealth and security. Let's read those verses 7 to 10.

Then the five men departed and came to Laish and saw the people

who were there, how they lived in security after the manner of

the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting, lacking nothing,

that is in the earth, and possessing wealth, and how they

were far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone.

And when they came to their brothers at Zora and Ishtaol,

their brother said to them, What do you report?

They said, arise and let us go up against them, for we have

seen the land and behold, it is very good.

And will you do nothing? Do not be slow to go to enter in

and possess the land. As soon as you go you will come

to an unsuspecting people. The land is spacious, for God

has given it into your hands a place where there is no lack of

anything that is in the earth. So the Dayanites in the cowardly

move, they see the land of Laish, and they see that it is

lacking nothing and filled with unsuspecting people.

They see that this land will be easy for them to take as

compared to the land that they were originally allotted.

They assume, probably because of what the Levi priest said, that

God wants them to have it. And God had instructed many

years prior that the Israelites were supposed to drive out all

inhabitants of the land of Canaan, but the Israelites had

failed to do so. But now when it's comfortable

and when it's convenient to them, they decide that God must

be with them in an agreement with their choices.

We see again that idolatry on display here.

They reject God and they replace him when they don't want to

listen. But when it favors them, they

use the name of God to condone what they want.

Around the 1820s, Thomas Jefferson, who's a former

president of the US, he famously took a razor blade to the Bible

and he literally cut out sections that he didn't agree

with. He cut out every miracle, the

virgin birth, the resurrection, and any reference to Jesus

deity. He kept in Jesus ethical

teachings, the parables and moral instructions like loving

your enemies. So Thomas Jefferson liked Jesus,

just not the parts that didn't fit into his worldview.

So he made a virgin that felt reasonable to him.

Many of those who professed Christ in today's age will do

something similar. They want the parts of the Bible

that aligned to their worldview, that condone their actions, but

they want nothing to do with the Bible that calls for repentance.

They want the grace without the judgement.

They want the love without the holiness, the comfort without

the obedience. They in fact don't want Jesus as

God. They want themselves as God and

for Jesus to submit to them. It's why culturally it's

acceptable to say things like I love God as well as while still

living as if his rules don't apply to you.

This is so prevalent today and I'm sure you see this online, at

work, or even in your friends and family.

When they don't like what God says, they don't usually

abandoned the idea of God, but they just change him.

They take a metaphorical razor blade, razor blade to the parts

of the Bible that call out their sin and create a God for

themselves that is OK with everything they are doing.

But it's not just those people out there that are doing this.

We too do this. When we seek after idols as

replacements for God, we're doing the same thing.

Jerry Bridges in his book The Pursuit of Holiness, writes God

does not require a perfect sinless life to have fellowship

with him. But he does require that we be

serious about holiness, that we grieve over sin in our lives

instead of justifying it, and that we earnestly pursue

holiness as a way of life. And that's what we see missing

here in the story of the Danites.

There was no grief over their sin.

They just continued to justify it and continue to seek after

idols regardless of the consequences that come from it.

So we've seen that seeking after idols can lead to craving,

control, and cascading consequences.

Finally, we'll see that seeking after idols can lead to

compromise convictions. A conviction, when used in this

way, means an unwavering certainty in one's beliefs.

When we seek after idols, those idols will compromise or weaken

our beliefs, and when we are weaken our beliefs, we are more

susceptible to the temptations of the evil. 1 as we pick up the

story after the five spies report that the land of Laish is

ripe for the picking, 600 armed men set out for the from the

Hill Country with their sights on overtaking Laish.

On their way, they stop at Michael's Micah's place in.

The five spies tell the rest of the men, but the household gods

that he has there, they decide that they're going to take these

idols for themselves. And as a 600 men stand watch the

five spies go and take these idols.

Let's pick up at verses 18, verse 18.

And when these and when these went into Micah's house and took

the carved image, the ephod and the household gods and the metal

image, the priest said to him, what are you doing?

And they said to him, keep quiet, put your hand on your

mouth, and come with us and be to us a father and a priest.

Is it better for you to be a priest to the House of one man

or to be a priest to a tribe and clan in Israel?

And the priest's heart was glad. He took the ephod in the

household gods in the carved image, and he went along with

the people. The priest here is an example of

how seeking idols can lead to compromise convictions.

When our convictions become compromised, we'll hurt

ourselves in the process. The men of Dan decide that they

need these household gods, and when the Levite tries to object,

they threaten him and then they entice him.

They tell him to keep quiet, and in the same sentence they offer

him a job to come with them. They tempt him using power and

money. This is actually prophesied in

Genesis. When Jacob is blessing his sons

in Genesis 49, he says Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a Viper

by the path that bites the horse's heels, so that this

rider falls backwards like the servant serpent tempted Eve in

the Garden of Eden. The tribe of Dan is used here to

tempt this priest, and it says in verse 20 that the priest's

heart was glad he had compromised so much on his

convictions already by being a priest to an individual man, by

condoning idol worship, that when this temptation came, he

didn't even put up a fight. As Christians today, we must be

aware of this tactic too, the tactic of using fear and control

and then ultimately enticing to get cooperation and compliance.

When we are fearful, it's good to question where is this fear

coming from? Is it real, and what should I do

as a response to it? Giving into that fear may feel

right, but it can lead to a slow compromise of your convictions.

Compromise convictions. They also hurt others.

In verses 21 to 26, the men of Dan leave and the people from

Micah's group. They chase after them, an

attempt to rescue their gods. Doesn't that sound backwards

that they rescue? They try to rescue their gods.

I read a humorous commentary at a humorous note in a commentary

that said one should never have a God that needs protection.

Clearly these were no gods at all, but nevertheless, Micah and

his fellows. They want them back, but when

they see that they are overpowered, they tuck tail and

turn around. Then picking up in verse 27, we

see how the compromise of idolatry, it hurts others.

But the people of Dan took what Micah had made, and the priest

who belonged with him, belonged to him.

And they came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting,

and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city

with fire. And there was no deliverer

because it was far from Sidon and they had no dealings with

anyone. It was in the valley that

belongs to Bethroub. Then they rebuilt the city and

lived in it. These people on Sidon were part

of a group of people that God had commanded generations prior

to drive out. But the way this is count is

told in the progressing evil of the book of Judges, it makes it

makes you wonder, were the Israelites acting more like the

Canaanites than the Canaanites actually were?

The Dananites weren't keeping the Danites weren't keeping the

covenant that God had made with Israel, but instead they were

doing whatever they thought was right and their compromise, it

led to hurt generations after them.

As is the case with unrepentant sin and compromise, it can

trickle down and leave a legacy of hurt and sorrow.

Verse 29 says that they name the name the city Dan after the

after the name of Dan, their ancestor.

This would be the same city that years later Jeroboam would build

a golden calf for the Israelites to worship.

An attempt for the an attempt to keep the people from leaving and

fleeing to the South. They changed the name of the

city, but they didn't change the culture.

They continued to worship idols instead of God.

And then finishing this chapter, verses 30 to 31 read and the

people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves.

And Jonathan the son of Gersham, son of Moses and his sons were

priests, the tribe of the Danites until the day of

captivity of the land. So they set up Micah's carved

image that he made as long as the House of God was at Shiloh.

So it's not until the end of this chapter that we find out

who this Levite is. It says, it says his name was

Jonathan, and he was the great grandson of Moses, the same

Moses that led Israelites out of Egypt, out of bondage and

slavery, who tore down the golden calf in the desert, and

he told the people to turn away from idols.

His grandson is the one approving of and facilitating

this idol worship. We don't know what happened to

make him become OK with idol worship, but I think we can

safely assume it started with small compromises of his

convictions. And as we see, the carved image

stayed in the new city of Dan until the exile from Israel.

The compromise convictions of this priest in this case led to

hurting himself by approving something he knew was wrong.

It hurt others by leading others to believe what they were doing

was right. And finally, it left a legacy of

sin for generations to come. But for us today, compromising

on our convictions can seem like it's no big deal.

Especially when we look at stories like the 1 today, it can

be tempting to think, well, that was a different time.

That doesn't apply to us today. But while we may not worship at

the feet of a carved image, we do worship the very same idol

that the people of Israel did back then.

The idol of me. In fact, I think self idolatry

is the sin from which most other sins flow.

Self idolatry twist the proper order of worship and it puts

self ahead of everything, including God.

And when we start to become aware of this sin, we will see

it everywhere. We hear phrases like my body, my

choice, do whatever makes you happy and follow your heart.

But these are all forms of self idolatry and scripture does not

teach them. The world says my body my

choice, but the Bible says you belong to God.

First Corinthians 619 to 20 says Or do you not know that your

body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have

from God? You are not your own, for you

were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

The world says do whatever makes you happy, but the Bible says Do

whatever makes you holy. First Peter 114 to 16 As

obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of

your former ignorance, but as he who called you as holy, you also

be holy in your conduct, since it is written you shall be holy,

for I am holy. The world says follow your

heart, but the Bible says follow Christ.

Jeremiah 17/9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and

desperately sick. Who can understand it?

And then Luke 923 Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, let

him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.

These phrases from the world seem harmless, but they're

rooted in sin. They make you the main object of

focus and attention, and the only way to combat them is to be

rooted in Scripture. As Christians, then, we need to

let go of the idol of selfishness and worldly

attraction and pursue Christ, holy Christ, not the world.

And the more we understand Jesus, the more we will become

like Him. And instead of compromising on

our convictions, we will be strengthened in them.

If you've been around me long enough in the past few months,

you've probably heard me talk about the story of the Edmund

Fitzgerald. And my wife might be rolling her

eyes somewhere right now because she's heard this a lot.

I'm not a huge history buff, but this, this story fascinates me.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was a large American freight ship, and

at the time when it launched in the 1950s, it was the largest

ship on the Great Lakes, measuring 729 feet long.

It was used to carry 27,000 tons of iron ore from Wisconsin to

Detroit. A massive ship like this was

used to move materials cheaply and efficiently, and they made a

lot of money doing so. But like most ships back then,

they didn't make money if they weren't moving and so as you can

imagine, this caused many captains to be fearless in the

fit in the midst of storms. But on November 10th, 1975, the

Edmund Fitzgerald with its 29 crew on board set sail for what

was supposed to be a routine trip.

It was the last trip of the nine month season and the final trip

for his for this captain before his retirement.

But it turned out to be anything but routine.

This large ship ended up getting stuck in a storm with hurricane

light winds and Blizzard conditions.

There were waves of 30 feet high.

It was a storm that made many sailors religious.

Was one quote from a captain who had headed out and shortly after

turned back. But at about 3:30 in the

afternoon, the captain of this, Edmund Fitzgerald, called to a

nearby ship to notify that it had taken significant damage,

but they were still moving. Throughout the afternoon and

early evening, the safety railings, the navigation, the

lights, and all other equipment would proceed to stop working.

The storm and the waves were so big that the ship was lost off

the radar as well. At about 7:00 PM, the nearby

ship captain radioed in and asked, How are you making out

with your problems? The response from the captain of

the Fitzgerald came. We are holding our own.

I suspect the captain might have known at that point that the

inevitable, the inevitable future of the boat and of his

men. And I also suspect that he knew

that there was nothing that could be done for them at that

point. That short sentence we are

holding our own was the last thing that was ever heard from

the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Fitzgerald never made it to

safer waters. It sank about 27 kilometers away

from Whitefish Bay and it took down all 29 people on board.

For the captain and crew of that ship, there was nothing humanly

speaking, that could be done for them at that point.

But where this strikes a chord for me, and where I think it

ties into this passage in Judges, is because I think we

often find ourselves in situations where we feel like we

are holding our own. The 30 foot waves of depression,

addiction and suffering come crashing over us.

The human made safety railings break and there's no longer

anything separating the deep waters from the safe landing.

The bright shining and glimmer from the things that we used to

seek and desire begin to grow dim and they fade.

Our own navigation is broken and disoriented.

When life turns out different than we had imagined.

We isolate ourselves and we take ourselves off the radar from

those willing and wanting to help.

And then we walk into church on Sunday morning and someone asks

how are you? And we reply, I'm good, I'm

holding my own. I don't think we're capable of

holding our own, and I don't think we were created to be.

Sure, we can go through life seeking idols and using those as

temporary replacements for God, and there's many people that

will do that for their whole life.

But that's not holding our own. That's outsourcing our happiness

and contentment to whatever the next thing is.

When we seek and hold on to idols in our life, we'll at some

point find ourselves realizing that idols don't satisfy.

And that's not profound. We know this.

We know that it can lead to craving control, We know it

leads to costly consequences, and we know that it will lead to

compromise convictions. But yet that temptation, it's

real and it's strong. The invitation to let go of the

idols and hold fast to God is not to remove joy and happiness,

but to provide a safe boundary for those to grow and thrive in

a relationship with God. And I would say true joy and

peace can only come from knowing Christ.

But Jesus isn't just another puzzle piece to add to our life

in hopes of making it whole. Without Jesus, we have no life

by ourselves. We are hopeless and dead in our

sins, enslaved by the idols that hold us captive.

But in Jesus there is life that no idol can give.

Psalm 41 says God is our refuge and strength, a very present

help and trouble. Jesus came to the world to save

us from our sins, but he doesn't leave us to fight by ourselves.

As Christians, He has given us his Spirit to guide us and to

convict us when we do wrong. Our response then should be to

let go of the things that we are trying to hold onto, to all the

things that promised us life, but ultimately bring death and

instead, as it is written, be still and know that I am God.

Let's pray. God, You are our refuge and our

strength, a very present help and trouble.

Apart from You, Lord, we have nothing.

As we read today, there are many sorrows for those that seek

after idols instead of seeking after you.

Lord, I pray that we are not those people, but rather that we

will be a people that seek You at all times.

That we can say with the psalmist, I have set the Lord

before me because he is at my right hand.

I shall not be shaken. May that be true of us, that we

will not compromise on our convictions, but rather hold

fast to Your word. It's in Your name that we pray.

Amen.