No Small Disturbance — Acts 19

0:00 Good morning. Good morning. Am I on? You're on. I'm on.

0:04 You're up. Alright. Well, thanks for having us again. If you don't know me or my family, my name is Abe Edwards and my wife Megan and I attended here regularly for many years before the Lord led us to the glorious and bug filled state of Michigan where I have been professing mathematics at Michigan State now for ten years but it's great to be back it's great to be back and I was thinking when Don was talking this morning and reading from Isaiah about a man with unclean lips and I thought oh brother talk about a man with unclean lips and how do you get up here and how do you bring the word of god knowing the things that you know about yourself to be true? I cannot give an answer but this I know with all my heart.

0:57 His wounds have paid my ransom. So, we're in Acts chapter 19. Thank you for letting me join you in your study of Acts and I had a I had a panicked moment during the service. I hope I prepared the right passage but I prepared Acts nineteen twenty three through 41. So, hopefully that's where you're at in Acts.

1:17 If you would turn there, I'm going to read this passage and then we'll see what we can do with this passage this morning. So, in, starting in verse 23, about that time, there arose no small disturbance about the way. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana. Now in some of your Bibles, it's gonna say Artemis. That's the same goddess.

1:47 Brought no small profit to the craftsman. He called them together with the workers of similar occupation, and he said, men, you know that we have our prosperity by this trade. Moreover, you see and hear that not only at Ephesus but throughout almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are not gods which are made with human hands. So not only is this trait of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess might be despised and her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship. Now when they heard this, they were full of wrath and cried out, saying, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!

2:29 So the whole city was filled with confusion, and they rushed into the theater with one accord, having seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul's traveling companions. And when Paul wanted to go in to the people, the disciples would not allow him. Then some of the officials of Asia who were his friends sent to him pleading that he would not venture into the theater. Some therefore cried one thing and some another for the assembly was confused and most of them did not know most of them did not know why they had come together. And they drew Alexander out of the multitude and the Jews putting him forward and Alexander motioned with his hand and wanted to make his defense to the people.

3:13 But when they found out that he was a Jew, all with one voice cried out for about two hours, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And when the city clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, what man is there who does not know that the great city of Ephesus is the temple guardian of the great goddess and of the image which fell down from heaven? Therefore, since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rashly. For you have brought these men here who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of your goddess. Therefore, if Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a case against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls.

3:54 Let them bring charges against one another. But if you have any other inquiry to make, it shall be determined in lawful assembly, for we are in danger of being called in question for today's uproar, there being no reason which we may give to account for this riot. And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly. Father, please speak to us today through your word. I pray that you'd give us ears to hear what the spirit is saying to us.

4:25 In Jesus' name, amen. Well, alright, let's see what we can take out of this passage today. And I always say that any time that I preach, I'm mainly preaching to myself. These are things that I need to hear and that I need to... I just need to work on in my life.

4:45 And if if that happens to be true of you too, that that's that's also wonderful. We hope the Lord uses that. I will also say that Justin, in the first service basically gave the end of the sermon today. So, thank you and so if we run out of time, we you've already heard the ending of the sermon. That's good and but it didn't make me think as I said to George during the intermission.

5:06 It's it's almost... Sometimes you come here, it's almost as if someone else is orchestrating the service. Somebody behind the scenes who is at work. There's three things that I wanna talk about today in the passage. Those are the prevalence of idols, and then the power and the weakness of idols, and the price of destroying idols.

6:06 Ephesus was the center of worship of the Greek god Artemis. Some of your Bibles are gonna call her Diana. Diana was the Roman name in the Greek god Artemis. Her massive temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It's amazing they had color photography in those days, but the Temple Of Artemis was four times, it was quadruple the size of the Parthenon in Athens.

6:31 This was a massive building. All that's left of it today is one pillar. One pillar. There's probably a message in that too, but, Ephesus was a port city, so it was an intersection of various cultures, the Egyptian culture, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and the merchants of the city. Well, the the religion and the economy of the city were sort of intertwined, and the merchants of the city seemed to make a great deal of money selling and taking care of the thousands of pilgrims who would arrive in Ephesus every year.

7:04 And I think that you probably know from earlier in Acts 19 that Ephesus was a notorious city of the occult, and it was full of people who were practicing magic and sorcery. But you've probably also noticed in your study of Acts that whenever the gospel of Jesus Christ comes into a culture of false religions, it has an immediate impact on the community. And in this particular case, I don't think it was because the followers of Jesus were going around trying to destroy pagan temples. They weren't specifically trying to put the local idol manufacturers out of business. I don't I don't get the impression that Paul and his friends were holding strategy sessions about how to get the government to overturn certain laws or pass certain laws or get their friends into positions of political influence.

7:52 I think they just preached Christ and Him crucified and their preaching led to powerful results because we believe that there is power in the clear preaching of the gospel. Jesus said, You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. So that's what Paul did. He doesn't settle for fighting some decoy of the enemy. He is not attacking lesser targets.

8:12 Those early Christians knew the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds and casting down of vain imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against God. And so what was the result? Well, the result was when people came to know Christ, when they received the Holy Spirit, suddenly they no longer had a use for these idols and these shrines and statues or for all the errors and the deceptions that these little figurines represented. Well, that causes some problems. As the decision to follow Jesus will always cause problems, when you accept Jesus, when the Holy Spirit comes into your heart, that puts you on a collision course with the world.

8:53 But actually, the decision to accept Jesus can also cause certain problems within your own heart. Because all of a sudden, you have a Holy Spirit. You know, you know, some people have said to me, becoming a Christian makes your life so much easier, so much simpler. Well, that is just not true at all. A lot of the time, becoming a Christian makes your life far more complicated because all of a sudden, have two natures in you and the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

9:19 No, and you know, and they're at war with one another. Whereas as Jesus said in Matthew, do not suppose I have come to bring peace to the earth but a sword. So in Ephesus, the problem seems to center on this one guy, Demetrius. His business is making these little silver statues of Artemis and selling them, and we read that the sale of these things brought no small gain, not only to him but to all the other craftsmen in town. But now, Paul and the other followers of the way are saying that gods made with human hands are not real gods at all.

10:08 But when you have to get up every morning with a whole box of man made gods and set them out in some table somewhere in the city, and your ability to feed your family is reliant on the sale of these things for somebody to walk into town and declare that your statues are just superstitious relics that nobody needs and therefore nobody should purchase, that's a problem. So Demetrius calls together a meeting of all the silversmiths who make these little idols, and he says to them, Alright, look guys, this religion business has been good for us. We've been making the big bucks selling these silver shrines. Now we've ourselves a little problem here, for there is a new movement in town and it seems to be spearheaded by this guy named Paul. And he's going around telling people that gods made by human hands aren't really gods at all.

10:53 And that the things we make and sell, people shouldn't worship them and they don't need to buy them and they're just a waste of money. And this teaching is starting to be bad for business. Now of course Demetrius, now these guys just can't come right out and say that clearly in public. That would be crass. Right?

11:12 So they they they... It would it would make it seem like all they cared about was money, which was probably true, but they... They'd have to put this religious veneer on it. They have to persuade people that Paul and the followers of the Way are insulting Artemis. All of Asia worships her and these guys are coming around saying she's a phony.

11:31 Now of course Paul hadn't said that directly that we know of, but when he says that gods made with human hands aren't real gods, he means that Artemis, who these idols represent, isn't a goddess at all. God is a person. God is a being, a personality. He does not allow for graven images. And therefore, all graven images are false.

11:51 And that's gonna put an end to the business. So when the craftsman heard this, of course, it says they are filled with anger and they started shouting. And pretty soon the whole city was in an uproar and filled with confusion because the gospel has hit their bottom line. The gospel has challenged their religious devotion. You know, Paul didn't just show up in Ephesus and say, alright, well, I know Ephesus is largely in control of Artemis.

12:16 I know you have a beautiful temple here. I'm just this little converted Jewish man. I don't want to make a fuss. I don't really wanna offend anybody. Can I just have a little table in the market to set out some pamphlets about Jesus?

12:27 No, he doesn't do that. He just walks into town and says Jesus is Lord. Therefore he is the living God and therefore he is the king and therefore man made gods are no gods at all. But it does kind of beg the question, why is Paul talking about idolatry at all? What does idolatry have to do with the gospel?

12:44 What does idolatry have to do with us this morning? Because you can imagine somebody reading this at Acts 19 and thinking, Alright, this is all very interesting. But we don't really live in a culture anymore where people worship idols. We're secularized. People don't believe in multiple gods that embody objects of stone and wood.

13:04 I mean, people hardly believe in God at all. What does idolatry have for us today? And yet, as you read the book of Acts, you read the New Testament, you see Paul consistently preaching the gospel as opposed to idolatry. Why? Well, what's the gospel?

13:24 The gospel is that you are saved, you're forgiven, you're justified, not on the basis of anything that you do, but on the work that Jesus Christ has done for you. But everybody, I mean, I think every one of us, whether you're a religious person or not, every one of us is tempted to try and save ourselves, to try and justify ourselves, to try and make something of ourselves outside of God. And I think that that, trying to save yourself outside of the work of Christ, is a type of idolatry. There's a number of ways that this type of idolatry seems to come out in our culture, but I'll just give you one of them. One of the strongest idols in our culture today is what scholars call individualism.

14:39 But it's about much more than democracy. It's very insightful. And again, most of this is written in the early eighteen hundreds. But here's where de Tocqueville writes about the American love of individualism. He says, Individualism is a feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into a circle of family or friends.

15:04 With this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself. And he goes on. He says that Americans, even from the beginning, we had an outlook on life which basically said each one of us has our own way of being human, of realizing our humanity. And what we seek most of all is to define our own identity and to live it out. And therefore, we reject any type of authority or rules imposed upon us from the outside.

15:36 You get to live your own life your way. You don't care what society says about you. You don't care what religion says. You reject the wisdom of earlier generations and you certainly don't care what the government says about it. The purpose of life becomes to find one's deepest self and then express yourself to the world.

15:54 Hey, boys say, You could have written this last week. This is two hundred years ago. Individualism, according to Tocqueville, is the real American idol. Okay, you say, Well, alright, well that was the early nineteenth century, but is this not... Somebody mentioned movies in the first, service that made me think, Isn't this why Disney movies are so popular?

16:14 There are all these stories of people who are finding or creating their own self identity against all of the naysayers. So you have, now I have to confess, I'm not an expert on these, so I wrote some of these down. Hopefully you've heard of these more than I have. You have somebody like Moana, who defies the village elders and the warnings of her father. She's going to leave this island.

16:37 She's going to discover her true identity. You have Mulan who rejects traditional societal and family expectations of what it means to be a good daughter. And her true strength lies in her authentic self, not in some rigid gender roles from society. I mean, at Disney's Frozen, Elsa's entire story arc is about breaking free from societal constraints. Listen to this wisdom.

17:01 Here we go. It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small, and the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all. It's time to see what I can do to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free.

17:20 This is just de Tocqueville all over again. Disney ought to give that guy some of the royalties. Our great cultural idol is not Artemis of the Ephesians. It is individual freedom, Self definition. Self expression.

17:36 And so if you believe in that, if that's your belief system, then you need to deconstruct or destroy traditions, religion, the wisdom from your elders and our primary social ethic becomes tolerance. Tolerance. That is the highest, that's like our highest ethic, to tolerate everybody else's self defined quest for who they are. And if you do not support the ethic of tolerance, well then you are suspicious at best, dangerous at worst, and you should not be tolerated. Alright.

18:13 Well, you've heard all these things. Be true to yourself, find yourself, follow your heart. I came across this at Whole Foods. Follow your heart. It's become a marketing technique.

18:27 Apparently, you follow your heart, it leads you to dairy free cheese. What could make life more meaningful than that? Well, alright, so it's easy to attack the culture. And okay, I'll admit, it's kind of fun to attack the culture. Maybe that's a perverse sense of humor, but it's easy to attack the culture.

19:00 But if there is anything out there which is functionally more important than God to my happiness or my identity, to my meaning in life, that becomes my idol. The language of idolatry for me would be something like this. Well, I believe in I believe in God and I'm walking with the Lord, but if I could only have this, if I could only get to that, then I'd be happy, I'd be safe, then I'd be free. Whatever that is, it is functionally my idol. Augustine famously wrote, Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used or using anything that is meant to be worshipped.

19:48 It is worshiping anything which is meant to be used or using anything which is meant to be worshipped. You know, people talk about idols as if everybody's... Oh, they're always bad things, right? Idols. I'm not convinced that too many of you here this morning are tempted by the idols of things like fabulous wealth or alcohol or drugs or these things which we see as bad idols.

20:11 I mean, those are idols. Sure, they're things that people look for to give them meaning outside of God. But I think it would be a mistake to think that most idolatry is like that, certainly for people in the church. Most idolatry is taking good things and turning them into ultimate things. Idolatry is taking created things, relative things, and turning them into absolute things.

20:32 By the way, just for full transparency, a lot of people quote this from Augustine. I read this a number of times when preparing this sermon. I could not find the original source of this quote. So, if Augustine didn't say this, well, he should have. Alright.

20:49 Now, for example, for me, family is a powerful idol. I want my parents' approval. I want my children to grow up a certain way. That's not a bad thing, but I can make that an ultimate thing and therefore it becomes my idol. Career can be an idol.

21:06 Achievement, education, your reputation in the community. I think even bible knowledge itself can become an idol if it's disassociated from a heart of worship. How about your competence or your skill? That one is... I've come to realize that's a big one for me.

21:25 I want people to see me as competent. Look, I'm the math guy in the room. I solve problems. I analyze things logically. My decisions are the ones that make sense.

21:39 I want people to see me like that. And when they don't, it really bothers me because competence and what people see, what people think of me can become an idol. It's really no difference to how things were in acts. I mean, in that culture, there was a God on every corner. There was a God of, there was a God of work and a God of rest.

22:00 There was a God of music. There was a god of wealth. There was a god of food, a god of, sex, a god of the arts, a god of the harvest. Remember when remember when, Paul's up on Mars Hill, he's walking around and he says, so Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus said, men of Athens, I perceive in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, To the unknown God.

22:24 Just in case they'd missed one, you know. And so somebody could read that and say, Wow, those people were so superstitious. We've just advanced so far from them in our understanding of the world. But you know what? Those ancient cultures, they knew something.

22:41 They were aware of something. They were explicit about something that we keep hidden or maybe we don't even think about. Any activity, any relationship can become a god. We don't call them gods today, but we worship them nonetheless. Ancient cultures were just more upfront and open about it.

23:00 It's really no different. So that's the first point, the almost universal prevalence of idols. It was also the longest point, in case you're getting nervous. The other two are shorter points than that one. Here's the second.

23:31 See, if if you try to take something away from somebody that's a that's a good thing, they're going to be upset. They might be sad. They might be mad. If you try to take something away from somebody that is their ultimate thing, that is their meaning in life, that defines who they are, you try to take their idol away, they go absolutely crazy. And that's what's happening here.

23:55 The crowd is chanting for hours, Great as Artemis of the Ephesians. They will not let anybody else speak. They've just gone ballistic. And you see this kind of stuff happening today. Did you see this in the news this past week about...

24:07 Well, this is this is from CNN. University of Michigan group orchestrated terror campaign to sever Israel ties, Feds say. An unsealed indictment describes a coordinated series of threats designed to force the University of Michigan to sever perceived ties with Israel. So what's going on here? Well according to CNN, the protesters' criminal activity, so these are pro Palestinian protesters.

24:37 Say that five times. These are the pro Palestinian protesters at U of M. Now what is happening here? It says the protesters criminal activity included spray painting threatening messages on college property, breaking windows, throwing glass jars filled with noxious chemicals into family homes, marking their victims with threatening symbols used by Hamas. Protesters were marching and chanting in the middle of the night, placing burned out cradles and fake bloody body bags on lawns, disrupting graduation ceremonies, that's what the picture is in news headline, graduation ceremonies and assaulting college officials.

25:17 Wow. So what's going on here? You have a group of people who, I mean, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. They are concerned about justice. They are passionate about human suffering.

25:30 That's what's important to them. But they have turned that quest for justice or a desire to ease human suffering, or maybe just a desire to be part of a cause, they have taken this and they have turned it into their ultimate thing. And they themselves have begun causing the very suffering and injustice that they say they're against. Idols have a great deal of power. But at the same time, idols are very weak.

25:56 I think this quote came from Tim Keller. Idols never give you what they promise, but they always give you the opposite of what they promise. Idols are empty. After this dramatic series of events in Ephesus, it's interesting the way the chapter ends. It doesn't end with a speech by Paul or Peter or any of the apostles.

26:19 No, it's very unusual. It ends with a speech by the city clerk. It's such a weird way for Luke to end this chapter. It's kind of a pragmatic little speech by a local city official. He says, Hey, watch out.

26:33 We might get arrested for starting a riot. So everybody went home. The end. Wait a minute. What's the moral of the story exactly?

26:41 I think that what Luke is doing here is absolutely brilliant. He's just letting us connect the dots. I think what this city clerk is saying is, alright, you say these guys, Paul and his friends are disrupting the social order. Right? But you're the ones disrupting the social order.

26:59 You're saying these Christians are undermining idol worship and disrupting our society but actually you're the ones causing the disruption and the Romans could come down here and declare martial law. This is a riot There's no good reason for it. The Ephesians thought that it was Paul taking away their idols that was causing all the problems. And the city clerk is saying, No, it's not Paul removing idols that's causing this disruption. It's the violence of the idolaters that is causing the real disruption here.

27:30 You think that these idols give you freedom. You think these idols give you happiness. But what is happening? Chaos, pandemonium. This is a narrative that runs throughout all of scripture.

27:40 Idols never get you what they promise. They always give you the opposite of what they promise. Kids and I enjoyed reading Moby Dick not too long ago. And I was thinking about this while we were reading Moby Dick and he's out. As you know Moby Dick, it's about Captain Ahab, he's sailing around trying to get the white whale in his little ship.

28:01 What was the name of his boat? Anybody remember? No? Well that's a... Anyway, that was Moby Dick for 500, Alex.

28:11 Doesn't matter. Anyway, he's in this little boat and he's he's sailing around looking for Moby Dick. Now why? Because in the story, Captain Ahab has basically made an idol out of his reputation, his reputation as an infallible captain. And so nothing is going to deter him from his quest for the white whale.

28:28 He demands total submission from the men on his ship. And Ahab thinks that, because because the white whale has beaten him before. And so Ahab's ego feels threatened by this. So he is chasing this white whale in order to get his reputation back. And the whole story is building toward what Ahab thinks is gonna be this glorious confrontation with the white whale and it will cement his reputation as a legendary hero.

28:56 But things turn out just the opposite of what Ahab expects to happen. The white whale couldn't care less about Ahab's reputation And Ahab's death... I don't want to spoil the book, but Ahab's death at the end of the story is not a glorious martyrdom. It's a messy dragging him underneath the ocean tangled up in his own harpoon line and the destruction of his whole ship and crew so nobody is left to sing his praises. Idols never give you what they promise, but they always give you the opposite of what they promise.

29:28 Wealth. We pursue wealth in order to gain security and freedom. And what do we get? Anxiety, greed, constant dissatisfaction. The more you get, the more you fear losing it.

29:41 Approval. In order to feel loved in order to feel loved, I I build my life around what other people think of me. But do I feel loved? No. I feel chronic insecurity.

29:55 I'm a puppet to everybody else's opinions. Control. You manipulate your life, your circumstances, your relationship in order to try and reduce uncertainty in your life. What do you get? Exhaustion, stress, isolation, messages from your computer.

30:14 Life remains fundamentally unpredictable. Performance. You, we tie, we tie our self worth to our achievements. It's in order to feel valued. Do you feel valued?

30:25 No. You feel burnout. Fear of failure. We're only as good as our latest accomplishment. And by the way, your work, your career, these things which you thought were a means to an end become the end in itself.

30:57 Then they become demons. And then they will destroy us and also destroy themselves. For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves. Oh, they are still called this, but they can become, in fact, complicated forms of hatred. In some ways, idols have so much power, but they never give you what they promise.

31:25 And yet, they totally control you. Until God's love is the ultimate thing, we are slaves to them. Final point, the price of destroying idols. Look at verse 29. Soon the whole city was in an uproar.

31:43 The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia, and all of them rushed into the theater together. Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him. Whenever the gospel is preached in all of its fullness, there is going to be a price to be paid. When Satan's crafts or Satan's workers are threatened, when they stand to lose their business or they threaten their identity, they are not going to take that sitting down. Whenever the Gospel is preached, whenever the Lord Jesus gains a disciple, someone once told me, whenever Jesus gains a disciple, Satan loses a customer.

32:18 And this brings repercussions. Resentment. Rejection. The real battle here... Okay, it's not really about the little silver idols, is it?

32:28 It's really a battle for the hearts of God's people. It is the battle of light against darkness. Gaius and Aristarchus were grabbed by the mob and dragged into the center of the theater. And Paul wants to go in there, he is being held back. But this must have been a terrifying thing for these two men.

32:43 What's going to happen to them? Well, what do mobs do when they are whipped into a frenzy? They kill people. These guys' life is in danger. Gaius and Aristarchus and even Paul, they're on the verge of being torn to pieces by the power of idolatry that had stirred in these people.

33:02 There is no way to oppose idols without exacting a cost. You know, the Bible talks a lot about principalities and powers. Why? Because you have a soul? And because idols are not just psychological factors.

33:22 Our idols are not just chemical addictions. There are powers behind them. There are evil forces behind these idols. And it is very difficult to fight them. You try to fight your idols in your own strength, and they're going to tear you apart.

33:38 And you try to fight somebody else's idols? Wow, you better watch out. In fact, sometimes, even trying to mind your own business and not go along with somebody else's idols can land you in a lot of trouble. Idols are absolutely destructive. And therefore, destroying idols always comes at a cost.

33:58 Luke wrote the book of Acts. So here in Acts, we've got Paul and Gaius and Aristarchus almost put to death by a crowd that is controlled by these powers and principalities. But Luke also wrote a gospel. And in the end of that gospel, there was another person who actually was killed by a mob, Jesus Christ, who was killed by a mob shouting, Crucify him! But at the back of that mob were the same powers and the same principalities.

34:32 And yet, the Bible tells us that when these principalities and powers, when these forces of evil brought their full force against Jesus on the cross, as he bowed his head into that storm, the Bible says, he defeated them. Colossians, he disarmed the powers and authorities. He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. He paid the cost for our idolatry. It was a cost way beyond what we could possibly pay, and he bore it, so that he could both judge evil and have you in his arms.

35:47 And you know that those loves can easily become idols. So what are you going to do about it? What are going to do about it? You're just going to love those things less? Alright, I'm tempted to make my kids an idol.

35:58 So you know what I'm doing this week, kids? I'm loving you less. I don't think that's gonna work. I'm tempted to make my reputation an idol. So you know what I'm gonna do this week?

36:08 I'm gonna let a few people down. No. No. Listen, I've tried this. You try to love your idols less.

36:18 If you're like me, you're just gonna fill up that love with other idols. It just does not work like that. So what are you gonna do about it? Here's what you need to do. You don't need to love the good things in your life less.

36:33 You don't need to feel guilty about loving those good things. You need to love God more in proportion to those things. This comes out of second Corinthians, I think. I think this comes out of second... The love of Christ controls us.

36:47 Isn't that what you want to control you? Not idolatry. The love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all and therefore all have died. And He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. How do you increase your love for God?

37:09 Well, this is what Justin was just talking about an hour ago. How do you increase... I'll tell you how how I increase my love for God. You start by looking at Jesus dying for you. You need to see him on that cross for you, in that tomb for you.

37:28 You need to sense that and recognize that and rejoice in that and let your heart be softened by that until your heart goes out to God and it raises your love for him. And then money just becomes money. And people just become people. Even though they're good people, they're wonderful people. They're just people.

37:48 They're not saviors. And all of a sudden, your world's gonna get turned right side up again. And then you really will be free because you won't be living for yourself. You won't be living for the idols at all. But you'll be living for Him who, for our sakes, died and was raised.

38:05 Let's pray. Heavenly Father, make yourself real to us this morning. Reveal those idols that still hold power over us. Thank you that by the death of Jesus, the power of idolatry is broken in our lives. And help us to learn how to stop living for ourselves and to start living for our risen and reigning Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.