American Idols

Into a violent world that prized only power, came a movement motivated by love. A few frightened failures huddled in one room became a global phenomenon, fanning across their world within 30 years. With no army, no politics, no detailed strategy, they changed history. How did it happen? And can it happen again? This is Acts Odyssey.

Well, good morning. My name is Rene and I'm another one of the pastors here at TLC. And this fall we have been going through the book of Acts in the Bible. That's the book that the Apostle Luke wrote that talks about how this whole Jesus movement thing got started. And joining us via video this morning is Aromas Bible Church out in Aromas. So put your hands together and let's welcome them watching us on video. Also welcome if you're watching us on the TLC app or on the web. And there is a school in the Masai Mara in Kenya, Africa that has been joining us every weekend as well. So it's amazing seeing this go out.

Also we've got a companion book that we put together for this series. If you're just joining us this week, I urge you to pick it up at the info desk. All the proceeds go to the church and if you don't have the money you can get one for free. And if you're watching online you can also get it at Amazon or at iTunes.

Now before we dig into the text for today, I want to make a special announcement that's really close to my heart. One of the things we've been saying in this series is we don't just want to study Acts. We want to do Acts. We want to be like these early followers of Jesus Christ. And one of the things that the book of Acts talks about them doing over and over and over again is ministries of compassion. Taking up offerings to give to the poor and to the hungry. You see that happen repeatedly in the book of Acts.

And the way we want to do it this month is collect donations for our local food bank Second Harvest and our own food pantry that gives out food each Wednesday. One thing I personally love about Second Harvest food bank down in Watsonville frankly is it's not a government agency. It is a completely locally owned and operated independent nonprofit food bank. Here's how it works. They get veggies and fruit and bread and protein from local sources. We're blessed with such a bounty right where we live.

And then they keep it in their huge cool rooms that they've built there. And then they distribute that food back every day through about 200 local neighborhood food pantries, mostly churches like ours. And this might surprise you, the typical person who receives food is an employed head of household supporting a family that just needs help. That again might surprise you.

And what I want to do is I want you to meet some of these people in each church service in November so you can put a face to the people that you'll be helping via video. So let's meet this week's guest.

When I first moved here, I started working at Seagate. And then I know I took a couple other jobs. You know, there were temporary jobs. And then I got a job at the school district. I was there for 20 years. I, you know, we have right now we have two beautiful children. And it was, I was happy. And then I made a mistake. The mistake costed me my job. And the only thing I could do is just move on.

I got a job with First Alarm. And I've been working there ever since. It doesn't pay a lot. It doesn't pay anything near what the school district paid. But I was like able to lucky to find that job. And now I support a job. The job supports me, Joy, and my two teenagers. And it's not enough sometimes. A lot of times. I make about $700 every two weeks. And knowing Santa Cruz County, that's not enough, you know, and so I'm just, you know, fortunate for the food bank because I get to come here and get the stuff I need for them to feed my family, which is, you know, the breads, you know, the vegetables, the canned food so that I can give vegetables, make, make meals with making make, make wholesome meals.

After I lost my job with the school district, I was I was scared. I didn't know how to feed my family. I didn't know what I was gonna do. It was just hard. So I can tell you in a I went on. I went on General Assistance for a minute. That gives you what $500 for the month. That is nothing. Luckily, my landlord was was was caring enough and was able to let me try to pay what I can until I got back on my feet. That's how long I've been living at that spot.

We still we do we do struggle with bills. But we don't let that stop us from being a family. If it wasn't for this place for the food pantry at Twin Lakes, I don't know where to get the food the last day of the month. It's hard. It gives me hope. It gives me a lot of hope. It makes me feel like I can go home and still feel like a man. That's very important. They can make something back and I can give them breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know, it might not be the greatest dinners, but it's still a rounded out meal. They get to get fruits, they get vegetables and they get pasta and they get everything they need. You need to so that they can eat a decent meal. And I get that right here from the food pantry at Twin Lakes Church.

That's a powerful story, isn't it? It's real life people, you know, it's not theoretical. And if you would like to help people, so many thousands of people like Tony and Joy and others, here's the way we figure it. I kind of call it the 40/40 plan. And we work this out just mathematically. If every single person that attends TLC, I mean, man, woman, child, everybody individually gave 40 pounds and $40 total during this food drive or any combination of that that adds up to 80, then if we all were able to do that, that would add up to 1 million pounds of food. And I love that number because it sounds like such a God-sized amount, right?

Now, I realize not everybody can do that and some of us can do more. So I'd ask you to prayerfully consider, the food drive ends on the first weekend of December. Just pray about how you can help and we'll have envelopes and bins starting next weekend.

Now, let's dig into our Acts study for today. I want to give you a quick recap. Watch the screen. Here's what happened so far. First, at the beginning of Acts, Christ has been crucified and it looks like the movement that he started is just as dead. And then, his frightened followers burst out of the room that they've been hiding in with the news, Jesus is alive. And suddenly these people are not afraid of anyone or anything, no matter what death threats they get because they proclaim the resurrection can be our future too. And Jesus is the Messiah.

And then persecution scatters these believers. The religious leaders start arresting and killing Christians. And as the Christians make their escape to the rest of the world to their amazement, pagans flood into the movement, Romans and Africans and Greeks. And this takes these Jewish believers totally by surprise. So they go back to Jerusalem, they hold a council. What is a Christian? What about all these non-Jews? Do they have to convert to Judaism and keep all the Torah laws? And they make a conclusion that changes history. We are saved by grace through faith, not by works. And that message spreads like wildfire.

We saw last weekend, the apostle Paul goes to a new continent, to Europe, and pagans respond in huge ways. And after a few years there, Paul goes back across the sea to Asia Minor, to the largest city he's been in yet, to Ephesus, which was famous for having one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Temple of Artemis. Many times bigger than even the Parthenon in Athens. It was by far the most touristed site of the ancient world. And the big money maker there was the goddess statue. Because tourists liked to collect little souvenirs of the shrine to take home as kind of memorabilia that they'd actually visited.

But Paul's message is having an interesting consequence. It's causing trade in her idol to disappear. And the people who make her souvenirs don't like it. And that is where our story picks up today. In Acts chapter 19, starting in verse 24. I want to read you the story and draw three quick principles before we move into communion.

In verse 24, a guy named Demetrius, and this is an interesting fact, the British Museum has an inscription in marble from Ephesus from this time period thanking a list of benefactors to the temple. And the first name on the list is Demetrius. So it could be this very same guy. Demetrius makes a speech to the other souvenir makers and related trades. And he says, "You know, my friends, we receive a good income from this business." And you can see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia.

He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also of course that the temple of the great goddess Artemis herself will be discredited and that the goddess who has worshipped throughout the province of Asia and the world will be robbed of her divine majesty. And when they heard this they were furious and began shouting, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" And soon the whole city was in an uproar and the people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia. And all these people rushed into the theater together.

And I want to show you something because archaeologists have unearthed the very theater where this happened. It seats about 25,000 people. And you can just imagine this is the very site of this Bible story. It's perfectly preserved because Ephesus was completely abandoned for centuries and silt covered up all of its streets and buildings. And only about a hundred years ago archaeologists started unearthing this stuff. And in the book I go into a lot more detail about the archaeology there and a secret archaeological site not open to the public that we got to explore on one of our visits there. But you'll have to look at the book to get more details.

So imagine this massive crowd filling these exact seats and they're all calling for Paul's blood. They're so mad. And I love this next verse because it shows you so much of Paul's personality. Verse 30, "Paul wanted to appear before the crowd but the disciples would not let him." Can you imagine? Many times in Acts, Luke writes sort of humorous asides and I think this is one of them. He's writing about his good friend Paul and he says, "These people are all bloodthirsty." And he's like, "25,000 people! Let me at them! I know I can persuade them all to believe in Jesus." But the disciples say, "Uh, no Paul. That would be foolishness."

Now watch this. Verse 31, "Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater." Don't overlook this verse here. It tells us a lot because the word used there for officials of the province, that's a phrase in English but in the original Greek it's one interesting unique word, Asiarchs, like monarchs of Asia. The Asiarchs were the people who ruled over Ephesus and this whole province of the Roman Empire. They were usually people from famous wealthy families or former elected officials and they were ultimately in charge of not only the temple of Artemis but also the temple of Caesar. And yet they're friends of Paul. Isn't that intriguing to you?

Even though Paul did not agree with their religion, did not agree with a lot of their politics, the Asiarchs who ran these pagan temples apparently did not find Paul to be belligerent. He even forged friendships with them. And is this not a great example for you and me? Especially in an election year. That shows me two things. Number one, you should be engaged, civically engaged. Paul was engaged in what was going on politically. He was not a political person and yet he was making friends with these politicians. He kind of understood who the influences were. There's nothing wrong with that.

And number two, you can actually still be friends with people you disagree with on fundamental levels. In fact, you should be if you're going to live like Paul or live like Jesus. You should be because they both did this. All right, what happens next? The assembly was in confusion. Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people didn't even know they were there. Luke says they shouted for two hours. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians for two hours. Over and over. It's just, it's like the Raiders games, I think. This is like the black hole has taken over. Ephesus here.

And again, imagine these same stands jammed with this mob, just echoing this chant for two hours. I think that's interesting because then the city clerk gets up and talks to them. I think he waited until they shouted themselves out. The crowd was flooded with emotion, right? They were flooded with adrenaline. And when somebody is flooded like that, it's pointless to try to reason with them. And so the city clerk very wisely kind of lets them go on and on for two hours, lets them get exhausted.

And by the way, city clerk is not a great translation. We would call him the mayor. He was in charge of convening the city council meetings and everything. He was in charge of the town and he was an Asiarch. So he was probably one of those friends of Paul. And he says a speech to summarize. He says, "Listen, we all know Artemis is great. So don't do anything rash. Calm down, everybody." Now look at this. He says, verse 37, "You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples, they've done no harm, nor blasphemed our goddess." Again, this is a very revealing verse. Don't overlook this.

Paul apparently did not go around blasting Artemis. He didn't have marches against the temple of Artemis. He didn't carry around posters around town, "Down with Artemis of the Ephesians." All he did was preach a positive message and the negative took care of itself. And this is so important for us as Christians. It is so tempting when something is going on in society to make our whole conversation about how we are against that or against this. Apparently, Paul did not do that because he realized part of his goal was actually to persuade these Asiarchs and the people they influenced to follow Jesus. So why would he blaspheme their goddess? But somehow he was able to preach against idolatry and not cross that line. How?

Well, here's how it works. I read about the scrub oak tree, the California scrub oak this past week. You're saying, "Where is Rene going with this?" Listen, you get a lot of beautiful fall colors this time of year, right, from Aspens up in the Sierra or from liquid Ambers. We've got those on our street. Not from the scrub oak. The scrub oak, though it's a deciduous tree, stays green all through fall, all through winter. You know when the scrub oak loses its leaves? In the spring. You know how it loses its leaves? The new leaves push off the old ones. That's how it works.

And I read this and I thought, "What a great illustration of how the spiritual life works." Right? The new leaves push off the old one. In Ephesus, it wasn't some big mob or storm or protest or vandalism against the temple that blew away the appeal of the temple of Artemis. It was the growth of new life in people's souls that just automatically pushed out the old. And the issue just took care of itself. And that is how the Gospel works in people's lives. You don't have to go negative. You preach the Gospel and the rest takes care of itself. That's what Paul did. He apparently kept it positive.

And then the town clerk says, "Everyone, if you've got a grievance against Paul, go to the courts. This riot is over." Now, why does God, speaking through Luke, take up 20 verses to tell us about a riot? This is huge. Listen, these days, both skeptics and Christians are having a struggle trying to define what is real Christianity, right? And there's kind of a battle going on over that. Many, many times when people tell me that they're not believers, I ask them, "What do they mean? What do they not believe?" And after they tell me, I often say, "Well, you know what? I don't believe that either." Or when they tell me that they don't like church, I say, "Well, what is it about church that you don't like?" And again, I often find myself agreeing with them. I say, "Well, I don't like it when churches don't like that either."

And see, that is the major struggle that is going on in Acts as the Christian movement is very young. What is real Christianity and what are its evil counterfeits, right? Well, in the first half of Acts, that struggle was against legalism, religiosity, moralism. And if you want to take notes on this, it's on the second page here of your message notes. The whole idea that God will only accept me or only truly bless me if I do these things or if I keep these rules, that's legalism. And the disciples decided at the Council in Jerusalem in Acts 15, "No, we are saved by grace alone." But if you only thought legalism, you'd miss half the battle.

In the second half of Acts, the battle is on a different front. As Paul moves from the religiosity, legalistic, churchianity center of the world in Jerusalem and he moves into the pagan world, the struggle is against something else, idolatry. Idolatry. And the way you pick this up is what was the major objection against Paul by Demetrius back in verse 26? He says, "This fellow Paul says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all." Now, if you're following Acts and you look carefully, this is Paul's message in all of the pagan cities. A couple of chapters before this in Athens, verse 29 of Acts 17, "We should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human design and skill." In Acts 14, the very first time Paul preaches to a pagan crowd, he says, "We're bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God." If you look at it, Paul always preached on idolatry to the pagans and he always preached on legalism to the Christians coming out of a Jewish background. Fascinating. And we need to hear both today.

Now, you might ask, "Well, are there really idols today? Do we really have to talk about idols now, René? We don't live in a pagan culture anymore. People don't believe in those old gods anymore." But idolatry is actually so relevant. Watch this. If you went to ancient cities, you'd see idols like this on every corner and these are some of the ones that you would have seen. There was a goddess of food. There was a goddess of beauty and pleasure, a god of merchants and business people. There was a god of wine, a goddess of revenge. There was a god of music and art and drama and entertainment. And you look at that and you go, "What superstitious people they were." But don't you see? They just admitted something that we don't admit. Really, they were just overt about something that we're covert about. They were just obvious about something that we're blind to.

That anything, any goal, any activity can turn into a kind of salvation, a kind of god. We don't call it that today, but we're worshiping it. Look at those gods. Still today, food can be an idol. Beauty and pleasure can be an idol. Business can be a god. Wine can be an idol or other substances. An obsession with revenge, some entertainer or entertainment can become an idol. See, what is an idol if it doesn't mean bowing down to a literal statue? I like the way Tim Keller defines it. He says, "You may believe in God. You may even believe in Christian teaching. You may even go to church all the time. But if there is anything that is functionally more important to your happiness, your hope, your identity, your meaning than God, then that functionally is your god." Idolatry is not doing bad things. Idolatry is taking good things and making them ultimate things. Isn't that a good definition?

See, when people think of sin, they often think of, oh, you know, maybe drug addiction or alcoholism or things that might put people on skid row. And of course, those are destructive things. But idolatry is sneakier than that because idolatry is taking things like family, your children, your parents' approval, your career, money, achievement, acclaim, your moral record, pleasure, and making those good things ultimate things, things you sacrifice everything else for. And here's how you can tell the difference. If you try to take something away from somebody and it's a good thing to them, they'll get sad or they'll get mad. But if you try to take something away from somebody and it's an ultimate thing, they won't just get sad, they'll go ballistic, as you see here in Acts 19 in the riot.

See, the language of idolatry, and we've talked about this many times, would be something like this. Yes, absolutely, I believe in God and that's super important to me, but if I only had that, then I'd really be happy. Ever think like that? I do. So three quick observations about idols today. So we can all be on our guard against this. Jot this down. Number one, idols are everywhere. Anything can become an idol. Sports can be an idol. Politics can be an idol. If you think, ultimately, my savior and the savior of this nation is politics, that's an idol because it's taking the place of your savior.

There was an article written by somebody who lived in Boston, DC, and New York. Show of hands, has anybody here lived in any of these cities, Boston, DC, or New York? Several of you. All right, well, see the degree with this. This is not a Christian article at all, but they said they felt like the God of Boston is knowledge and education. The God of Washington, DC, is power and influence. The God of New York is money because these are the gods that people sacrifice everything for. Now, I was thinking about this and I thought, what would the God of California be? And it's easy to look at cities far away and go, "Okay, yeah, I can see that about DC and Boston and New York, but what about us?" It's a little bit more difficult to think of us, to think this close about Santa Cruz.

So I thought, let me start with LA. You know, that's easy, right? And one thing popped to my mind, the God of LA, I think, is beauty and fame. Would you agree with that? I mean, I used to live in Southern California. Everybody's getting nipped and tucked and wants to be famous all the time, right? So what about here in Santa Cruz? I actually think it's different. I really don't think it's physical beauty here. I don't think. No offense. But have you noticed this? Have you noticed how in LA, has anybody here lived in Orange County or LA or San Diego, any place down there? People there, when they pick up their kids from school or drop off their kids to school in the morning, they will not do it unless they are dressed to kill. And all the moms are wearing their LA uniform, they're all bottle blondes, and they all kind of are wearing yoga pants or whatever. They all look exactly the same, right? Here, people pick up their kids from school in their pajamas. It's clearly not beauty here. That is not our God. It's not what we have to worry about, right? So what is it?

Well, it's interesting. I was reading a speech given at a UC campus by Robert Bella. He was a famous professor up at UC Berkeley. He died just a couple of years ago. He won the Pulitzer Prize. And he did thousands of interviews with people around Berkeley where he taught to determine what are they living for. In other words, what's their religion really? And that's how he put it. What's their religion? And here's what he observed about the culture there. I think this totally applies to Santa Cruz too, you know, Berkeley on the beach. And he believed that this was spreading to the whole country. He said, "At the heart of our culture is radical expressive individualism." Would you agree with that? And here's what he meant by that. A restless and relentless pursuit of individual autonomy. A quest for the self. Stripping off the obligations and restraints imposed by others until at last we find the true self which is unique and individual and entirely different from anyone else. Isn't that good?

This is not a pastor. This is a professor at Berkeley. And how it applies to religion is this. He says, "Americans feel no one has the right to tell them who God is. No one has the right to tell them what to believe. They have the right to shape their own spirituality, their own faith. They have the right to worship their watch this, their own self-designed religion." Now what's another word for self-designed religion? Idolatry. Isn't that exactly the definition of the very thing Paul says is wrong? Don't design gods of your own design and skill. So idols are everywhere. It is just inescapable. And we all struggle with this. Christians struggle with this too.

But idols are empty. They're just empty. They do not satisfy. This week I was reading, or rather rereading, an article about Ben Burt. And you may recognize that name if you're a movie fan. Ben Burt created all the sound effects for all of the Star Wars movies, all of the George Lucas movies, and more. Every squeak and pop of R2-D2, every lightsaber swoosh, all of that was created by Ben Burt. And he's won many Oscars, many Academy Awards for it. But the night he won this Oscar, he was going back to his car and he was putting it in his trunk when it slipped and crashed to the ground and broke into pieces. That very statue right there. And he says he felt like it was God tapping him on the shoulder and saying, "Ben, look. There's your golden idol. There's everything you sacrifice for. But look at it. It's nothing." And he says that night he recommitted his life to Jesus.

Now in his case, that did not mean leaving his job. In fact, he's won several Oscars since then. But he says, "I actually enjoy my job so much more now. I'm so much more relaxed about it because it's no longer my idol." Now here's why idols are worthless. Paul says these worthless things turn from these worthless things away from them and to God. Here's why they're worthless. Here's why they're empty. Ernest Becker's a writer. He's another Pulitzer Prize winner and again, not a Christian. I love to quote people who are not necessarily believers because that way you won't think this is all just Sunday school propaganda. This is stuff that people in general and society are noticing. He says, "Okay, so now that we don't believe in God as a society," and what he's meaning is we seem to be turning into more and more of an atheist or agnostic society. He says, "What are we going to do?" He says, "We're investing our secular world, sports, sex, romance, work," watch this, "with the same kind of devotion and spiritual significance that people used to give only to God and faith." Isn't that interesting? Even he notices it.

And he gives one example, romance. He says, "We still need to know that our life matters in the grand scheme of things, but if we no longer have God, how are we going to do this?" One way is the romantic solution. The love partner becomes the divine ideal within which to fulfill your life. So all of our spiritual and moral needs that we have that used to be focused on God become focused on the individual. And he says, "Here's the problem. If there's anybody in your life that you put basically in the place of God that you rely on that much," watch this, "you will crush that person with your expectations and they will crush you with their imperfections." So true. Idolatry ends up ruining the very thing that it idolizes, right? It ends up ruining your relationship, ruining your experience at work, actually ruining how much you're enjoying your career because you're putting it on too high because you're making a good thing an ultimate thing.

Idols are everywhere. Idols are empty. And here's the really forgotten thing about idols. Idols are expensive. In ancient times, idols are always demanding sacrifice. And of course, they still do today. Maybe your career is your idol, and we all know that'll produce workaholism. But you know, for some of you, parental approval is the idol that's driving you. And until God's love is more important to you than that, you'll be a slave to it. But remember what Paul says, "God is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else." It says Acts 19, 25. That's actually Acts 17, 25. Idols... But look what he's saying. Idols demand to be served. But what does God do? He himself what? Gives. That's the difference between God and idols. God is a giver. God's not a taker. In other words, one word, grace.

Watch this. I just read an article by Derwin Gray, and he was a pro football player for many years with the Indianapolis Colts. And he said in this article, "Pro football was my God." He says, "Football functioned as my savior. It gave me love. If I played well, I was loved by fans. It gave me significance. I was somebody because I was a great player." But then he started to get injured. And he says, "I was letting my God, football, down. I was unable to serve it." Well, one day a player on the Colts told him about Jesus, that we didn't have to earn the love of God because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. And he says, "Suddenly I realized God loved me, not because I could run fast or jump high, or even because I was good, or for what I could give him." He says, "The message was so compelling, he turned to Christ and he says, 'That day I got infected with a virus called grace. The symptoms are now full blown.'" Don't you love that?

See, that's the answer to idolatry. You don't need to love your family less. You don't need to love your work less. You need to love God more than those things. So how do you do that? You can't go home and go, "Okay, I'm going to love God more. I'm going to try and love God more." Right? Love doesn't work that way. You can't try harder. Here's the answer. You know, in the Hebrew Scriptures, God compared idolatry to a spouse committing adultery. And he said to the idolatrous Israelites, "Come back to me because I'm your husband and I love you so much." Well, watch this. When our church study tour was in Ephesus in the theater last year, I was doing a talk on this very story right in the theater where it took place. It was pretty cool.

And as I made this point that the answer to our drift away from God isn't trying harder, it's realizing that God loves us like a groom loves a bride. And when we see that, that's where we leave our idols behind and fall back in love with him. And as I said those words, this bride and groom walked into the theater like a perfectly timed visual aid. And they were the only other people in the whole theater besides us, as you can see here in this picture I snapped with my phone, because I was not facing them. My back was to them and I was looking at our group and they were facing this. And then as I said, as a bride and groom, and then these people walked in, I didn't even see it, and our whole group went, "Oh!" And so I turned around and they all thought that I'd hired actors. They did, to illustrate the point. But it was just God saying, "Here's how much I love you." Like a passionate groom and bride love each other.

And the way God ultimately showed the depth of his passionate love was to give himself coming to earth in Jesus Christ and then sacrificing himself on the cross for our sins. You don't do that for somebody unless you love them very much. And God does love you that much. And so the answer to idolatry is you see the love of God in Christ. And you let the beauty of what he did on the cross capture your heart. You think of Jesus and what he did for you. And you just let your heart be melted by that. You see yourself as the bride who is the beloved. You let your imagination be enthralled by that. Until people are just people. And money's just money. And a job is just a job. And you are free.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much that you didn't leave us and you don't leave us to our idolatry. Instead you woo us back. Thank you that Jesus died on the cross so that we can love you more. And God help us to do that in the power of your spirit. Right now as we take communion help us to have our imaginations captured by the love of Jesus Christ for us. In your name we pray. Amen.