Every Idol Has a Gospel | Acts 19:21-41 | October 18, 2026

We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

If you want a paper copy, lift up your hand.

Someone will bring one to you from the front here or from the back.

It'd be good to have the text in front of us this morning as it is every week.

Also want to welcome all those who are worshiping with us online.

May the Spirit of the Lord move among you just as he is here today.

Well, I don't know about you, but I am glad that Autumn has decided to join us here in Nashville, Tennessee.

Here, here?

Should we sing the doxology?

I read an account this week of a prominent minister in the first half of the 20th century.

His name was Dr.

Donald Barnhouse.

And he visited the uh the battlefields of Europe shortly after World War I.

And he was visiting one area during the springtime, and the sun was shining, there was no wind blowing, but he noticed that the leaves were falling from the big trees that were overhead that towered above.

And these leaves were covering a lot of the remnants of war, and one fell on him, and he rubbed it between his fingers, and it disintegrated as it landed on him.

It wasn't autumn like it is today with the leaves falling.

It was the wind wasn't, in fact, blowing at all.

The trees were losing leaves, and he was considering why is this the case?

And as he was looking around, he realized the most potent force in nature, of course, was doing something springtime.

So over the fall and winter, these leaves had held on to the tree, and the melted ice nourished the roots, it sprang up through the trunk, through the branches, it formed sap, and new buds were pushing off the old trees.

I thought, and he did too, it's a beautiful illustration of transformation, of new life.

Old leaves being pushed off because new life had arrived.

What an old Scottish preacher would say is the expulsive power of a new affection, if we were to apply that spiritually.

So a couple of weeks ago, if you're with us, we studied the first half of Acts chapter 19, the beginning of Paul's three-year ministry in Ephesus.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

And if you're with us, you'll remember that the Word of God had pierced the darkness, and many in that city were coming to life in the name of Jesus, what we just sang about.

Not only had their identities been changed, they were justified before God, they were now his adopted children, but this new life in Christ had reoriented their beliefs, their values, their thinking, their behavior, their loyalties, how they lived.

And this city that had long been entrenched in spiritual idolatry and darkness, pagan idolatry, was changing.

Put another way, there was a great awakening in this city of Ephesus as many turned to the living God as the old leaves fell off.

They had to go.

Turn with me, if you would, to Acts chapter 19 again.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

Put your thumb there, your finger at verse 18.

Acts chapter 19, verse 18 is what we'll start today.

Acts 19:18

When something new comes, old things often hang on.

And we're going to see a little bit of that today in our text.

But let's come to the Lord together in prayer as we open up the scriptures, if you would join me.

Heavenly Father, what we know not teach us.

What we have not, we ask that you provide us.

And what we are not, would you make us?

Appoint us to your Son, our only hope in life and death, Jesus Christ, in whose name we all said.

Amen.

Acts chapter 19.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

So we're going to start with 18 because this gives us a sense of that great awakening that's happening here in Ephesus because of Paul's ministry.

So also many of those who were now believers came and they were confessing and divulging their practices.

This is the old leaves falling off because a new life had sprung up.

Verse 19 A number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and they burned them in the sight of all, and they counted the value of them and they found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver.

So this was costly.

Losing these old leaves was costly.

We don't know for sure, but likely in today's currency, about five to six million dollars, just in this little episode here.

The culture was changing because people's lives were being transformed.

And we see that here in this particular case with these magic art and books.

So verse 20.

Now I encourage you to underline that or highlight that particular sentence.

It's interesting because Luke, throughout Acts, typically uses the phrase, the word of the Lord continue to increase and multiply, which is great.

But there's something new in this particular section to increase, and my translation says, to prevail mightily.

In other words, the word of God, by the power of the Spirit, was triumphing.

It was taking root and it was bearing fruit in these lives.

And here we see the example of how that worked out in this particular city.

Their standard for belief and behavior was the scripture, just as is for us today.

So the word of God was prevailing here in Ephesus.

Now, Luke's going to shift for just a second.

I've told you all along that Paul is a planner.

All right.

Now we're going to get a little travel itinerary.

Verse 21.

Now, after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia, that's Corinth, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I've been there in Jerusalem, I must also see Rome.

He really wanted to get the coffee and the pizza out there, apparently.

Verse 22, and having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while.

So this is a little excursus, a little side itinerary of what Paul's going to do.

So he sets his mind, his heart towards Jerusalem and ultimately towards Rome.

Now, the book of Acts, this is important to the book of Acts.

The word of God goes from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth, which for them would have been Rome.

So Luke is actually, through what Paul is doing in his planning gears, pointing to the end of the book of Acts.

Turn with me if you would.

Just put your finger there in Acts.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians.

It's just to the right in your Bible.

1 Corinthians chapter 16.

1 Corinthians 16 · chapter mention

1 Corinthians chapter 16.

1 Corinthians 16 · chapter mention

We actually get a little insight about what's going on at this particular time.

And it's good for us to connect the different books of the Bible.

They are connected.

There's a thread that runs through them.

The apostle Paul is writing to the church at Achaia in Corinth.

Corinth would have been the main city there in Achaia.

And he's writing to the church in Corinth from Ephesus around the time of our story here today.

So chapter 16, verse 5, just to give us a little background.

So Paul says, I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, that's Greece, for I intend to pass through Macedonia, and perhaps I will stay with you, or even spend the winter, so that you may help me on my journey wherever I go.

For I do not want to see you now just in passing.

I hope to spend some time with you if the Lord permits.

But I will stay in Ephesus, that's where he is now, until Pentecost, so it's likely springtime.

For a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

A wide door of ministry had been opened to him.

We saw that in the first half of Acts chapter 19.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

New growth and old leaves are falling off, but there are many adversaries.

So 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 5, you might highlight that or write that in the margins of your Bible.

1 Corinthians 16:5

Let's go back to Acts 19.

So we get a sense of where Paul is.

He's writing letters, he's writing letters to Corinth and perhaps others.

So what happens next?

Verse 23.

About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way.

That was a self-designation.

Instead of the word Christians, they were called the way, which I just love.

It's not simply a doctrine.

There is content, there is doctrine, but it is a way of life.

I had a professor who called faith faith, working it out.

I love that the name is the way.

So about that time there arose a big disturbance, is what he's saying, concerning these Christians, the way.

For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, or Diana, some translations will say, the Roman name, brought no little business to the craftsmen.

These he gathered together with the workmen and similar trades, and he said, Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth.

And you see and you hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

We're going to come back to that.

And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may be even deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.

So Demetrius is probably the president of the guild of silversmiths, of tradesmen there.

And they see that the old leaves are falling, the culture is changing around them because of the preaching of the gospel.

And we see here four things that Demetrius is concerned about.

The first one, though, is wealth.

He's concerned that their wealth is going to be in jeopardy.

Next, it's their trade.

What we do here.

You go down on Lower Broadway, you can get little trinkets that show the rhyme and auditorium.

You can buy uh, you know, an ornament for your Christmas tree, you can buy a Parthenon for your Christmas tree.

They did the same thing then.

These little trinkets of the goddess Artemis or Diana.

So he was concerned about their wealth, about the trade, about their deity, Artemis, uh, Diana, the goddess of the hunt, the goddess of fertility for them.

And then lastly, there was a little bit of civic pride here.

Ephesus was the central hub in all of Asia, or what we would call modern-day Turkey.

And they would every four years have a big pagan celebration to the goddess Artemis, and the the the uh the uh the place would swell from 250,000 to a million people would come to celebrate this goddess of fertility.

Artemisia is what it was called.

And so there's there's kind of a pride that we are the keepers of this goddess Artemis.

Demetrius is upset about it.

28, when they heard this, they were enraged, and they were crying out, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, companions with Paul.

But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him.

And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, these were kind of provincial leaders, secular leaders, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater.

Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.

Anybody been to a meeting where you're really wondering, why are we having this meeting?

Apparently that happened here to a greater degree.

Some of the crowd had prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward.

And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd.

But when they recognized that he was a Jew for about two hours, they all cried out with one voice Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

I just did it twice, and that was annoying.

Two hours.

Two hours with this confusion.

This is what they would proclaim, this kind of mantra.

Now, there's a lot going on here, confusion.

Now go back to the beginning.

Gaius and Aristarchus were pulled in.

Gaius, we know that Paul himself baptized Gaius.

We know that from other letters.

But then Paul, this is so instructive to Paul's mindset.

He sees a bunch of people going into this theater and he says, I want to go preach to them.

But you know what?

He had friends who understood this was not wise.

And there's a principle here for us to learn.

Do we have friends around us, godly friends, godly men and women, who can actually speak into our lives?

They were speaking to the apostle Paul, and they told him no.

I think there's something really instructive there.

Also, Paul apparently was held in high esteem by these Asiarchs.

These are the provincial leaders of the whole entire region of Asia, where Ephesus was the main center.

So Paul, in his message, Paul was not running around with placards or signs, protesting down with Artemis.

He was preaching the gospel.

And in that, he was actually making inroads, making friends with some of the leaders within the secular community.

It's quite amazing.

And then Alexander there at verse 33, who is this?

Likely this was a Jewish man that the Jewish folks wanted to put forward to try to say, hey, we're not with the Christians.

But they weren't making a distinction.

This mob was not going to make a distinction.

This was a mob.

This was a mob mentality.

Confusion reigned.

I want to show you a few pictures up here to give us a sense of this scene.

This first picture is actually a picture of the theater.

So my wife and I and family actually got to visit Ephesus earlier this summer.

And Ephesus is probably the largest or one of the largest recovered ancient cities in the world that you can visit today.

You can actually walk on the road that Paul would have walked on.

You can stand on the same tiles that Paul and Timothy would have walked on.

And the theater there, which see, it's 25,000 people, is still visible.

We actually had our nieces and nephews, little nieces and nephews, read Acts chapter 19 as we looked at this theater.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

So you can see, even from this little picture here, this entire place was being filled, and they were chanting for two hours.

Great is Artemis.

It's amazing that we can get a sense that this story is set in real space and time.

And actually in history.

Next picture gives us a depiction of the temple of Artemis there on the right hand side.

There is no temple of Artemis anymore.

And you can see the statue of Artemis, the kind of the depiction.

They thought that Artemis had come down, probably a meteorite had fallen down to the earth, and it was in the form, and then it was fashioned into this goddess of fertility.

Next picture, though, great as Artemis.

That's on the right hand side, that is the temple of Artemis today.

One column.

Indeed, great as Artemis.

The left-hand side, that's just a picture of me and my family in front of the library at Celsus.

You can see my nephew Tom there.

He's given the two thumbs up.

If you ever have an opportunity to visit Ephesus, it's an amazing place.

The temple of Artemis, though, that they're so concerned about, was massive.

It was one of the seven great wonders of the ancient world.

Four times bigger than the Parthenon.

It was 60 feet tall, like the the height of the actual structure was 60 feet, almost three times as high as our chapel here.

60-foot columns, 127 or so columns or pillars in total.

Pretty amazing place.

And they were very proud of it.

35.

So, how does this goddess Artemis calm this crowd down?

Apparently, she needs the mayor.

When the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple keeper of the great Artemis?

That was actually on their coinage, that they were the temple keepers.

And the sacred stone that fell from the sky, there's the meteorite, 36.

Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash, for you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess.

If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open and they are proconsuls, let them bring charges against one another.

But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly, for we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.

And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly.

There was something that they feared even more.

The iron fist of Rome.

The iron fist of Rome was about to come down on them if they didn't cease this riot.

Well, this is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Well, the story of Paul's ministry in Ephesus, the entire chapter there, 19, it actually is the last major account of his ministry as a free man in the book of Acts.

We're going to see a few little other stories, but the last major account.

Interestingly, I think as you saw there, Paul actually seems to recede into the background.

He recedes in the background, he's setting his sights on Rome.

And I think in part why Paul recedes in the background is that Luke is trying to emphasize the spiritual battle that is going on in this city of Ephesus.

Idols of silver and idols of the heart were crumbling in some groups of people.

New buds were forming and old leaves were falling.

But also some of those same idols are being defended by others.

The idols that they had bowed to before Christ were being dethroned.

Now the New Testament actually gives us several different windows into the church at Ephesus, five primary texts in the New Testament.

So here in Acts 19, and of course the letter to the Ephesians.

1st and 2 Timothy, Paul is writing to Timothy, who's a pastor of the church at Ephesus, and then Revelation 2.

The Lord Himself actually writes a letter to the church at Ephesus.

You've abandoned your first love.

So five primary texts throughout the New Testament.

This was an important city, economically, politically, culturally, and mission critical for the spread of the gospel throughout what we would call Turkey, Asia Minor.

So on the surface, the tip of the iceberg that we can see is that Demetrius and the town with him was angry.

They were angry about economics.

They were angry about religion and civic pride.

But underneath that resistance, there was a spiritual battle going on in the hearts of those in Ephesus.

As the God of grace was reshaping hearts.

And therefore the culture was being shaped.

Not by protest signs, but by one heart transformed at a time.

Paul actually writes about the spiritual condition of the city in a letter to the Ephesians that he'll write five, eight years later or so.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

And then he would go on to say, if you continue to reading there, therefore take up the whole armor of God.

We need outside resources for these kinds of battles.

Look with me again at verse 20, chapter 19, verse 20.

So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

Again, a subtle change in how Luke has been describing it thus far.

Prevail, it means to triumph, to take root, bear fruit.

It melted hearts to see the truth and the beauty of Christ Jesus, which surpassed all the other idols.

Began to melt them.

All idols promise freedom, peace, and security.

Apart from God.

All idols, all hard idols who promise freedom or salvation, you could say, peace or security.

Every idol has its own gospel.

And its gospel tells us that Christ is not enough.

Every idol has a gospel.

This morning, as we see both revival in Ephesus and revolt, and we see both here, I'd love for us to spend a few moments considering how you and I both discern idolatry in our own hearts, but also recognize that idols are very weak.

And at the same time, that idols are very powerful.

And we can hold both of those together.

Idols are weak and powerful, and there is a way that the Bible teaches to dethrone idols of the heart.

So first question I want to ask is what is an idol?

What is an idol?

I'm assuming it's unlikely that you and I have a silver statue of Artemis somewhere stashed in our house.

Anybody?

If you do, come see me afterwards.

We'll have a little discussion.

Now, it's not out of the question though.

Many, and I might even say maybe most cultures, have depictions, created images to represent or to image their gods, their deities.

Paganism, in all its forms, historically, is kind of the default for humanity.

Romans 1.23, we're told that humanity exchanges the glory of the immortal God, it's an exchange, the glory of the immortal God for the glory of mortal man.

And creeping things and animals, but it starts with mortal man.

Idolatry is an exchange, it's a great reordering of the created world.

The Old Testament prophets talked about idolatry in three different categories.

I'm borrowing from Keller here.

Covenantal, you have offended against the king.

Secondly, it would be Marital.

Marital infidelity, spiritual idolatry.

And then thirdly, religious.

We're looking for salvation somewhere.

Idolatry at its root is always a heart issue.

It's pernicious and it's subtle.

Our hearts are always idle factories.

Many of you have heard that before from Calvin and others.

Every, in and put it another way, every human heart is made for eternity.

We read that in Ecclesiastes.

Every human heart is made for eternity.

A God-shaped hole, might be one way to say it.

In the world, the evil one, our own flesh, is they're always cranking out new deities for us to bow to, to find what?

Freedom, peace, or security of some kind, salvation, peace, or security.

That's the promise.

We see it in our text here.

Look at verse 25 with me.

Demetrius begins his speech not by talking about his great love for their goddess, so this is pagan, their goddess Artemis.

He starts with his great love for his wealth.

That's why I had you highlight that circle that before he ever gets to honoring the goddess Artemis or the civic pride of Ephesus, the words of his mouth betray a heart idol underlying the silver trinkets that he's making, the little Christmas ornaments that he's selling.

And what does wealth promise if we love, trust, and obey it as an ultimate thing?

Freedom, peace, security.

So let's start with a few definitions.

And I think one of the better, I would call it a side door kind of definition of idolatry is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson of all people.

He was a 19th-century writer and philosopher who actually walked away from the Christian faith.

He thought deity actually was inside all of us.

He walked away from the Christian faith, yet he recognized something true about the human condition.

He says a person will worship something.

Have no doubt about that.

We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out.

That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives and our character.

Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship.

For what we are worshiping, we are becoming.

If I answer that question with anything other than God Himself, then that's what functions as a God for me.

Great description there.

I might even say idolatry is wanting too little.

We're going to a created thing for something that only God can provide.

Idols turn us away from the living God and towards a creative thing.

Idols aren't simply trinkets, they are the loves, the desires, the thought patterns, longings that we give ourselves to fully, give ourselves to ultimately.

Good, finite things that become bloated, distended, and they pop because they cannot bear the weight.

Absolute.

We try to make these finite things absolute, and they can never bear the weight of meaning or purpose, of suffering or joy.

Idols are weak.

So, two, my second question is how is an idol weak?

Created things are credited with power that belongs to God alone.

We dethrone God, or we try to dethrone God, and we enthrone some created thing.

And again, we can see this clearly in our text today.

For two hours they cry out to their goddess, this mantra, great is Artemis, great is Diana.

Demetrius actually said something with common sense, probably didn't even notice, notice it.

Paul, he said this: Paul is preaching that gods made with hands are not gods.

Yeah.

Common sense from a place that we wouldn't expect it.

The sermon's over now.

We can go to lunch.

Artemis needed a silversmith to fashion her, a mob to keep her propped up, a town clerk to settle everyone down.

Idols are weak and they will crumble when we give ourselves over to them.

Being satisfied or trying to be satisfied by their promise of freedom, salvation, peace, or security apart from God.

The first of the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other gods before me.

Why?

Well, in part because God's glory is also for our good.

And we reverse that order to our own peril.

To make this more practical, when you and I sin, so let's talk about the category of sin for a second.

Let's say I lie to a friend.

I shade the truth a little to save face or to make them like me a little bit more.

Underneath that lie is something that I'm bowing to.

The idol of approval, man's approval.

The idol is preaching to me its own little gospel.

If they approve of me, I'll be okay.

Salvation, security.

Of course, the promise is empty as it actually fractures, that fracturing of my integrity only serves to diminish me, dishonor my friend, and dishonor God.

There's a heart idol underneath every sin.

There's something we're bowing to.

Here's another example: Will Smith, a bastion of uh philosophical fortitude, the actor.

He actually said something quite profound.

The interviewer he was uh talking with mentioned his roughly$350 million net worth.

And I looked that up and it's true.

And this is what Will Smith says about that.

What happens is you just realize that none of it can make you happy.

And you know, once you bought everything and you want, and there's nothing on earth that you want to buy because there's nothing material can do to satisfy you, it's like drinking salt water.

You'll just never get enough.

You're just gonna make yourself more and more thirsty.

Idols are weak.

They're empty.

Psalm 115.

Psalmist got this.

He says, They have mouths speaking of idols but do not speak, eyes but do not see.

They have ears but do not hear.

Those who make them become like them.

And so do all who trust in them.

They are weak.

But idols are also remarkably powerful.

Look at that last phrase there.

Those who make them become like them.

They change us, they form us.

So what is an idol?

How is an idol weak?

How is an idol powerful?

A threatened idol turned this mob, turned this city into a mob scene.

Most of them didn't even know why they were there.

Yeah, yeah.

What are we shouting about?

There's confusion.

Idols attempt to dethrone God, but idols also debase man at the same time.

Just like with my example of the lie or Will Smith and his wealth.

The gospel of Jesus, the true gospel, actually promises us restoration.

The God of the Bible comes on a rescue mission for you and me, those who have turned to other gods, who have bowed to other gods.

He still comes after us.

That's the gospel of Jesus.

In the gospel of Jesus, we're given the gift of redemption, all of grace.

We turn to him in faith and repentance.

An idol demands our love and our trust and our obedience, and then it promises later freedom, peace, or security.

So we give everything to the idol, and it promises something later is going to come.

Every idol has a gospel, it's promising something.

Idols, Matt Smithhurst says, Your body must be broken for me.

Jesus says, This is my body broken for you.

Idolatry can actually be exhausting.

It's it's tyranny, it's a heavy burden.

Psalm 23 is probably the most well-known passage in the Bible.

It contains the gospel in miniature.

It's a heart turning to the Lord for the only source of salvation for peace and security.

The side of the cross, we know that the entire psalm is fulfilled ultimately in Christ our Lord.

The Lord is my shepherd, David says.

Yahweh is my shepherd.

I shall not want.

I have everything I need in him.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

His presence is my peace.

I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Salvation and security in him alone.

He will hold us fast.

A promised salvation and security, bought with the precious blood of Christ and sealed with his resurrected body.

David's heart was confident in the truth and the goodness and beauty, but also the power, the saving power of this God Yahweh, God alone.

So let's bring this into our world for a minute.

When we turn to anything to find what only God can provide, we are inverting the truth.

We exchange the glory of the immortal God for the glory of mortal man or something else, some other created thing.

Glenn Pacquiaum is a pastor out in California.

He helps tease this out a little bit in one category of our current moment.

The screen is my shepherd.

There is so much I want.

It makes me lie awake past midnight.

It leads me beside endless reels and video shorts, and it fills my soul with anxiety.

It guides me to more clicks for its metric's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of doom scrolling, I will fear no boredom, for the algorithm is with me.

Notifications and noise, they distract me.

You prepare the next episode in the presence of my responsibilities.

You spike my brain with dopamine, and my screen time runneth over.

Surely my metadata will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the cloud forever.

We should laugh, because this is absurd.

But it's so illustrative because idolatry is always absurd.

Sin is always absurd.

Why would we exchange the glory of the immortal God for the glory, the sub-glory of anything else?

Looking to a created thing for something only God can provide, just like Demetrius, who says some common sense and he doesn't even know he's saying it, Paul's preaching that gods made with hands aren't gods.

The inverted Psalm 23 that Paccium wrote is a good diagnostic.

It shows us a heart that might be ruled by a finite created thing, a love and a trust and obedience that's hiding in plain sight.

And that's what idolatry can do.

It's hiding in plain sight often.

Now, the allure of technology may not be an idol that you bow to, I don't know.

But do you see how subtle, pernicious an idol can become?

My career is my shepherd.

You have so much that I want, career.

You keep me up at all hours, you give me an identity.

That relationship is my shepherd.

They have everything I want.

My desires are my shepherd.

You promise me desires everything that I want, all that I want.

Your pleasure runneth over.

My political party is my shepherd.

It promises me everything that I want.

It makes me lie awake at night in fear.

Every idol has a gospel, and it tells us that Christ is not enough.

But we need to return to verse 20 again.

I think this is the key of the entire text here.

The word of the Lord continues to increase and prevail mightily.

That gives us some insight into the freedom of the gospel of Jesus.

What can dethrone an idol?

Well, we don't dethrone it, we don't uproot it, let's use that metaphor for a second, simply by choosing to cut them down, these idols, every time they creep up, like a weed.

We don't uproot idols of our hearts with more discipline alone or more effort alone, although we're certainly called to fight against anything that turns us away from the Lord.

But again, Paul didn't run around with protest signs.

Nothing wrong with that, but that's not what he was doing.

He was opening up the Word of God, and the power of God through his spirit was changing one heart at a time, and it was changing a culture.

We are sinners, dead in our dread trespasses.

This was the gospel that Paul was preaching.

We are sinners.

We are dead in our trespasses, turned away from God, yet in his great mercy he has drawn near to us in Christ.

This is what he was preaching.

He took, Jesus did upon himself everything necessary to bring us salvation, freedom, to set us free from the chains of sin, to reconcile us peace between us and a holy God, and secures for us an eternal home with him in heaven.

That was the gospel that Paul was preaching, opening the scriptures and the Spirit was moving.

The love in God in Christ, the love of God in Christ dethrones and declaws every idol, Scotty Smith says.

We don't have to love created things less.

Let's get that right.

We don't have to despise our careers.

We don't have to reject the good gift of financial provision or any other gift.

We need to reorder our loves properly.

That's what idolatry is.

It's putting one of these things down here up at the top, exchanging the glory, the immortal God for the glory of a created thing.

We need to come back, this is simple, but we need to come back to the cross again and again and again.

To remind us just how desperate our situation was before Christ and just how gloriously loved we are in Christ.

That He has come after you and me, the incomprehensible love of God poured out on us, justified, made right, peace with God, but also, perhaps even more than that, adopted.

Justification makes a way for our adoption as his children, fully loved, so we can say, our Father who art in heaven.

It's a recalibrating of our hearts in worship.

That's when idols begin to melt.

Because they no longer compare, deeper satisfaction in Christ is how we push the old leaves off.

This is what happens in Ephesus, and it's the same cure for us: recalibrating our hearts in worship so that our hearts are warmed by the unending, matchless love of God in Christ Jesus for me and for you.

Michael Reeves says, like wax, the heart takes the shape of that which warms it.

When the word of God increases and prevails mightily in a heart, in a family, in a city, the power of the Spirit of God can take marriages that are in tatters and they can restore them.

Those bound in the slavery of lust or lying or anger can walk in freedom.

Do you know that?

Those who are bound to anger, outsized anger, can actually be exchanged for outsized joy.

Idols begin to crumble when their false gospel is exposed by the bright light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that allows us, you and me, to rest in the inexhaustible love of God, set free from the exhausting tyranny of idolatry.

And that's what it is.

It is tyranny.

That's the gospel.

Do this.

Demand, demand, demand.

And I'm going to promise freedom, peace, and security later.

But the gospel of Jesus is different.

Jesus said, Come to me, all who you labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you.

Learn from me.

I'm gentle and holy.

And I'll give you rest.

Would you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, we confess our need of you this morning again and again.

And we give you thanks that you have provided our every need.

Your yoke.

Your provision of peace with God.

Secured, held fast in your grip until you return again.

I pray, Lord, that you'd bring freedom today.

Rest from the tyranny of idols that we might have bowed to.

Reveal to us, Lord, areas of our heart that need uprooting, that need to push out old ways of thinking and old ways of living so that we might experience the true joy and satisfaction of walking in your ways to the glory of your name.

In Christ Jesus, we all said.

Amen.