Get In the Word – Fall On the Rock!

This Sunday, Sojourn’s BC sermon series through the Old Testament will continue in the book of Daniel. We urge you to read through this book with us. It’s 12 chapters long, so over the next week and a half, you could read the whole thing in just a chapter or two a day. The daily devotional reading will hit Daniel this Sunday, but don’t wait until then. Just jump in and you can go back to the devotional readings when they post if you so desire. ‘Tis better to read than to wait. Here are some reflections on this past week’s sermon from the book of Daniel.

Reflecting on pastor Mike Cosper’s sermon on Daniel 2, The Dream, from this past Sunday (available by clicking here), I can’t stop thinking about that rock that crushed the feet of the dream statue and brought the whole thing crashing down. Luke 20:18 really hit home – everyone who falls on that stone will be smashed to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. What a powerful picture of reality: the Kingdom of God not only smashes idols, it requires them to be so. ‘You better fall on the rock or the rock’s gonna fall on you.’

Of course, our idols are sneaky and hard to spot, especially if we’re good church people. I doubt anyone in your church has a shrine hidden in a closet where they pray to a stone statue of an aardvark. But I’m certain that everyone in your church has idols in their heart. As pastor Mike said, we want to look good, to feel good, to be able to buy good things, and we want them so badly that appearance, health, comfort and wealth become idols, the things we construct our lives around pursuing. I believe it was Paul Tripp who said the surest way to know if something is an idol in your life is how you react when it’s taken from you. By that definition, we all have idols. They’re the things we get violent about keeping around.

You have to be willing to have your idols smashed. You have to be willing to see your desire for financial comfort smashed. Your desire for good health, for beauty, for admiration: you must be willing to smash them all. But, this does not mean that all Christians are called to be poor, sickly, hated, ugly and in constant dismay. That would be an awful gospel to tell people. ‘Come to Jesus, where life is miserable!’

Smashing idols does mean that Christians should not fear being poor, sick, despised, unfashionable or uncomfortable. Smashing idols simply means you are willing for God have control over those desirous aspects of your life rather that you having to constantly fight to fulfill them yourself. And that’s a great gospel to have. ‘Come to Jesus where life is in the hands of the God of the universe and you don’t have to constantly perform well enough to be happy.’ In that gospel, you open a Pandora’s box of promise – promise of a changed heart that is satisfied with God instead of constantly dissatisfied with your weight, your bank account, your job-title, etc. Your life of faith is about seeking first God’s Kingdom and letting him add those desirous things to you as he sees fit to best strengthen your faith, to produce the best fruit in your life that can be produced. It’s not suffocatingly about you, rather your life of faith is all about the joy of surrender. You know you’re getting somewhere in the fight against your idols when you can actually pray for demolition and for it to come soon.

Smashing what strangles you leaves room for God to restore you to life through Jesus Christ. Which sure beats the alternative of being smashed in the end by the rock that could have saved you.

At Sojourn, we are all about you getting in the Word - it’s God’s message for you, as you are, where you are. Right now we’re working through the Old Testament as a church body and it’s a big undertaking that can seem pretty intimidating. But we want to assure you that nobody has to be a scholar to understand the Bible. God didn’t just speak to the brainiacs - he spoke to all of us. Still, a little help along the way is good. That’s why Sojourn has a daily Bible reading plan and devotional which can be found online here. For more on the daily devotional and how you can use it to help you get in the word, click here.