Understanding Idolatry

This week we begun the process of unearthing why you might be turning to sexual sin, and how to deal with the underlying issues you might have, ultimately through finding freedom in Jesus.

We learned that Idolatry happens when we go to something that is not God - to get what we should be getting from God. In this way we are putting something above God and allowing it to sit in the seat of lordship in our lives. In regards to how idolatry is at the very core of sin, the Apostle Paul wrote this:

Romans 1:22-25
Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Idolatry, in essence, is worshipping and serving created things, instead of the Creator himself. But why would someone worship something as futile as the image of a created thing? I mean, most people don’t really do this anymore in our culture so how do we engage in idolatry? You might say, ‘I don’t see anyone bowing down and worshipping the image of a frog, or an elephant… except in maybe other religions.’ Many would also say that surely we as a culture have graduated beyond this. Right?

Well, even though many might not believe that there is spiritual power in an idol like this to bring us success or fulfilment in life, or even love, we certainly do still make idols out of created things. Timothy Keller said that ‘the heart is an idol factory’ - and I agree! We make functional gods out of many things in our lives, turning to them to obtain value, worth, financial security, love, and to take away our pain and stress. We can make god’s out of our families, careers, achievements or material success. We also turn to shopping, gambling, substances, sex, food, and a myriad of other things to deal with life.

So what is it that makes something an idol? Well, something becomes an idol to us when we allow it to take God’s place in our lives. When we obey it’s demands and desires over God’s. If we idolise something we will find that we spend more time with our idol than God, trust in our idol more than God, give more to our idol than God and in no uncertain terms the idol gets more of our heart than God does.

It’s important to mention that this does not mean that anything we find comfort or validation in etc is always an idol, but it can become an idol if we turn to it more than God, or if we trust it more than God.

It’s also important to note that some things are sinful in and of themselves, like gambling, sex outside of the marriage covenant, using illicit substances, or pornography - but it’s the idolatry of them becomes another layer of sin - supercharging the bondage. On the other hand, our children, job, video games, or desire to succeed aren’t inherently sinful, but can also become an idol. In which case the idolatry of it is sin for us.

In this way, for many, as it was with me, pornography can become an idol. As we talked about in the lesson, idols always overpromise and under-deliver. Pornography has promised either comfort, distraction, to mitigate our wounds or to make us feel good. It may have promised that you would be able to experience acceptance when you feel rejected, desirable when you have low self esteem, and nurture when you feel empty and alone. It hijacks our god given desires and needs, and promises to fulfil them in place of God.

The trap of idolatry is that we become ensnared in false worship. Sacrificing relationships, time, money and whatever else the idol demands, in order to get what we need. And for many, idolising pornography has had a dear cost. Whether it be broken trust in relationships, increased anxiety and depression, feelings of shame and inadequacy or a degradation in your relationship with God. Pornography makes a terrible god. It promises so much, but leaves us blind, naked and robbed on the side of the road. Maybe you have not considered that ‘pornea’ has become a functional god in your life, and that you might have made an idol of it.

Ask the Lord and search your own heart as you answer this question: Have I begun to idolise sexual sin? Ask the Lord to show you how you have been turning to ‘pornea’ instead of him.
Additionally, it will be wise while you are at it to ask the Lord if there is anything else you idolise. Write down everything that comes to mind; we usually have an interconnected web of idolatry, where different idols feed into each other. For example you might idolise ‘pornea’, success and comfort. Or ‘pornea’, food (gluttony) and people’s approval. Ask the Lord to reveal it all to you and write down everything that comes to mind. For me, I was primarily idolising: pornea, success and people’s approval (and I’ve had to repent from many others over the years).

Understanding why you are turning to sexual sin

This week, in order to overcome pornography for good we are going to do some deep work with God to understand why you might be turning to pornography and how you can begin to turn, with much more intentionality, to God and find healing and purpose in him.

Before we begin to dig in, have a think about the following question and write down your answer.

Why do you think you are looking at pornography?

Then, have a think and write down answers to these questions:

When were you first exposed to pornography?
When do you think it begun to have an unhealthy place in your life?

For example, my answers to the above questions are: “I was first exposed to pornography when I was about 11 or 12 years old, this opened the door to sexual sin in my life, but I didn’t begin to look pornography habitually until I was about 16.”

When you started to engage in pornography more regularly, what was going on in your life at the time, and what pain or trauma had you experienced.

To help frame this for you, I’ll share some of my own story - “When I was 16, I was going through a very challenging time at school. I was getting bullied constantly and had no safe place to turn to to process everything I was feeling. I was experiencing very low self worth, I felt that I was unworthy of love and I had received some very significant emotional wounds of rejection. I certainly did not know how to regulate these emotions and I was not emotionally mature enough to even understand this was how I was feeling! In my ignorance, and isolation I turned to the pornography that I had been looking at very occasionally when I was 12. I found that I was momentarily distracted from the negative emotions, and pornography promised, albeit subtly, to heal my wounds of rejection and low self worth. Day after day I was going through difficulty and day after day I would turn to pornography with increasing frequency, as the addiction drove a rut in my brain that grew stronger every day, where every time I would feel bad my brain would say ‘go to pornography’. And so this became how I learned to deal with pain, or any negative emotion for that matter. I didn’t realise it at the time but I also had unhealed and unprocessed pain from childhood that had become a consistent low hum of pain in my soul. Even into my late teenage years and early twenties where I experienced more significant trauma, pornography was how I dealt with it.”

What we are looking for here is to find indications of learned patterns of dealing with negative emotions. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom and discernment as you go back in time, and for him to show you what you need to see. Write down everything that comes to mind. In reality what tends to happen is that if we don’t properly heal, grieve and work through difficult or painful things in life we pick up unhealthy ways to cope with the pain (idols like pornography), this becomes the way we inadvertently learn to deal with life moving forward. We have the low hum of pain from those initial painful experiences, which we need to medicate, and we also go to the same idol to deal with any fresh negative experiences we have in life.

Right thing, wrong God

In Exodus 32 we see Israel make a golden calf. The people were impatient waiting on Moses, and God, to take them to the promised land and so they said to Aaron ‘make us gods who will go before us’.

Was it wrong for Israel to want to go to the promised land?

No of course not.

It was actually something that God had promised them. What was wrong was that they were willing to abandon God and worship something else to get them there.

Here is where we need to bring in some validation. What you are looking to get from pornography, is typically not bad. And can ultimately be found in God. This is both the deception of idolatry and the key to the way out of it.

Many psychologists believe that pornography addiction is not driven primarily by sexual desire, but rather a need to regulate negative emotions. Bombshell I know. What this shows us is that the science of pornography addiction is beginning to catch up with what the Bible already teaches us about idolatry. The way out of pornography addiction, neurologically, is to learn healthier ways of dealing with these negative emotions. This lines up well with what we find in the bible that the way to not return to an idol after you’ve decided to abandon it and turn to God is to ensure you go to God for you were going to the idol for.

Because of this, learning why you turn to pornography is imperative! Otherwise you will either always go back to it, or begin to idolise something else. There’s a super cheesy Christian phrase that comes to mind, ‘let go and let God’. It’s time to let go of the idol, and let God in.

I really struggled with this when I was first going after breakthrough from pornography. For the first little while I tried really hard to just not look at pornography or fall into lust, and I did pretty well. However, I slowly started drinking more and more - I had become, what they call in Alcoholics Anonymous, a ‘dry drunk’. Which is someone who may have stopped drinking but never dealt with their underlying issues, and so simply shifts the weight to something else. The Lord convicted me of this, quite sharply to be honest, and encouraged me that he wanted me to deal with the underlying pain and unresolved issues in my life, by bringing them to him. Don’t become a dry drunk! The best way to deal with this is to deal with the idolatry of your sin, through understanding why you’ve been turning to sexual sin instead of God and then intentionally turn to the Lord to heal your wounds and deal with life.

It’s time to face the beast

Let’s take a bold step forward and face the dark, frightening beast that lurks at the bottom of your soul…

This beast is made up of your painful experiences, memories and thoughts. Things that happened in your life, or that failed to happen, that still cause you not just pain, anger and sadness, but fear. Fear of what happens when you finally face this beast, fear of what will happen to you when you go down to its lair, grab it by the horns and stare into its eyes in order to defeat it. Satan has twisted these experiences and memories into a foul, nightmarish foe, that taunts you with sure destruction if you even attempt to come against it.

However, here’s the truth - yes, you do need to face this beast, but you are not facing it alone. You are facing it with Jesus, who is much more powerful than this beast, and able to keep you from the destruction the beast taunts you with. The other side of the truth is that the beast is not really a beast, the enemy has spun a fear driven narrative to you for too long. The Lord will take you by the hand and show you that this beast is simply an array of memories, moments and issues, yes the pain and trauma are real, and yes it’s going to be hard, bit he is more than able to disarm the beast and bring healing, rest and freedom to your life.

It’s time to face the beast and finally be healed by God, so that you might punch a hole in that beach ball after all this time.

Are you ready to face the beast?

We are about to look at the pain points from your life - your painful memories, experiences and moments, - things that happened to you, things that failed to happen for you, and things you’ve done.

Some things might be obvious, such as capitol T trauma like the loss of a loved one, abuse, or a bad accident. Others might be little t trauma - things that were said to you over and over again by a parent, someone failing to show up for you, insecurities about your body, being dumped by a girlfriend or boyfriend and the list goes on. Some of these might even be things that you have done to someone else - the shame of this sin might have stuck with you your whole life and become a festering stronghold for the enemy to weave lies and pain into your life, ultimately turning into a foreboding beast lurking in the recesses of your soul. Whatever comes to mind, write it all down.

Take stock with God and write down all of the unresolved pain that’s been sitting like stagnant water in the bottom of your heart as you answer the following question: Begin to ask God, what are my pain points from life? My painful memories, experiences and moments. I know it’s brutally hard, so pray for God’s comfort and presence as you do this. Just make sure you get it all out by writing it all down, one by one. Take that stagnant pool, the mixture of your pain, trauma and even things you’ve done that cause you shame and pain, take it all and pour it out at the feet of Jesus.

Once you’ve got it all down, take a breath. That wont have been easy. For some of you, as it was for me, these are things you are even afraid to write down - and you often avoid thinking about. But this stuff, this dark beast that lies in the recesses of your soul, we are going to deal with it. We are going to see Jesus go in and powerfully heal these wounds and memories. This is going to be a process, and its going to be something we give a lot of attention to over the rest of this course. Especially in week 8. For now what we want to do is look for consistent narratives. And hey, well done! You’ve done the hardest step and faced the beast!

What’s the story?

Take a minute, open your heart to the Lord and ask him the following question - Wait in stillness before the Lord, and write down what the Spirit brings to mind:

What narrative has the enemy woven through these things into my life? What lies have I believed? What vows have I made?

(An example of a narrative might be that you are rejected over and over again. The lie that you might believe is that you are not worthy of love. And a vow you may have made is that you will do whatever you can to make yourself perfect so that no-one rejects you anymore. This was one of the major strongholds that fuelled my addiction.)

Finding comfort in Jesus

Ok we’ve done a lot of digging this week, and although it’s been intense, there is some good news on the other side. A promise from God.

Psalm 147:3
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

All of these wounds that have led to a broken heart, God has promised to heal. God is able to heal you and redeem all of these things. To be honest, it might be a work that takes a couple of years - God is still bringing healing to me all these years later. But he is faithful to keep his promises and this is who he is!

Secondly, remember Jesus’ calming words in

Matthew 11:28
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls”.

Bring all of these things to Jesus right now and lay them at his feet. Picture them as a heavy sack, all jumbled together. You don’t have to have it all sorted out and you don’t have to fix it yourself. He knows its heavy, so bring it all to Jesus right now and lay it at his feet. And ask him to help you, say: ‘Lord, you promised to heal my broken heart and heal my wounds, well, here is my broken heart and here are my wounds, please help me’. I’m done with porn, but I need your help. I can’t carry this pain anymore and I can’t carry this shame anymore.’

Now, trust Jesus with it, and rest. You’ve given it to him, and he is faithful to his word.

Healing in the body of Christ

The last thing that we are going to do this week is something that you are probably not going to like.

It’s time to tell someone else about everything you wrote down today. So pick someone in your group that you trust and is safe and organise a time to talk about this stuff. What you are going to do is bring what has been festering in the darkness into the light. As you confess where you have sinned and where you have experienced pain something marvelous is going to happen. Its important to ensure you do your best to be honest and to also talk about how you felt and how you feel about what happened. As you share with one another ensure that you create a judgement free space, one filled with compassion and understanding and give words of encouragement, gospel truth and pray for one another.

The Bible says:

James 5:16
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working”.

Not everything that you share will necessarily be sin, a lot of it might be no ones fault at all, or it might be someone’s sin towards you, or yours towards someone else - but the process of sharing brings healing as a new narrative is birthed in your life.

A false narrative that I believed is that some of the things that had happened to me or I had done had the power to ruin my life and render me alone forever. When I brought these things to the light with my friend Paul, one sunny afternoon, sitting on a log in a carpark, I found that the narrative I had in my head was very wrong. I was met with compassion, empathy, love and truth. Lies and deception had ruled in my mind for so long because it was only bouncing around in my own head, getting worse and worse, but when I opened up and told Paul, bringing it all into the light, suddenly I began to hear a new story, one in which I was seen, forgiven and loved by God.

THIS WEEK

Personal

Continue with your daily time with the Lord, using the exodus course daily devotional if you need a guideline. Pay special attention in your time with the Lord this week to work through all of the memories and pain points that came up in todays lesson and allow Him to minister to you.
Tell someone about what you wrote down in this week’s lesson, either your accountability partner or a trusted person from your group.

Group

Touch base with each other this week regarding the narrative you might have found in your life, and the lies you may have believed about yourself as a result, and also any vows you have made.
Spend time listening to one another, speaking the truth of the gospel into these narratives and praying for one another.

Workbook: Overcoming Idolatry