Our Modern Day Idols

If you’re anything like me, you catch yourself reading the Old Testament with a judgy condescending perspective on how ridiculous it sounds for people who have seen MIRACULOUS works of God to turn around and worship statues and figures they created with their own hands.

It sounds NUTS.

But if you’ve ever ready Tim Keller’s Idol factory, you know that we are NO better.

Our idols might look a little more sophisticated…

A little more virtuous…

But they are idols nonetheless.

The Idol of Personal Development

There is nothing wrong with growing, in fact as believers we are to pursue growth. It’s called sanctification.

Here’s the thing though…

The counterfeit is sooooo close to that it can be hard to spot, which makes this an idol that so many solid believers find themselves coddling.

Personal development promises you the result of sanctification - a better, freer, more disciplined version of you - without the part where you die.

It’s becoming your best self, on your terms, for your glory.

It says you are the project, and you are also the one who fixes what’s broken, strengthens what’s weak, and creates the outcomes and results.

It FEELS like obedience. It looks good on the outside.

Reading, journaling, optimizing, “doing the work.” But sanctification was never meant to be the 2.0 version of you. It’s not just self improvement.

It’s dying to yourself, over and over, clinging to Christ, and letting him transform you as HE works in you while YOU work out your salvation.

It’s not about just becoming better so the world looks at you and says WOW, they are amazing…

Personal development hinges on you alone, and takes the raw materials and makes them better.

Sanctification is an intentional, focused pursuit of being conformed to God’s image after dying to yourself…

For HIS glory.

It’s knowing that until we see Him face to face, there will still be sin, brokenness, and unrefined things, but continually bringing those things to Him over and over again.

It’s knowing that, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6

The Idol of Social Justice

God is just.

He is the most just being in existence, and a faith that doesn’t care about the poor, the orphan, and the oppressed is not a faith Scripture would recognize.

Which is precisely why this one works.

The counterfeit isn’t injustice.

It’s a kingdom with no King.

It’s the longing for everything to finally be made right - a longing God himself put in you - cut off from the only One who can actually make it right.

It promises the new creation without the cross.

A world set right, with no repentance, no blood, no Christ, is not Biblical.

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8

Notice this verse doesn’t stop at “do justice.”

It binds it to walking humbly with your God.

Pull justice off of that, and you don’t have a smaller version of the Kingdom.

You have a different kingdom with you on the throne.

I said this in another piece and I’ll say it here - the moment “justice” no longer needs a Savior, it has stopped being the Kingdom and started being a counterfeit of it.

A right desire placed in the wrong hands.

It is NOT loving and gracious to IGNORE the most critical need to meet the most present one. In fact, it is harsh, cruel, and negligent.

To assume that apart from God…

We can set things in this world right by our own activism is not only contradictory to scripture, it’s idolatry.

The Idol of Patriotism and Politics

This one is going to make BOTH sides mad, but this is THE MOST prevalent one I see in today’s world…

Loving your country is not a sin.

Wanting good leaders, good laws, a flourishing place to raise your kids - that is a good and ordinary thing.

Scripture tells us to honor governing authorities and to pray for them.

None of that is the idol.

The idol is when the nation, or the party, becomes synonymous with the gospel.

When a leader, an idea, a party affiliation is elevated above God…

I see this with those who blindly support a side and those who blindly hate a side.

To center one country in the world is to ignore scripture, God’s heart for the world, and the very nature of our salvation.

To equate any one leader to a savior is idolatry.

To allow one person, one group, or one idea to control (positively or negatively) your every thought, action, and emotion is idolatry.

As believers, scripture is our authority, Christ is our King, and God is the only good, just, and holy leader.

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Philippians 3:20

I’ve watched this one quietly eat people I love, in both directions.

The tell is when you are more certain of your politics than your doctrine - when you’d break fellowship over a ballot faster than over a denial of Christ.

As believers we are called to be active citizens in the communities in which we live.

That means we can’t ignore politics, and we should want good things for the country we live in.

But nowhere in the New Testament do you see anyone pointing towards the government for solutions.

In Acts it wasn’t the government taking care of the poor and sharing everything in common, it was the church. Believers showing their love.

We don’t see New Testament writers rushing to politicians telling them how to solve the problems of the world - we see them calling the church to holiness first, then to love their neighbors.

Whether you think the government officials are saving the world or destroying it… it’s possible that this is becoming an idol.

The Idol of Productivity

H.B. Charles said, “the things you pray about are the things you trust God to handle; the things you neglect to pray about are the things you trust you can handle on your own.”

Productivity is our politically correct way of saying, I got this one God.

It counterfeits two things at once - God’s providence, and the worth he assigns you that you did not earn.

It whispers that you are what you produced this week.

That rest is for people who haven’t done enough yet. That a quiet, hidden, unimpressive day of faithfulness is a wasted one.

Unless the Lord builds a house,
its builders labor over it in vain;
unless the Lord watches over a city,
the watchman stays alert in vain.
² In vain you get up early and stay up late,
working hard to have enough food—
yes, he gives sleep to the one he loves.

Psalm 127:1-2

Often times the things God calls us to are the least efficient and the least productive.

It’s discipleship, parenting, evangelism, mercy ministries…

We should without a doubt be good stewards of our time and resources…

We should without a doubt pursue excellence in all we do…

We should avoid wasted time…

But we live in a world that measures our success by the volume of our accomplishments…

We build systems and softwares and optimize and iterate… in the name of productivity.

And there is nothing inherently wrong with that, but it’s EASY for this to become the idol we serve, and the identity we take on.

The Idol of Health and Wellness

Your body is a temple God’s given you to steward well.

But wellness culture is not selling you stewardship…

It’s selling you a quiet, well-marketed salvation from death, sickness, and suffering.

It’s selling you the idol of “controlling your destiny”.

“for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” 1 Timothy 4:8

Of SOME value…

Paul doesn’t say it’s worthless to pursue bodily training.

He says it’s small, and temporary, next to the thing that actually outlasts your body.

If I just eat clean enough… sleep optimized enough… cold-plunge and supplement and biohack enough… maybe I can hold it off.

Maybe the body can be the thing I ultimately control and preserve.

But the truth is, we can’t add a single day to our lives.

Every hair is counted, every day numbered.

So while scripture is clear that we are to take care of our bodies…

And living a healthy lifestyle is a standard a lot of believers have been really lax on…

When it becomes an obsession…

An un-surrendered area of your life…

It’s probably an idol.

The Idol of Boundaries

I know peeps won’t like this one…

There is real wisdom in understanding our limits and setting boundaries in certain areas.

Jesus withdrew. Scripture is clear about the role of rest and the Sabbath.

Not every relationship is safe, and naming that is not sin.

But “boundaries” has become a sanctified word for something that is actually in many ways, contradictory to scripture.

It replaces holiness and love by centering your comfort, and self-preservation.

It lets us call avoidance “discernment.”

It lets us cut off the very people God commands us to bear with, forgive, and not forsake - and feel righteous doing it.

It quietly excuses us from the local body the second the local body costs us something.

“…bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” Colossians 3:13

That is not a verse about tolerating abuse.

It’s a verse about the ordinary, grinding, sanctifying friction of actually being in community with sinners - the exact thing “boundaries” language now gives us permission to skip completely.

I’m not talking about protecting yourself from genuine abuse, and setting up necessary, realistic boundaries.

I’m talking about the version where every hard, sanctifying, die-to-yourself relationship gets relabeled “toxic” and walked away from.

Everything that feels overwhelming is an automatic no instead of a, “God give me the strength and capacity”.

The cross does not have a boundary around it.

If your limits have started protecting you from the exact people Christ would have you love, or doing hard things, because you just “can’t”, then boundaries might be an idol.

The Idol of Trauma

As someone who has experienced a good amount of trauma, I don’t want to be flippant about this one, but I am slowly watching it become the idol in our generation.

But first…

God is tender toward the broken hearted in a way the internet’s therapeutic language only imitates.

He is gracious, kind, and loving. He comforts us in our darkest days, and is not afraid of our big emotions.

Naming what happened to you is not weakness, and a faith that tells wounded people to just get over it is not the faith of the man called Jesus, who wept.

“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

He does not stand at a distance from your brokenness…

So hear me carefully when I say…

Trauma is real.

The idol isn’t acknowledging trauma… it’s in allowing it to define you.

It’s accepting it as your core identity.

It offers an explanation for everything in your life from strong feelings to overt sin.

It calls you to surrender nothing, and makes you a passive observer in the story of your life and sanctification.

It can name every reason you are the way you are, and yet gives you zero solutions.

“This is just who I am because of what was done to me” can be entirely true and still become the thing you build an altar to instead of “in Christ, I am a new creation.”

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

The most healing sentence I know isn’t that nothing happened to you and everything is fine.

It’s that what happened to you is real - and it is no longer the things that define you.

You are a child of God, created in His image, sourced by the power of the Holy Spirit.

You are loved, wanted, whole, and full of the power that can only come from God, through Christ.

If your history has become more determinative of your identity than your union with Christ, then your trauma might be an idol.

So.. what now?

Notice what all seven have in common…

Not one of them is a sin you’d confess on a Sunday or call an idol.

Every single one of them is a thing our culture, and often your church, either praises you for, or passively supports.

The golden calf at least had the decency to look like a golden calf.

These show up with “good fruit”, polished language, and often a lot of praise and affirmation.

So here is the only test I’ve found that actually works, and I have to use it on myself constantly…

Because I have made all of these things an idol at one point or another…

It isn’t “is this thing bad?” It’s almost never bad.

It’s this: if God asked me to lay it down tomorrow, would it feel like losing a habit - or like losing myself?

The thing you cannot imagine surrendering is the thing you are most likely worshiping.

The Israelites built theirs from melted-down gold because gold was what they had to give.

We build ours out of growth, and justice, and country, and discipline, and health, and limits, and even our own pain - because those are the most respectable materials we have.

The idol factory is still churning out idols.

If you are allowing things to define or control you…

If you are angered more by those who would challenge you in the areas above than you are by your own sin…

If you spend your time, money, and resources pursuing the above with greater intensity and focus than your own relationship with God…

It’s time to ask God to help you lay some things down.

And as someone who feels like I’ve had to do this more often than I care to admit, I know that sounds easy, and feels unbelievably difficult…

But obedience is the mark of a believer, so handing over our pretty polished golden calf is our first step towards that.