We welcome you to Stone's Hill today!

A typical Stone's Hill service has:

* music (so feel free to sing out);

* some announcements (things that are upcoming that you can be a part of);

* a message out of the Bible (God speaks to us through his Word);

* and an opportunity for you to respond to the message (either immediately in the case of a decision that needs to be made OR in the future as you live out the message in your daily life.)

So relax and enjoy your morning! We're so glad you are here!

MESSAGE TEXT
1 Kings 18:22-40
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I love good things! But what happens when good things become ultimate things? In other words, all of life gets centered on it and arranged around it. As Tim Keller wisely states in his book, Counterfeit Gods, "An idol is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give."
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Jesus doesn’t just want to be in your life; He wants to be your life. I talk to things all the time, “No, you are not my life. Jesus is. Stop it!” I have to literally tell my idols “You are not my life. Christ is my life.”
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I know “idolatry” feels like an obsolete term that conjures up primitive people bowing down before statues. But there’s over a thousand references to idolatry in the Bible and those verses haven’t expired. What if today’s idols are not cosmic deities with strange names? What if our kneeling and bowing has more to do with our schedules, our search engines, our bank accounts, our stadiums, or our identity.
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David Clarkson, who lived in the 1600’s says there are two kinds of idolatry. One is open, outward idolatry, bowing before things. Two is secret, soul idolatry when the mind and heart is set on anything more than God; anything you seek to give you what only God can give. We don’t always worship at statues. Ezekiel says we have “idols of the heart” (Ezekiel 14:1-8) Paul in the NT talked about idols of the heart (Col. 3:5). Paul sums up the fall of humanity into sin by describing it in terms of idolatry. We refuse to give God glory and make Him the most important thing.
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Bruce Springsteen used to sing “Everybody’s got a hungry heart.” We want to feel fully alive. We want to feel our value and worth and purpose. But we aim this hungry heart in a misguided direction. Only God can satisfy this hunger. When we take our hunger to him, we expand and grow. But we try everything else, something less demanding than God appears to be. And we shrink into ourselves. Because of our hungry hearts, idolatry takes good things and makes them into ultimate things. That means anything can be an idol of the heart: money, gaming, food, your phone (3-4 hours per day average), your job, a relationship, the need for control, sports.
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John Calvin said that the human heart is an idol-making factory. It’s in our heart to give ourselves to something. We base our identity and worth and value on what we own, how our family turns out, what I look like, whether or not our team or group is on top, or the smartphone in our pocket. Imagine a person constantly checking social media, seeking validation and affirmation through likes and comments. This quest for online approval becomes an idol, deceiving them into believing it can fulfill their need for significance and worth. We make gods out of these things and they can end up crushing us.
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We have gods, but eventually they have and rule us. And we start bleeding for these gods. It starts demanding “Slash yourself for me!” The way you know an idol is at work – you start to see all this fanatical activity going on around it – dancing, slashing, bleeding for it. Idols always demand a sacrifice. They give you momentary relief and then turn on you, snarling, demanding payment. What is concerning is that we often don’t know we have a particular idolatry until we see blood. We don’t know we have an idol until it gets attacked or taken away. Much of the despair we see and feel in the world comes from losing that “ultimate thing.” When you take some incomplete thing in this world and build an entire life on it – what happens when that one thing comes crashing down? Not only do people get depressed and desperate; people feel justified to lie, cheat, steal, get revenge – when their idol is threatened. They’ll even self-destruct. You’ll see this today in our passage.
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PROPOSITION
Everybody has a hungry heart. I want to guide where you aim your God-given worship impulse. Christ Alone. Jesus is the only One who can forgive you if you fail in some area that you’re trying to build your life on and He fulfills you if you live for Him by letting good things be good things only, while He is the organizing principle of your life.
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MESSAGE
My recommendation for this message today is FOUR-FOLD:
1 Understand the nature of our topic. Idolatry is something we all struggle with.
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2 Enjoy the drama of our passage. It’s the closest thing you’re going to get to a sports contest in the life of Elijah, trash talking, the underdog winning, unfavorable conditions.
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3 Identify the tendencies of our own heart. There are some x-ray questions we can ask of ourselves to help us here.
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4 Recognize the obvious thing that is so easy to miss with all the drama. The fire hit a sacrifice, not a person.
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CLOSING
Recognize the obvious thing that is so easy to miss with all the drama. The fire hit a sacrifice, not a person. Why didn’t the fire come down on the people? It came down on an animal sacrifice. In Luke 9, the disciples and Jesus actually talk about this very event. In Luke 9:51, Jesus and the disciples are trying to go into a town, and the town people won’t let them in; they reject Jesus. The disciples are furious and they say, “Shall we call down fire to burn them up like Elijah?” So they’re thinking of 1 Kings 18 … fire of judgment, fire of God’s justice, fire on sin. Jesus rebukes them.Just a few verses later, in Luke 12, almost for sure in connection with this (they don’t understand the fire), Jesus says, “I have come to bring fire, and oh that it were kindled, for I have a baptism to undergo, and how constrained is my soul until it’s completed.” Jesus says, “I have come to be baptized with fire. I have come to receive the fire.” Here’s what he’s saying to his disciples. He was saying, “You don’t understand that story very well. I’m not Elijah calling fire down in judgment. I’m the sacrifice that received the fire of judgment. That’s where I am in that story.”
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The only reason those people were not consumed by the fire of judgment was because of the sacrifice, but actually, that’s just a symbol that pointed to something that would happen 1,000 years down the road. Jesus Christ went up Mount Calvary, and he took into his heart the sacrifice. He took into his heart the fire of justice so you could have in your life the fire of God’s power and love. Every other god says, “Slash yourself for me.” But there’s one God and only one God who doesn’t say, “Slash yourself for me.” There’s one God and only one Lord who was slashed for you. His blood ran. Every other god will make your blood run. Do you see that?
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You have to see Jesus gives you freely what every other god says it’ll only give you through performance and through your blood. Jesus gives you through his blood what every other god demands through yours. Jesus says, “You’re already beautiful to me. That’s why I did this for you.” You have to see the fire coming down on the sacrifice.[1] The greatest miracle is not fire falling from heaven, but Jesus rising from the earth after being offered as a sacrifice for the world.
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The Gospel changes you: from lost to found; from orphan to child of God; from wrecked to redeemed; from empty to filled with the Spirit; from captive to free; from broken to new creation; from bankrupt to co-heir; from aimless to ambassador; from sinner to saint; from dead to alive. 36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward… and let me pray Elijah’s prayer over your life. All the frenzied activity driven by the idols of your life can be put to rest today.