Resurrection Life: Images

Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.

It's our hope that these sermons will draw you

more into the life of following God, Father,

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Instagram and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this

sermon. God Bless. Oh Lord, teach us your ways,

guide us in your paths. May your statutes, your

commandments, your law be sweet to us like honey,

more to be desired than gold. Would we be like

the one who sells all to find you, the pearl

of great price, to have life abundantly, life

with you, to know the Father through the Son.

God, we're thankful that you've given us your

word, and we pray, Lord, that today we'd hide

it in our hearts, that we would find in it life,

life everlasting. Amen. When Melissa and I first

started, when we first went on a date, we were

living in Richmond, Virginia, and I was leading

a campus ministry down there, Reform University

Fellowship, and she told her parents that she

went out with this guy named Peter Rowan. They

googled. They were wise parents and they did

what parents do in that scenario, right? They

Google Peter Rowan, Richmond, Virginia. And what

they found, I'd only lived there eight months

by this point. It's not like my faith was going

to come up, but a face did come up. And it was

because the great bluegrass musician Peter Rowan

was having a show there just in a couple of months.

And so they googled and that's what they found.

And I don't know if any of you know this musician.

But he's got big white hair. Currently he's 83

years old. And he looks nothing like me. Now,

thankfully they were correct in not thinking

that was me. But what if, you know, what if for

the rest of their lives they treated me like

they first saw me in that image, right? They're

constantly asking me, how's the concert? Why

do you have so much hair? You look pretty good

for 83, whatever. Or you know what they could

have done? They also could have found out, I've

mentioned this before years ago, that the little

boy on the front of the YouTube boy album and

war album, his name is Peter Rowan too. I was

not destined for music fame, but I thought I

was at one point. And maybe they saw that. They're

like, well, he's just a little kid and they all

treat you like a little kid. You know how sometimes

that's what happens is that people kind of get

this picture of you and they simplify you. They

kind of take you as this static kind of dynamic

is that that's how you are and that's how you

will always be is how they kind of picture you

right there. And it's just this kind of way of

almost dehumanizing you, right? They don't engage

with you as an actual person. In a way, that's

kind of how we engage sometimes with the Ten

Commandments. We have these ideas, we have these

images in our minds of what they are and how

Christians use them. or misuse them. We see them

as this list, right? A couple weeks ago I talked

about this, this list of do's and don'ts, primarily

just a list of do's and don'ts that we use in

order to gain God's love. And oftentimes what

we do out of that is we simplify them into a

checklist that we can follow, that we can manage.

So we come to the second commandment and we say,

oh, do I have carved images of the cat God Bestet?

which is one of the gods of Egypt that the people

were saved out from when they were in slavery

in Egypt. And we think, no, check. Or we think,

have I ever taken out my gold earrings and taken

off my gold rings along with my whole church

community and thrown them into a fire for a cow

or something to come out and danced around it?

No. Check You know, we kind of we kind of treat

the commandments often as this list that we go

odd do's don'ts look at me and We know that this

kind of approach the commandments flattens them

right and What it also often does is it creates

Pharisees and hypocrites of us? People who look

down our noses at our neighbors and yet our hearts

are far from God And don't hear what I'm not

saying. I'm not saying that conversations around

crafted images of gods or god don't have their

place. They most certainly do have their place.

There are some cultures that are full of carved

images and people that bow down to them and in

some ways we are right to join in with the psalmist

who wrote Psalm 115 and laugh in a way. They

have eyes but they don't see. They have ears

but they don't hear. Hands but they can't touch

and feet but they can't walk. But it's not like

there aren't millions of people that actually

do have those, right? It's undoubtedly true for

countless folk. And in many times, in many situations,

and maybe completely, images of Jesus can be

no better. There are people that venerate those,

actually bow down, right? But if we flatten this

text, Not only will we tend towards the direction

of checking off stuff, right? Check listing hypocrisy,

but also we will fail to heed the heart commandment

that is here. And when we do so, we will flatten

God. Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount

that we actually miss the commands. If all we

read is, do not murder and think, well, I haven't

literally taken somebody else's life. And we

miss the commands if we think we hear it say,

do not commit adultery. And we think, well, we

haven't done that. Jesus says, actually, they're

not just matters of outward performance and outward

actions that they are in fact matters of our

hearts, right? Say we have the second commandment

and what does the second commandment say? Some

of you are familiar, but let me read it to you.

You shall not make for yourselves a carved image

or any likeness of anything that is in heaven

above or that is on the earth beneath or that

is in the water under the sea. I know it keeps

going, but I'm going to stop there. I want to

say first, what this cannot mean is that we can't

have sculptors, Ted. Sorry. It's very hard to

say that what this means is that we can't have

sculptures even in worship settings. Okay, let

me justify that statement now. 15 chapters later,

if we were just to kind of turn in the book of

Exodus, 15 chapters on. Moses gathers together,

he instructs the whole gathered people, gather

together. I'm going to read this list. Gold,

silver and bronze, blue and purple and scarlet

yarns and fine twin linens, goats hair, tanned

ram skins, goat skins, acacia wood, oils, precious

stones. It's longer, I'll stop there. And he

then calls all the skilled craftsmen led by Bezalel

who, all of you Bible trivia people will remember

is the very first person in the Bible who is

said to be filled with the spirit of God, a sculptor,

a craftsman. He gathers all this fine material

and all these skilled craftsmen. Why? For the

sake of creating things that represent things

of heaven and things of earth for the tabernacle,

the place of worship. You may remember, you all

remember that if you went inside the tabernacle,

the linens that were finally crafted out of all

that yarn that was collected was in the image

of cherubim. Right, y 'all remember that? Okay,

if you don't. Maybe you remember that the Ark

of the Covenant had two cherubim with their wings

coming out, hovering over the Ark of the Covenant.

An image of something from heaven. Maybe you

remember... Tim I'm gonna walk away from this

all of you online I hope that you'll just build

a picture this on in your minds Maybe remember

that actually at the hem of the high priest garment.

There were two things One was pomegranates. Okay,

I have no idea why But there are pomegranates

a fruit of this earth an image of pomegranates

and bells Pomegranates and bells and then you'll

remember that there was a lampstand there in

the place of worship and the lampstand was fashioned

with branches some people connect that with the

tree of life these are all images of eden in

a way i'm not going to go into that though you've

heard me say it at some point more in more detail

what i'm suggesting to you is that what this

commandment can't mean is that images or any

likeness of anything in heaven above or on the

earth beneath or in the waters under the earth

have no place in worship It would just be contradictory

within the same short chapter frame, right? I

can't mean that. So what does it mean? Well,

I cut off our text. So what does it say next?

What does it say? It says, you shall not bow

down to them or serve them. You cannot make an

image to worship or to serve. which is to say

in a way that any image that we make of God or

even the God, not just God's, but the God, as

to say, this is God, is going to give us something

that is a false God, invites into an idolatrous

engagement with God himself. And this is a prohibition

because there is always a problem with projecting

a false idea of God. And that false idea of God

always also affects our relationship. So what

did Psalm 115 say? But those who create them,

those who worship them, become like them. You

become like what you worship. And what I want

to suggest to you today is that this image creating

does two things, okay? It flattens God and it

flattens others. Okay? It flattens God and it

flattens others. And we are all prone to do it.

Nobody's off the hook. Nobody gets to look down

their noses. The prohibition to make an image

to worship or to serve. Wait, I'm sorry. Hold

on a second. Let me get back here. All right,

hold on. All right. I think I found my spot.

Hold on. So this prohibition to make an image

to worship or to serve is followed up with these

words, right? It says, what specifically, for

I the Lord am a jealous God. He says, you can't

do that because I'm a jealous God. And I'm gonna

get to this, but this jealousy is a proper jealousy.

God is jealous for us to actually know Him rightly,

actually desires to be known by us. And for,

for us to be in relationship with Him, which

is to say that His jealousy is for us to know

Him fully, to love Him properly, and also to

worship Him rightly. And all acts of creating

a God or even images of the God are a way of

flattening Him. What do I mean by this? I mean

that to create an image, whether physical or

in our minds or in our hearts, to worship and

to serve, okay? To worship and to serve, an image

to worship and to serve will never ever contain

the true God. You cannot do it. It's not possible,

okay? It will always flatten God into something

other than His fullness. And therefore we will

not worship Him or know Him or serve Him for

who He truly is, which is what He desires, He

longs for. And I think that this flattening idea

makes, in some ways, it's not a hard idea to

get if you're thinking of the idle bestest, that

cat god. There's no way god can be contained

in a cat image. We laugh at that. That's kind

of silly. And so in some ways, I think because

we do that, we think this command is a little

bit irrelevant to us. But I think when we start

to think of, okay, all of the different images,

not just sort of outward, but also inward and

in our hearts are to a degree flattening of God,

then it makes it completely relevant to us. It's

not just relevant to Christian traditions that

say venerate idols, but relevant to us or icons,

but relevant to us. So I want to suggest to you,

that this flattening of God has all kinds of

relevance to us, and that we flatten God in all

kinds of ways. And I just have a few ways for

us this morning, okay? One way we flatten God

is that the images that we have, the primary

image that we have of Him is similar to us, okay?

We make Him into our likeness, right? We are

not made in the image of God, He is made in the

image of us. So, it's true, God goes before his

people as a cloud by day and a pillar in fire

by night. And he actually says, I'm going before

you, right? There's images of things, earthy

things that kind of represent God. In John chapter

three, Jesus actually refers to the snake that

was lifted up as an image of him being lifted

up, right? But the truth is that we tend to make

image of God an awful lot like ourselves. We

make God to think like us, to... love like us,

to hate like us. So he loves the things that

we love. He loves our causes. Our causes are

his causes. And our image of him is often our

image of ourselves. Of course, there's horrible

ways this has been taken in history. You can

think of an Arian Jesus. What was done in the

name of an Arian God? He loves us. Which means

he's not really like you. Some particular race

owns him as their own, but we do this too. We

as individuals do this too. Isn't it so often

the case that God becomes the God of the Republican

cause or the Democratic cause? And let me just

suggest to you, if God agrees with you in everything,

you have flattened God massively. If He agrees

with you in everything, something's amiss, okay?

And that's for all of us. You're worshiping and

serving another God. I'm just saying that we

project an image of our own making onto God.

And often we find that the God of our making

is an awful lot like us. He's so similar to us.

We flatten Him in this way. And what I'm not

saying is God did not take on flesh and dwell

among us. That is true. But our temptation is

for us to make him into our image, not for us

to be made into his. Okay, so that's one way.

Another way we flatten God is we have kind of

a static dynamic with God. And this is kind of

what I was getting at the beginning, where you

kind of go, oh, this is who you are. This is

who you will always be. I have this picture in

my mind of you, and this is the fullness of who

you are. And we can't imagine him being any different.

And so we go through his word and he cannot challenge

us because we already had this idea of who he

is and how he communicates and how he acts. There's

no challenge to us because he's static. Now oftentimes,

you know, we have the God who's only and always

one way. He's only and always only accepting.

Or let's put it on the other side. He's only

and always, he's always austere. It's very serious.

But it's only one thing. It's like a carved image

that is static. It's not dynamic. It doesn't

have depth of being. And of course, this static

idea that we have in our own hearts moves out

into our own lives because those who worship

them become like them. So we think in order to

be like God, we must only ever always be accepting

or we must only ever always be very austere.

And you know plenty of churches that fit into

those categories. A third way we flatten God

is that we just have a simplistic understanding

of Him, an overly simple way of engaging with

Him. I'm going to talk about the elephant in

the room, or the images in the room. When I was

studying for this sermon, of course I had to

come up here into our sanctuary, right? Because,

of course, our mothers and fathers in the faith

in this church, our historic church that's been

here since 1862, it's the first church of our

neighborhood. And it's actually, our church is

actually the only church in our neighborhood

that was, is still worshiped in the congregation,

by the congregation that founded it. Kind of

interesting history. But I have, well, I have

no desire to not be grateful for the gifts that

we have been given. And I have no desire also

to be overly critical. And yet, and while I'll

say this too, part of me just wants to evade

the whole subject, but as I sat here and I'm

thinking of the sermon, I'm looking around and

I thought, at the very least, I can say that

we have a very simple depiction of Jesus in our

stained glass and up here. We've simplified him.

If you look around, he always looks so gentle.

There he looks a little green. There he looks

a little, I'm not sure what's happening in that

one. He's a little disappointed maybe. But meek

and mild. Have any of you ever gone into a church,

a church building? And you saw a stained glass

window of Jesus taking out the whip and tossing

the tables over in the temple and driving out

the merchants. I have not. Have any of you walked

into a church and you looked around and you saw

Jesus cursing a fig tree is the image of unbelief

and the rejection of him. I have not. No, we

tend to want to take Jesus meek and mild. And

we simplify him. You know, it's a flattening

out. It's a simplifying. Or maybe we make Jesus

to be the God who wants purity. He's got a lot

of passion, power. But you know what I'm saying?

We simplify them. Our images of God, our external

images and the images that we make in our hearts

are always and can only be simplistic. The fourth

way we flatten God is by making him, I'm gonna

say into the Stepford God, okay? Some of you

have probably heard Tim Keller talk about this,

because I did. He talks about the book, The Stepford

Wives, and maybe some of y 'all saw the movie,

okay? But the story goes like this, Joanne Eberhart

and her husband and her kids, they move from

New York City and they go to Stepford, Connecticut.

And what happens is that she's kind of amazed

and she's also really perplexed by the women

that are in this town because as she gets to

know them, she learns that the women, the wives

in this town of Stepford, Connecticut, they don't

have any interests of their own. They don't have

any thoughts of their own. They don't have any

desires of their own. They don't have any loves

of their own. They do housework, they care for

their families, and they agree with whatever

their husbands say. And of course, this strikes

Joanne as odd. Wouldn't it strike you as odd?

And it wasn't just because this isn't just some

big critique of tradwives, right? That's not

what's going on. But it strikes her as odd because

it's so two -dimensional. These aren't real people.

Of course, as the story unfolds, she finds out

that there's a good reason for this because the

women are not real people. They aren't, right?

Instead, the wives, the true wives were replaced

by robots built in an image of the wives. Turns

out that some of the men in Stepford were savvy

with computers. And what were Jess? animatronics,

right? I don't know why. Somehow the music team

was talking about animatronics before the service.

I was like, I'm going to use that word in my

sermon. What a weird word to also be talking

about. Anyway, and they combine their skills

and they're able to make this robot wife who

just does what she's told. And so when finally

you decide, you know, you get this robot wife

made to be like your wife and you do away with

the real one. Now what I'm suggesting to is that

so often actually what happens with our flattening

of God Is not only just to make him somewhat

too similar to us or too simplistic Or static,

but really a lot of times what we're doing is

we are controlling You do my bidding right The

God that we come and we offer something to and

we say, you know, I'm offering this to you so

that blah, blah, blah, blah. You do my bidding.

Make God out to a Stepford wife, false God. Talking

about wives invites us back to the idea of jealousy.

I said that God is jealous in this passage. That's

what it says, for I'm a jealous God. And he's

jealous for us to know him fully and to love

him properly and to worship him rightly. And

you will know if you know your Bibles that oftentimes

this jealousy of God is related to the jealousy

between a husband and a wife, marital jealousy,

which is say proper jealousy. There's a proper

affection and a proper knowledge that is due

in that relationship. And if you think about

this with me, the same flattening of God is what

harms so many of our relationships. because those

who worship them become just like them. So the

flattening of God always invites us into a flattening

of others. It always moves out relationally.

How we engage with God is how we often will be

invited to relate with others. So we want the

other to be just like us, similar to us. Some

of you have heard because I've done people counseling

with you that I kind of I kind of joke around

but not really That you are probably gonna get

into a fight about where the serving utensils

go in your kitchen You know, they go to the right

of the stove No, they go in a little canister

next to the stove to the left Right and as silly

as it is that is a lot of marital disputes And

what's happening, of course, what happens, of

course, is that we're like, you know, if you

just saw the world as I saw it, if you were just

me, we'd have a great marriage. Similar, right?

We engage with the others. You just need to be

like me. And we also treat our spouses as though

they are just static, that if they treat us one

way, They're going to definitely do it again.

So we don't extend grace. We don't have much

curiosity for the dynamism of another person.

And we know this as humans, we are dynamic. We

have different moods and different emotions and

we have different responses sometimes to the

exact same event. There's a liveliness about

it. Of course there is. We're made in the image

of the living and true God. Of course there is.

And yet we do this to one another all the time.

And of course, we simplify one another. We are

more focused on the image that we have in our

minds of the other than actually engaging with

them and all of their complexity. It's so common.

So common. And of course, also what we do in

our marriages and so many others is that we just

want to control others. We do that with God,

but we do that with others. We don't want just

a yes sir God, but we want a yes sir wife. We

don't want a honeydew God, we want a honeydew

husband, right? Just do the list. Just do the

list. I mean, jealousy is a hard word for us

because I think most time what we think of it

as is negative. We think of it, maybe we think

a bit of it like the 10th commandment, not coveting.

Jealousy is more connected with our ideas of

coveting, maybe more negative. But in the Bible,

jealousy is often positive. And it's positive

here, which is to say there is a good and right

jealousy because there's a good and right relationship

that we're invited into with the Lord. A desire

to be known and to be loved and to be in a living

relationship. It's right for Husband to desire

the soul affections of his wife It's right for

a wife to be angry when her husband is giving

Undue attention to another woman does that is

right has good Um think about this idea how awful

would it be for a husband to be sitting on the

couch With his wife kids have gone down or whatever

They're sitting there, and he turns away, and

he's just looking at his phone. And she says,

what are you looking at? Well, I'm looking at

pictures of you. And in that instance, she'd

be like, well, I am right here. Like, you can

literally look at me. I'm here. And it's not

just that but of the photos that he's looking

at he's photoshopped You know just a little bit

more into his life And his wife is right there

Is she not properly jealous? Absolutely 100 %

And of course y 'all we know that those do not

just have to be physical images though that I

think illustrates the point We have all kinds

of ideas that we think this is you And we're

not even open to the dynamism of a real relationship.

You see, we are all, all of us, tempted to create

images of God. And I know that y 'all are not

tempted to, like probably none of you are actually

making idols, but you are. We are in our hearts

and in our minds making images of God that do

not contain the fullness of Him. We're always

flattening Him. And it's always affecting how

we relate to others. So of course the commandment

does move, right? Doesn't it? It moves to saying

that this is a great iniquity. You visit the

iniquity of the fathers to the third and fourth

generations. We should say it's a gross injustice.

It's a wickedness. And this affects our relationships.

If we're not willing to receive God as He reveals

Himself, the truth is that we will not receive

others as they are revealed to us. Slowly, gently,

over time. And as we're not known and loved for

who we are, and as we do not know and love others

for who they are, we will often treat them in

these same kinds of ways, right? Ways that we

can control. Ways that just fit our liking. A

family in the ancient world would often live

together, not just the mom and the dad and the

kids, like we often do it, but often it would

be like the grandparents. And a lot of times

you'd actually have up to like the third and

fourth generation living together. You know,

all these people living together. And what is

the text saying? This is going to be detrimental

because you learn to relate to others, even as

you relate to me. And this will create such harm.

Matt, I don't see Maya here anymore. Matt, one

of the best things that you can do for Everett

is to receive him as a gift from God with curiosity,

seeking to love him as he grows and changes,

right? And accept him and hold him and receive

him that way, but receive him as a part person

that's outside of you, that can affect you. And

that's one of the best things we can do for all

of us. And they will create actually so much

of a healthier family life and societal dynamic.

And instead what we do, right? And so what we

do is we make the God into our image and we simplify

him and we think he's static and we use him.

And so what we do is we say, if you're not following

this and this and this, I can write you off.

God's a Republican and we can treat our political

rivals as devils. Is that not what happens? If

God's a Democrat, then can't we speak about our

political rivals however we want? We all know

this happens all the time. But it's not just

out there, it's here. Because it's in our hearts

and our minds. If God is willing to do our bidding,

then why not our kids? Let's force them to do

it. The way you will treat those made in the

image of God, It's often how you treat God. Flattening

God always flattens others. So what's the cure?

Just really quickly. Two suggestions, okay? The

first, I want to encourage you, brothers and

sisters, dive into the Word of God. Isn't it

wild how complex the Bible is? And that's part

of why it's so hard to read. You've got poetry.

And old poetry, poetry is hard enough in the

20th century, 21st century. Now you're talking

millennia ago. It's hard. You have poetry, you

have history, you have wisdom literature, and

of course, the gospels that tell us about Jesus.

But then we have letters that are written in

different kinds of ways than we write. I mean,

it's apocalyptic stuff. It's so big and so expansive,

and there's such a big fullness to it. And interestingly

here, the command, there's not a command, there's

not a commandment. and the Ten Commandments that

says, thou shalt not read, right? No, you're

invited to dive into the Word and see the various

ways that God presents Himself as a pillar of,

you know, fire, cloud, and the cross, these images,

right? But of course, the second is, don't just

dive into the Word, but live with the Word made

flesh. I mean, that's wild. That's what Jesus

is called. The word made flesh. And what we heard

in John 14 is if we see Jesus, we've seen the

Father. We've had the fullness of the revelation

of God put before us in Jesus. How can I not

include in this sermon? Look, this is about images.

Look to Jesus, the author and the perfecter of

your faith. Gaze upon Him. He's the image of

the invisible God, the fullness of God made revealed.

Not a flattening of God, but the fullness of

God is found in Christ. If you look to Jesus

as he's revealed in the Word, there's no way

you can say that he's just like you. You can't

look at God and say, oh, he's just so simple.

I can guess what he's about to say or do next.

It's always surprising us. Certainly not a step

for God. No way. In fact, what happens is in

the scriptures, most of the time, the people

that thought they knew God had flattened him

so much that when he was standing right there

in front of him, they rejected him. Instead,

brothers and sisters, look upon Christ because

there you will see the true God who is worthy

of all of our worship and who is worthy to bow

down to and to serve. Let me pray. Lord, pray

your guidance upon us as we seek to follow your

ways, though we want to walk in them. In our

best, we want to walk in them. Sometimes we We

want to reject it and push it aside, or we confess

that. We want to walk in your ways. God, I pray

that we this morning would look to Jesus and

find in Christ the fullness of your breath and

your beauty and your glory, that we'd fall down

and worship and serve the image of the invisible

God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. Thank you

for listening to Second City Sermons podcast.

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