Crushing The Idols -Pastor Hope Carpenter

Oh yes, I am so thankful for Jesus today. I was a broken mess when he found me. And I am just so thankful for his grace and his mercy. How many of you out there can just say, I'm thankful for the grace and the mercy of God in my life? You know, we are all broken messes, right? All of us have issues. Broken messes. And we all need Jesus. But let me encourage you, just let me just stop right there and encourage you that this is a process. We are all in a lifelong process of becoming more like Jesus. Most of us want this quick fix, right? We like something to happen fast in our life. We want to get saved and all our problems go away. We want the quick fix. We want the alter experience. And that happens sometimes. But most of the issues in our life and is a process takes weeks, it takes months, it takes years. It is a lifelong process of crushing those idols in our life and carving off all the rough edges and dealing with our issues one issue at a time. Nobody wants to hear that. We don't want to work like that. But becoming like Jesus is a lifelong process. God is not like man. Let me establish that God is not like man. He's not like your mother, he's not like your grandmother. He's not like your husband. He's not like your kids. God does not want to date you. He doesn't just want to have a devotion at breakfast time with you. He doesn't just want to see you on Easter and Thanksgiving at the Christmas Eve service, right? He's a jealous God. He wants all of you. He wants all of us all the time. When things are going good, when things are going bad, when we're up, when we're down, when we got plenty of money, when we don't have any money, when you're going through a divorce, when you got a great marriage. God wants all of you all of the time. But we first have to establish, we first have to recognize that he's different. He's not like man. God is holy. He is holy. He's in a class all by himself. He is separate. He is other. There is nobody like him. Nobody can come up beside of him. There are no other gods like Him. He is the one true, only living holy God. But here's the thing about God. He's jealous. He is a jealous God. Exodus 34:14 says, do not worship other God. For the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. So here's the thing. When we're walking through life, Jesus picks us up. He finds us, we've got all these issues, and we realize we got to deal with them one issue at a time. And then there's so many things in this world, so many things in our life that are fighting for position in our heart. Fight, fighting for position in our lives, fighting for position in our time, in our money, in our thoughts, in our phones, in our possessions, in our calendars, in our careers. We are all wired to love and worship something. And we're all going to worship something or someone. And there is a war for your heart. There is a war for your love, there is a war for your passion. And the enemy knows that out of the overflow of your heart what it's full of, your mouth will speak. And when the mouth speaks, then your life produces it. Joshua 24:14 says, now therefore, fear the Lord, serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods and which your father served on the other side of the river in Egypt. Serve the Lord, and if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers served on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me, in my house, we will serve the Lord. He's saying right here, okay, it's time to choose. It's time to make a decision. Stop wavering back and forth. Stop saying one thing and doing another. Stop dancing all night at the club and then come into the oop. Didn't say that, did I? It's time to choose. It's time to make a decision. And change is hard. Change is difficult. If you've been eating fried chicken all of your life, right, and the doctor tells you you got to start eating grilled chicken for you to be healthy and for you to live, that's hard. Ephesians 4:22 says, Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by what? It's deceitful desires. Put off your old self because you're just messing yourself up, because that's old and corrupt and deceitful desires. What it's saying is, stop eating fried chicken. It's killing you. Stop chasing the approval of man. Stop chasing your career instead of chasing God. Stop hoarding and loving money more than you love to be a giver. It's not yours anyway. We all want to be holy. We want to please the Lord. But how is this change achieved? It's not instant. We know that. It is a process. We've established that. But what is it called? What is it called? Biblically it's called sanctification. This is that old school, old church term that we, I grew up in the old Pentecostal Holiness Church, and we were told and taught sanctification just about every Sunday. But how is it achieved? Sanctification? Listen, two things we got to establish about sanctification. It's both positional and it's progressive. Write it down. It's positional and it's progressive. It's positional meaning it's instant. The day you got saved and covered by the blood, Christ Jesus declared you holy and blameless because of your position, Right? Because you're now in right standing. See, God doesn't see you. He doesn't see your issues in your sin and your flesh and your. Your junk. When God looks at you, he sees Jesus. He sees you covered by the blood that is so glorious you need to get up and run a lap around your house or wherever you are, stop your car and raise your hands and praise God that He doesn't see you. He sees Jesus. So it's positional. But on the other hand, it's also progressive. It's a slow progress process of change where God transforms your heart into his image, into his likeness. It is a process. So this. So it's God's method to make us look inwardly what we already are, positionally. And it's a lifelong process of taking off the old and putting on the new. Taking off the old. Listen, this ought to free you today. It's a process, taking off the old, putting on the new. God uses everything in our life, and I'm so thankful for that. God uses the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, your mess ups, your husband, your kids, your failures, your job, your divorce, your abuse, all of it. God uses all of it for his purpose and for his glory, to shape you and to mold you and to make you to be just like Him. See, in our natural, we see all of this stuff and we say, oh man, God can't use me. God can't use any of this to make me more like Him. Oh, the Bible says he uses all of it. Romans 8, 28. He uses all of it for your good and for his glory. So it's not about what you start and stop doing. See, that's a trick of the enemy. When he'll put that pressure and that condemnation on you and say, oh, well, you can't do this anymore. You can't go there anymore. It's not about what you start and what you stop doing. It just happens gradually as you fall in love With Jesus, the more you love him, the more you don't want to do it. The more you're in his presence, and the more you. You feel his power in your life, the more you don't want to do those things. It's a process of falling in love with Jesus. Putting off the old, putting on the new. Ephesians 4:22 says this, that you put off concerning your former conduct, the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, and then be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And that you put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. So you got to put off the old man, and you got to put on the new man. Put off the old, renew your mind, and then put on the new. Say it with me. Put off the old, renew your mind, Put on the new. And this isn't done one before the other. It's done simultaneously. It's just a part of your life. God will reveal something in your life that doesn't please Him. And then you put off the old. You renew your mind about it, and then you put on the new. At the same time, you start putting off old habits. The Spirit will renew and refresh your mind. He'll refresh your attitude. He'll strengthen you by the word of God and enable you to start new habits that mirror God's righteousness and his holiness. God's work is in you. He's doing the work. In. In you. Work is a verb. It is happening. He's doing the work. Somebody better get up where you are right now, sling your hands in the air and praise God that you have a helper in this process. You have a helper in this process of sanctification. You can't do it on your own. Say it out loud. Say, this is a process. This is a process. See, it isn't just enough to put off the worship of the false God. We have to put on the worship of the one true and living God. While you're putting off the old. See, if you know, here it is. Let's break it down to something we go through. If you know you love, you just love, love, love, love, love, love. Oh, I love me some Prince. I love me some Michael Jackson. If you know you love worldly things or secular music, you just love it. You know every word of it. But God's convicted you of it. It's too much in your life. It's consuming too much of your time. It's consuming too much of your heart. In your mind. And he's convicting. And as you lay it down, you have to replace that false God with the true God. What is the true God? It's praise and worship. So as you're laying down something that is hindering your process, that's hindering your sanctification, then you pick up the one true and living God, which is in place of it, praise and worship. So at first it seems weird. Oh, that old music. So easy, you know every word, you bumping and grinding to it. You know everything about it. It just makes you feel so good. Then you put on the praise and worship and you're like, this isn't too good. This feels weird. I don't really like this style. But you just slowly get into it and it becomes a part because it's brand new to you. The other thing is just. It's just old habit. It's just what you're used to. But you got to put it off, put on the new. You know, you got to lay something down. Right? When we come to God, we. We've got to start. He'll start whittling these things away in our heart. I remember when. When God was doing a specific work in me. It was in my process, years after I had gotten saved. And I knew, I'm not going to tell you my issue. I'm not going to ask you what yours is. But it was this one thing God was asking me to lay down. Man, it was painful. It was painful. It was like I made every excuse for it. I wanted to figure out how I could keep it in my back pocket. I just thought, man, I love this. But I knew God was putting his finger on it in my life. And I said, God, you got to help me, because I want to please you. And I know everybody under the sound of my voice who loves Jesus really wants to please him. And it is a process. But I remember as I turned this corner and I said, God, I'm going to lay it down. He put such a love on the inside of me for the new thing, the new thing. And yours is different than mine. All of ours is different. We all got different issues. But he put such a love in me. And see, Satan wants to scare you so bad that whatever you're laying down, that he's going to take pleasures away from you. See, he portrays that, that the pleasures and the joy that these things bring can't be replaced. But I promise you, I promise you, when you lay it down, God will give you something so much better. He will replace it with the real stuff. The real joy, the real pleasure. This is what we have to do today. List. It's really a heart thing. We have got to evaluate our heart and our desires, and we can't be deceived by our own heart. The Bible says that. That. That is possible. You can be deceived by your own heart. You've got to know your weaknesses, and you got to know the things that your heart is drawn to. And here's your assignment. You got to take a heart inventory. Where are you weak? Who brings out the worst in you? What atmosphere can you get into? And you say, man, that's a trap for me. That's a trap. What brings back those old desires and those old feelings? Because you better put a bullseye on them. Because I can promise you, Satan knows every one of those areas. I promise you, he knows your weakness. And you got to ask yourself, what do I want so badly? What drives me? What do I fear losing so bad that I'm willing to sin in order to hold on to it? Romans 8:13 says this. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Listen, you've got to kill them. You've got to kill every area in your life that is trying to kill you. We have to burn them with fire and crush them into powder, just like Moses did when he came down off that mountain. And Aaron had constructed idols out of gold because he was afraid Moses wouldn't get the job done. So he constructed an idol. What we do in the flesh is an idol. Whoo. I know this is heavy. I know it's hard, but I want us to live free. See, we don't have these little idols in our life. We don't have these little Buddhas sitting around in our heart. But we do have things that we rely on that we depend on. It's our habits, it's our lifestyles that scream, God, I don't trust you. I can't give you my whole heart. God, I got to keep this over here to myself because I love it so much. I'm afraid, God, if I give you this, that it won't make me happy or I'll go without. We have little things in our heart that produce sinful words, and our words produce our life behaviors. How do you crush them? We got to crush them. We've got to burn them. And how do you do it? Number one? You got to recognize what they are or who they are. And then we got to repent and Ask God's help. Ask his conviction for righteousness. I don't want just fire insurance. I don't want to just get saved and go to heaven. I want righteousness in my life. I want right, living, right, standing holiness. I want to please him. And then write it down on your heart in the Word and as you grow, for your love for Jesus daily, His grace and his mercy and his faithfulness. The old man's ways of trusting these little gods. It's a gradual process, taking off the old, putting on the new. Listen, this ought to set you free today. Because many of us were taught that when you get saved, every desire that you had for the old things is supposed to go away. And that's just not true. The Bible says that sanctification is a process. Renewing our mind is a process. It says it's a daily process of getting in the Word and washing our mind. And the way we used to think and the way we used to feel and the patterns of our old man. It's a process of crucifying them every single day and taking on the nature of Christ in our life. This should set you free. Yeah, you're not perfect today, and you're not going to be perfect tomorrow. But there is a place called Upward. The Bible says we are to press on toward the high call of God in Christ Jesus. There is no place called there, but there is a place called Upward, and that is where we are going. God is calling you higher today. God is wanting you to go higher today. God wants your life to look different today than it looked yesterday. And he wants your life to look different tomorrow than it looks today. Who's ready to go to that high place? Who's ready to press on toward the upward call of God in Christ Jesus? I am. And then you'll look back on your life and you say, man, look how far I've come. Wow. Pat yourself on the back right now. If you've come. If you've come a mighty long way, as the old folk used to say in church, I've come a mighty long way. God's brought me a mighty long way. I'm more in love with Jesus today than I've ever been. That's the goal. That the next day that you wake up, you're more in love with Jesus. And if he says, let it go, you let it go. If he touches it and says, give it to me, you'll give it to him. That's how Paul could say this, that everything else paled in comparison to the treasure of knowing Him. Oh, I love that. That's Philippians 3:8. Yet indeed I also count all things loss. For the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, from whom I suffered the loss of all things. And count them as rubbish. Why, that I may know Him. It doesn't matter what I have to lose. It doesn't matter what I have to give up. It doesn't matter what I have to go through just so that I can know Him. Whoa, man. That makes me happy today. Listen, without knowing Jesus, you'll worship anything. Without being in love with Jesus, you'll fall for anything. You'll fall for any God, whether it's money or a man or a job or position or reputation. Listen, everything we do is counted as loss. Why? Just to know Him. You got to put God to work in your life. Allow the Holy Spirit to do his work in you. It's not you. It's not you. He's at work in you. May the Lord our God be with you as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us nor forsake us. That he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and his statues and his judgments, which he commanded our fathers first. Kings 8. 57. Let's read it again. May the Lord our God be with us. Whoa. That's my prayer every day. May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers. May he not leave you or forsake you that he may incline our hearts to Himself. See, our hearts want to wander. Our hearts want to go over here. But may he not leave you nor forsake you that he may incline your heart to him. To walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and his stats, statues and his judgments. This is my prayer today. This is my prayer for you. I want you to know him like that. I want you to take that weight of that condemnation off of you that somebody might have put on you, that a church might have put on you, that. That a grandmother might have put on you, that society might put on or Christianity might put on you that says you got to be perfect every single day. No, you don't. The devil is a lie. But you do have to be on this upward trajectory called upward. You got to keep going. You got to keep striving to know him like you've never known Him. You got to be willing to put down what he touches. You got to say, God, I want you more than anything in my life. I want you more than money. I want you More than marriage, I want you more than a job. I want you more than reputation, God. And I'm asking you to whittle away daily at my heart. I'm asking you to help me to put off the old man and put on the new. I encourage you today, I encourage you today to stay on this process of crushing every single idol in your life, everything that just would hinder you from becoming everything God's destined and ordained you to be. God's got a plan for your life. God does not have one bad day planned for you. The life he's called us to is an abundant life. John 10:10 says, the thief comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. But I have come that you might have life and you have it more abundantly. This is how you have that abundant life. God's got good plans for you. And I pray for you today that you are willing to put down every idol in your life and follow hard after God so that he can bless you, so that he can come and make you happy, so that he can come and give you real joy. What all these other false gods thought they were giving you was joy, peace and happiness. No, it's all temporary. But the peace and the love and the joy of God can be there when all hell is breaking out in your life and everybody else would fall down and crumble up and get in a corner and cry, no, not us, not the people of God. Because we know who we believe and we know he's able to keep us and to keep that which we've committed to him until we see his glorious face. Let me pray for you today. God. I pray for everyone listening under the sound of my voice. Oh, God, let them know that. That it is a process. It's a daily process with your help becoming like you. Lord, help us to love you more than we love things. God, show us in our life. Everything that you just want to touch and you want to take away, Lord, so that we can reflect your glory, so that we can please you. God, I pray right now. If there's people under the sound of my voice who don't know you and they say, I want this life. I've been striving and I've been struggling, Lord, I just pray right now that you meet them where they are. If they're in a hotel room, God, or if they're driving down the road or they're just on their smartphone or their device, God, just meet them where they are. All you got to do is ask Jesus to come into your heart and your life. He doesn't require you to be perfect. You don't need to be perfect, because Jesus is perfect. And that's. That's just as easy as 1, 2, 3, just Jesus, I need you'd in my life. Help me on this journey and you are saved. God, I thank you. I thank you that you love us so much, that you're our helper, that we're not alone in this journey. And we give you all the praise and glory. And I thank you, God, that I'm not going to look like I look today, tomorrow. And I thank you that next week I'm going to look more like you. And then the next month, I'm going to look more like you. Come on, get up on your feet. Give God a shout of praise. Crush those idols in your life. We are going to look like Jesus.