Altars and Idols | Pastor Greg Ford Sermon | One Church Columbus

Altars and Idols | Pastor Greg Ford Sermon | One Church Columbus

ICEBREAKER:

What is a hobby you have/love and when did that become a hobby for you?

MESSAGE NOTES:

Series: Next is Now

Sermon: Altars and Idols

Text:

[Hebrews 11:1]

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Illumination & Calibration

[Hebrews 11

David & Gideon

[Hebrews 11:32]

How much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets.

[Judges 6:11-12]

Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”

[Judges 6:15-16]

“But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!” 16 The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”

[Judges 6:23-24] 

“It is all right,” the Lord replied. “Do not be afraid. You will not die.” 24 And Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and named it Yahweh-Shalom (which means “the Lord is peace”)

[Judges 6:25-26]

That night the Lord said to Gideon, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one that is seven years old. Pull down your father’s altar to Baal, and cut down the Asherah pole standing beside it. 26 Then build an altar to the Lord your God here

[Judges 6:32]

From then on Gideon was called Jerub-baal, which means “Let Baal defend himself,” because he broke down Baal’s altar.

The numbers don’t add up.

120,000 vs 22k - 10k - 300

[Judges 8:22-23] 

Then the Israelites said to Gideon, “Be our ruler! You and your son and your grandson will be our rulers, for you have rescued us from Midian.” 23 But Gideon replied, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son. The Lord will rule over you! 

[Judges 8:27] 

Gideon made a sacred ephod from the gold and put it in Ophrah, his hometown. But soon all the Israelites prostituted themselves by worshiping it, and it became a trap for Gideon and his family.

“Prostituted themselves” What does that mean?

An ephod is a shirt-like garment worn by the priests of Israel (Exodus 28). This was obviously wrong, and it is not immediately apparent why Gideon did this. It is possible he did this to work against the prestige and influence of the tribe of Ephraim. At this time the tabernacle – the center of worship for Israel – was at Shiloh, in the territory of Ephraim. Gideon perhaps set up this rival place of worship to compete against the tribe that troubled him in the battle against Midian.

  1. “While this was probably done out of a sense of the religious failure of the people, the effect produced was evil and resulted in deterioration of the character of Gideon himself.”

  1. “He did not set up an idol, but he made an ephod, an imitation of that wonderful vestment worn by the high priest. Perhaps he made it of solid gold, not to be worn, but to he looked at, simply to remind the people of the worship of God, and not to be itself worshipped.

Ephod represents the seeking God for direction

What starts out as altar can end up as an idol.

We will either worship THE UNCREATED GOD or we will worship SOME CREATED THING.

If we stop worshipping at our altar & start worshipping our altar, our altars become our idols.

[Judges 8:34]

They forgot the Lord their God, who had rescued them from all their enemies surrounding them.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Personal Application in a measure of Faith

QUESTION 1:
Is there an area of your life God is calling you to step out of your hiding like Gideon, to go from a place of survival into a place of serving the Lord?

QUESTION 2:
Do you currently have or have in the past, a. battle of your 300 vs 120K? What has been or was your first reaction/response to that battle?

Personal Application of Altars vs Idols

QUESTION 3:

What is a potential idol in your life?

QUESTION 4:

What are things we can do to protect our hearts from making altars in our lives becoming idols?

GUIDED PRAYER:

God thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for sending your son Jesus to save us as we focused on idols that distracted us from you. Thank you for showing up when rationally the odds don’t seem in our favor. God I pray that you would reveal in our hearts what potential idols we have and Lord that you would place a hunger for you, a hunger to praise you, a hunger to make the things in this world an altar so we may focus on worshipping you. I love you, praise you, and worship you. In Jesus name - amen.

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