Idolatry is the issue

1. The number one problem in the Bible?

A. If we start scratching at whatever struggle we are dealing with, we will eventually find that behind the struggle is an idol, a false god that we are worshiping.

1. And until that god is dethroned, and the Lord God takes His rightful place, we will not experience victory and we will not move forward spiritually.

2. And so idolatry is not an issue, but it is the issue.

B. The apostle Paul wrote that greed was not just bad behavior, but that greed is idolatry (Col. 3:5). Put to death therefore what is earthly in you:[a] sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

C. In Ezekiel 14:3, God says about elders of Israel: “These men have set up idols in their hearts…” “Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them?

1. Counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth livin

2. If anything becomes more fundamental than God to our happiness, meaning in life, and identity, then it is an idol.

II. Categories that idols fall into.

1. There are personal idols.

2. There are cultural idols

3. There are intellectual idols

Idolatry is the issue

So how do we identify what our idols are?

• Question One: What disappoints you?
• Question Two: What do you complain about the most?
• Question Three: Where do you make financial sacrifices?
• Question Four: What worries you?
• Question Five: What are your dreams?
• Question Six: What infuriates you?
• Question Seven: Where is your sanctuary?

There is only one true God who is worthy of our worship and through whom we find forgiveness and fulfillment of all our needs and longings.