Powers

I want to start this morning in 1 Corinthians 10. If you got your Bibles, you can start moving there. 1 Corinthians 10. Corinthians is one of my favorite books that Paul wrote because the Corinthian church was by far the most jacked up church that Paul ever wrote to. And it just makes me feel a little bit better about myself a lot of times.

But the church in Corinth struggled. Corinth was a difficult city, a difficult culture to be a follower of Jesus in faithfully. It was saturated with idol worship. Temples on every corner, meat sacrificed to gods sold in the marketplace. So in a culture that has temples everywhere to a variety of gods and sacrifices are happening, you understand that that actually becomes a part of the economy, right? What do we do with all the meat that is sacrificed? Well, it gets sold in the marketplace. Well, what does that mean for the followers of Jesus? So, this becomes a very divisive issue within the church in Corinth. Paul spends actually quite a bit of time in 1 Corinthians dealing with this issue.

I want to pick up in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 14. He says:

14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

Therefore, that's again, this is the context that I just laid out for you. How do followers of Jesus stay faithful to Jesus in the city of Corinth? Because for them, idolatry was a big deal.

See, in Corinth and in the ancient world, the temples were not just religious sites. We live in this world that's embraced the idea of separation of church and state. That would have been unthinkable in the ancient world. There was no way to pull those things apart. The temples and the politics and business were all merged into one. Business deals were sealed at temple banquets. Guild meetings were held there. Weddings, civic celebrations, social networking, all took place in Corinth in the shadows of the idols.

For a Corinthian believer to flee idolatry, it wasn't just a spiritual decision. It was a social and economic one. That's why the question was so vital and divisive. Paul is not addressing theological temptation. He's addressing the fabric of Corinthian culture and life. And his exhortation is simple and strong. He says flee. Flee.

The Greek word φεύγω - pheugō means to seek safety in flight, to elude or avoid danger, to keep from doing something. I like the last use of this word; to cease being visible. To cease being visible. It's in the present imperative demanding continuous urgent action. It's not flee once, it's FLEE? It's not avoid a little bit. It's not be careful around. It's run like a bear is chasing you. Run.

It's the same verb and word that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 6:18, flee sexual immorality. Paul reserves this word for things that cannot be negotiated with, for issues where there is no compromise. Flee, he says, from idolatry. The very word he uses here for idolatry is instructive. It's a compound word of two different words. The first is εἴδωλον — eidōlon, the word for idol, carved image, something that represents something else. The second word is the Greek word λατρεία — latreia, which means to worship. It means the carrying out of religious duties. It means service.

So the combination of this flee from idolatry—he's saying flee from the religious act of worship and service that is given unto an idol. It's not just bad behavior. It's misdirected allegiance. I need you to see that this morning. Bowing down to an idol; the problem is not simply the act itself. It's the heart behind the act. And it's also the power behind the idol. It's misdirected worship. And Paul says we must run from it. We must run from it.

He continues.

15 I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.

I think is a little tongue in cheek because they were not acting very sensible. Now he's going to build an argument.

16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

So here's the beginning of his argument. He says, "We come together as Jesus followers to worship Jesus. And one of the things that we do in obedience to him is we take the bread and we take the cup that represents his body and his blood and we remember him as he asked us to." And he says when we do that, do we not do what it actually is called in our context? We call it communion. Do we not commune with Christ? Do we not have union with Christ? When we remember Jesus in the bread and the cup, are we not participating with Jesus in this?

Now, the word here for participating is this great Greek word κοινωνία – koinonia. It's the word for fellowship. It's the word for shared union and partnership. He's saying when we worship Jesus through the bread and the cup, we are participating in union with Christ.

He then continues his argument.

17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

So it's not that we each have our own individual participation. We are all brought together in Jesus. He is the center of our union. He's the heart of our community.

19 What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?

He's saying, "I'm saying that the meat—it's just meat and the idols, they're just stone. They're just wood. They're just gold. They've been made by human hands and in and of themselves, they're nothing." But he does say this:

20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.

That's that same word again, koinonia. I don't want you to have fellowship with demons. I don't want you to have union. I don't want you to commune with demonic realities. It's like you guys are getting stuck on the issue of the meat and the idols and you're not understanding the real problem and danger in the whole situation. It's the powers that lie behind the idols. And that's what you've got to run from. That's what you can't yoke yourself to. He says, "I don't want you to be participants in fellowship with demons."

The point I need you to see this morning is that idolatry is not simply a sin, a human failure, an act in the material world alone. Idolatry opens a doorway. Idolatry is a cosmic transaction. In idolatry, we don't merely diminish ourselves, bending the mirror that we were made to be. But when we willingly and intentionally participate in idolatry, we enslave ourselves to other powers. Powers that have no intention of letting us go.

Now, where did Paul get this understanding? Where did Paul get this idea? When you participate in this act, you're participating with the demons, the powers behind it. He didn't make it up. He's deeply steeped in the Hebrew scriptures. And when he gives us this phrase there, they're participating with demons, he's quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 32.

Deuteronomy 32 is an interesting chapter. If you've been around here for a while, I've talked about it quite a bit. It's actually a song. It's the song that Moses writes at the end of his life. It's a song that Moses is given by God at the end of his life. It's not a law. It's not a list of rules. It's a song and it's a song that's given to Moses because God knows what's coming. He knows Israel is going to make so many mistakes. He knows Israel is going to exchange his glory for the glory of the created beings. And so he gives Moses the song to stand as a witness against them when they do it.

In Deuteronomy 32:17, it says:

17 They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.

The Hebrew word here for demons is is שֵׁד - šēḏ - Shed. Shedim in the plural. It's a term for spiritual beings receiving worship that belongs to God alone. When the Greek translated the Septuagint, they translate it with this word δαιμόνιον (daimonion) which we get the word demon from. This is what Paul would have been reading in the Septuagint. This is exactly what he says. It's not an accident that Paul is using this phraseology and that he's pointing us to Deuteronomy 32 because Deuteronomy 32 gives us this perspective of the storyline of scripture. One that we're not always very familiar with.

If you're in Deuteronomy 32, jump back to verses 7 to 9 with me. In verse 7, it says:

7 Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.

Zakar in the Hebrew, remember, call to mind. It's not just think about it. To remember is to call to mind and act on it.

On the basis of that memory God is saying, "Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. If you don't remember, ask your father and he will show you. Ask the elders and they will tell you." God is saying, "I need you to remember this so that you live rightly."

What is it that they are to remember and act on? God says:

8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.

Israel would remember when was it that God divided the nations? When was it that God scattered the nations? This is a reference to Genesis 10-11, the Babel event. At Babel, the languages are confused. The nations are scattered. But most importantly, the nations are given to the bene Elohim, the sons of God.

What's happening in Genesis 10-11, what's described in Deuteronomy 32, is exactly what Paul described in Romans 1 with that phrase, "God gave them over." At Babel, God effectively gives the nations what they want. They don't want to worship God as God. They don't want to serve God as God. And so he says, "As you wish." You don't want me? Okay. But be careful what you ask for.

At Babel, God disinherits the nations and gives them as an inheritance to other powers, the bene Elohim, the sons of God, members of God's heavenly household, creatures not of the material world, but of the spiritual world. But, and this is another one of those big "buts" in scripture:

9 But the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.

So the Lord chooses for himself a new nation, a nation that didn't exist at Babel to be his inheritance and his vehicle to restore all humanity.

So in the biblical storyline, mankind as a whole rejects God. God gives them what they ask for. They're placed, they're scattered, they're separated, they're allotted. They begin to worship other gods. Other gods are placed in governments over them, small "g." And then God creates for himself Israel to be his people, his possession. Israel is to be the new Adam. Israel is to be the one that ultimately brings all the other nations back to God.

In this context, idolatry for Israel is absolutely forbidden. Other nations worship other gods. Israel is to worship Yahweh and Yahweh alone. Listen to Deuteronomy chapter 4:

15 Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. 19 And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. 20 But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.

See, Israel's called to serve God in the midst of this cosmic conflict, in the midst of a battle for allegiance, in the midst of competing claims and calls for worship. Israel is to be unique because they belong to Yahweh and Yahweh alone. So don't make idols because idols represent real powers. And if you make the idols, you might be tempted and drawn to those real powers. You belong to God and God alone. Worship God alone. Seems like there might be a commandment something like that…

See, this is what makes idolatry so terrible. This is what makes Deuteronomy 32:17, which I just read to you a minute ago, and the next verse, verse 18, so tragic:

17 They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had not known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. 18 You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.

When Israel engaged in idolatry, it wasn't just that they were worshiping a thing of wood and gold and silver made by human hands. It's that they were sacrificing themselves to powers behind those idols, to gods they had not known, to new gods that had come recently whom your fathers had never dreaded. And then verse 18, just heartbreaking: "You were unmindful of the rock that bore you and forgot the God who gave you birth."

Israel owed everything to God. They weren't a people. He made them a people. They weren't a nation. He made them a nation. And they forgot him and they gave themselves to other powers.

So in 1 Corinthians 10 and Deuteronomy 32, we see this biblical concept that behind the idols, there are real powers. There are real beings and they will receive worship that belongs to God alone. And Israel, God's own inheritance, his chosen portion, gave it to them anyway.

And what you got to hear this morning is that this is not simply ancient history about Israel. Deuteronomy 32 is not just a song about Israel. It's a map. It's cosmology. It's a description of how God's creation actually works. It tells us the story that we're actually in. Moses isn't writing mythology here. He's giving us an operating manual for the world.

And the problem that you and I have in the culture that we inhabit is that we've lost the map. We don't know the story that we're in. We don't know the players. We're operating under false assumptions. See, we've inherited a world through the Enlightenment, through the industrial revolution, through all that has come in the last 200 years. We've inherited a world that's been disenchanted.

The modern western mind has been formed to see a world that is purely material. We only look horizontally. We ignore any vertical reality. We don't think about supernatural beings or powers. There's no cosmic architecture. There's simply atoms and economics and psychology and politics.

To the Marxist, all there is is power. To the capitalist, all there is is greed. To the hedonist, all there is is sex. And we see this reflected everywhere in our culture, in the arts especially. You remember that Wall Street movie? "Greed is good. Greed works," right? How about my favorite, The Office? James Spader, Robert California: "All there is is sex. You understand that's a universal principle, don't you?"

This is the world that we've inherited. We've flattened everything out. We've made it a story that we can wrap our heads around and we can put ourselves at the center of. What that means is we're living in a false story. A story we don't understand.

I think most of us think we're living in some sort of romantic comedy. Maybe not a Hallmark movie because those are too simplistic, but just a manageable, comfortable, mostly predictable story where the biggest threats are traffic and interest rates and whether your team makes the playoffs or not. Yeah, life is hard sometimes, sure, but it's basically safe, basically navigable, basically under control.

Deuteronomy 32 says something different. It says you're living in a world that is contested. A world that is populated with beings greater than you that existed before you. There are powers that were given jurisdiction over the nations of Babel. Powers that corrupted their stewardship. Powers that receive the worship that flows through every idol. The problem with idols is not the idols, it's the powers behind them.

We're not living in a romantic comedy. I was trying to think what it is we're living in. I think we need a new genre. It's some sort of amalgamation of horror, suspense, drama, fantasy, and war with a little bit of comedy thrown in.

I love C.S. Lewis so much. In the preface to his beautiful, strange little book, The Screwtape Letters, Lewis writes this. He says:

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils, about the demons, about the spiritual beings. One is to disbelieve in their existence…”

That's the route the majority of our culture has taken. We've disenchanted, we've demythologized. "Oh, it's not a demon. It's psychology. It's mental illness." We have done our best to live in the Truman Show, to just live in that bubble and not acknowledge the potential or possibility of anything outside of it.

The other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. There are of course groups that have gone that way too. They themselves, the powers, are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

I love that Lewis is saying that the powers don't just have one strategy, they've got multiple. And that one of their strategies for dealing with us is to not announce themselves. It's to convince you that they don't exist because a disenchanted world, a flat material horizontal world is the perfect environment for idolatry. It's the perfect environment for idolatry to flourish completely undetected.

You can't fight what you don't believe is there. You can't name what you've been told is a superstition. And this is not sophistication. That's what we love to think it is. This is exactly what the powers want. And the Bible is so clear on this. It's everywhere. And yet we've been blinded to see so much of it.

Even the text that we all know—I'm going to go to Ephesians 6 right now. And 95% of you go, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know what he's going to say." And we know it, but we don't know it. We understand it, but we don't live like it. So let's go there. Ephesians 6:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Well, why do I have to be strong, Paul? Thank you for asking. He says, "Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil." Oh, okay. I have to be strong. I have to be prepared. I have to be in Jesus and in his strength. Why? Because there's a very real enemy that is plotting and scheming for my destruction. I don't know about you, but I don't wake up every day with that mindset. And I need to. You need to.

You need to put on the full armor that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, but against the rulers and the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Not flesh and blood—rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, forces of evil.

Paul's not being dramatic. He's not writing for effect. He's giving the Ephesians and us the map that Deuteronomy 32 established, the map that the whole scriptures lay out for us. He's saying, "You're not in a Hallmark movie. Stop living like you are. You're in a war. You're in a cosmic conflict."

And the war is not primarily political. There's a whole wing of the church today in the US that needs to hear this. We don't fight or win the war through politics. It's not also primarily psychological. It's not even primarily cultural. It's cosmic. It's spiritual. And it's been going on since the beginning.

I want to be careful here because Lewis also warns about the other side, the other extreme. I'm not asking you to become obsessed with the demonic. There's a whole other road you can go down there. I'm not asking you to see a demon behind every struggle or a power behind every bad day.

What I am asking you to do is this: Take the Bible seriously. Understand that when you give your heart to an idol, when you make that exchange, you're not just making a personal spiritual mistake in the privacy of your own soul. You are participating in something. You are communing with something.

I like to say it this way: Be careful on which doors you knock because something might answer.

Sometimes something answers. Idolatry is entering into union and fellowship with whatever stands behind that idol. And whatever stands behind that idol is not neutral and it's not good. It's not indifferent. It has an agenda. It's why idolatry is so deadly because idolatry is worship. And worship is not casual. It's the place where the heavens and the earth meet. Where the human soul reaches beyond itself to the divine.

That reaching was made for one, for God and God alone. When we make the exchange, when we give our hearts to something lesser, we don't just diminish ourselves. We don't simply bend the mirror. Hear me, church. We sell ourselves. We enslave ourselves because whatever has your heart has your life. And when you give your heart to an idol, you're giving it to the very powers that stand behind it.

That exchange is not merely psychological. It's not just sociology. It's a transaction with a very real power. And what you sold yourself to has no intention of letting you go. I was thinking about Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and that great character of Tolkien, Gollum, and his storyline. It's this story. Smeagol finds a ring and he has to have it. He loves it. He serves it. He worships it, doesn't he? What's he call it? My precious. My precious. He kills for it.

And what happens? And this is where I love Jackson's films. What happens to Smeagol? He's bent, isn't he? Everything we've been talking about in this series, he physically transforms. He becomes corrupted. And it's not the ring, right? What is it? It's the power behind the ring. This is a beautiful example and illustration of what idolatry does to us. Smeagol sold himself to what he thought was a ring, but it was actually to Sauron. The power behind the ring.

This is what happens when we engage in idolatry. It corrupts us. It deforms us. It destroys us. And it enslaves us. Here's the tricky part. The powers don't need temples anymore. They don't need statues of gold and carved wood. They have screens. They have systems. They have ideologies and algorithms. They have cultural narratives that are extraordinarily effective at directing the worship of human hearts away from God and towards anything and everything else.

What you got to see is that the mechanism is the exact same thing as it was in Corinth, as it was in Ephesus. The altar just looks different, but it's an altar and there are powers behind the altars. So where does that leave us? If the problem is cosmic, if idolatry is not simply personal failure, but participation, communion with something hostile, something that has an agenda, something that has no intention of letting us go, then we need much more than a self-help strategy. Better habits aren't going to get us out of it. We need more than idol management. We need a rescuer.

A rescuer who operates on the same level as the problem. This is where Colossians 1 comes to bear. It's been in this text each week in this series. Colossians 1, Paul tells us in verse 15:

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Jesus is fully man and Jesus is fully God. We need a power to deal with the powers. Are you with me this morning? This is who Jesus is. The image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. He's the true icon, the true image, the one human being who never made the exchange. The one who looked at every idol and said, "No, thank you. I will only worship the father."

But now watch what Paul says about the scope of what Jesus is and what Jesus has done:

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

You hear that language? Thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities. This is the same words, same language of Ephesians chapter 6 (Ephesians 6). Paul's not being vague. He's describing the powers, the powers that exist, the cosmic architecture that undergirds the whole Bible. And he's saying this: Jesus made them. He made them. They exist because of him. And they actually exist for him.

Which means this, and church, this is so good. It means they're not his equals. They're not his rivals. They are his creatures. And then Paul says:

17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Firstborn from the dead. That's Easter language, resurrection language. Paul is placing it inside a cosmic frame. Jesus's resurrection takes place in the reality of the cosmic powers. So it's not simply Jesus rose so your sins can be forgiven. That's gloriously true. But Jesus rose as the firstborn, the preeminent one, the one who has been declared lord over every power, dominion, and authority that has ever contested his rule.

And then the capstone:

19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

All things, whether the material earthly things or the spiritual heavenly things, all things reconciled in Christ. A challenge for us in our culture, not just the modern culture of the west, but the evangelical culture of the church, is we've been trained, and I mean this pastorally, we've been trained to think about the cross almost exclusively through the lens of our own private story and our personal need for forgiveness.

Jesus came and died for my sins. My guilt is removed. I'm forgiven. I get to go to heaven. I don't have to go to hell. All that's true to a point. I don't want to minimize that. But the picture of what Jesus did on the cross, what we're celebrating at Easter is so much bigger than that. Let me say it this way. The cross was not simply a courtroom where we're declared innocent and righteous. It's a battlefield.

John says it this way:

8b The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

Not manage them, not contain them, wipe them out. Jesus is born onto a battlefield. And he comes to destroy the works of the powers that have rebelled against God and drawn us into their rebellion.

See, Jesus did not come simply to help you be a better person. He didn't come just to give you your best life ever. He came to destroy the works of the devil, to dismantle the cosmic architecture of rebellion that has been exploiting the exchange since the garden. He came to break the power of every principality that has been receiving stolen worship. He came to set the captives free.

Captivity in the biblical story is not just a metaphor for guilt. It's a description of what happens when you sell yourself to something that has no intention of letting you go. Jesus came to set the captives free. This is what theologians call Christ victor. Christ the victor. It's not in opposition with or competition with forgiveness of sins. It's the larger frame that forgiveness of sins sits within.

Your guilt needed to be dealt with and it was fully finally at the cross. But the powers that exploited your guilt, that cultivated the conditions of your idolatry, that served you the idol and then held the contract, those needed to be dealt with, too. And they were.

Just one chapter later in Colossians, Paul will say this:

15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Disarmed, shamed, triumphed over. The cross was not the powers' victory. It looked like it, didn't it? It looked like the powers were winning. Judas is tempted by the evil one, betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The crowds demand the thief and criminal be let go and Jesus be crucified. Pilate washes his hands because he's too cowardly to do the right thing. It looks like evil wins. Jesus dies. He breathes his last. His side is pierced. Blood and water flow. It looks like the powers won when they moved against the son of God at Calvary.

But what in reality happened is they overplayed their hand because they had no claim on him. See, he'd never made the exchange. He'd never bent the mirror. He'd never given his heart to anything other than the father. And in killing the one man that they had no right to kill, they were disarmed. They were exposed. They were defeated.

This is the story we're in. It's a story of Lent. It's a story of Easter. It's not a romcom. It's certainly not a Hallmark movie. It's not a flat, disenchanted world where our biggest problem is our own bad decisions, and our biggest need is a little more willpower. It's the story of a cosmic war where the powers are real, the exchange is real, the captivity is real. And the rescue is real.

Jesus did not come to help you manage your idols. He came to destroy what's behind them and replace them with himself. Church, you were made by God for God to image God, not to give yourself to some other lesser image. You were made for communion with God. Jesus comes as the true image so that we might be restored to our rightful image and our rightful role as imagers. That's who we are. It's what we're made for.

We're not made to be slaves to other powers that have no intention of our good. Not made to be a casualty of war that we didn't know we were in. We're not made to be a diminished, bent, hollowed-out version of the God who made us for himself. And so God doesn't treat us as our sins deserve. And because of His grace and His kindness and His love, the son of God comes into this broken battlefield, this contested, populated, hostile world to make it possible once again for you and I to be in communion with God.

It's why the cross is not just a courtroom transaction. It's a rescue operation. He didn't just satisfy a legal requirement. He walked into enemy territory. He took the full weight of the powers of evil and death. He absorbed it into himself and he broke that power. The tomb is empty. The powers are disarmed. The contract is canceled in Jesus.

This season of Lent as we prepare to reflect on what Jesus did in his death and his resurrection is an invitation for us to understand our part in that story, to understand what Jesus is actually offering us. I think it invites us to live our life differently, to open our eyes to a biblical understanding rather than simply accepting the cultural narrative we've been raised with.

We've got to stop treating our idols like harmless preferences. We've got to stop seeing our failures and our struggles with sin as basically something that's simply about us. It takes place in a much larger context. The story is so much better, even if it is darker and scarier at first, because Jesus is so much better.

I'm going to say it again this morning. Jesus did not come to help you manage your idols. He came to set you free. He came to destroy what's behind them. And church, he is more than enough.

So this week, as you walk through the story God has put you in, as you live in the world that God has made, as you take the opportunity to reflect on what Jesus has done for us, I want you to continue to ask yourself: What has my heart? What am I pointing to? What am I aiming at? What am I longing for? What am I serving? What am I truly worshiping? Because whatever has your heart has your life.

And if what has your life is something other than God, if what has your life is a power other than God, it's time to name it. And it's time to let Jesus set you free from it. Because he is the image of the invisible God. He is the one every idol tried and failed to be. He is the firstborn over all creation which means every power, every principality, every authority that has ever stood behind an idol. They are his creatures and he has already won.

Church, we become what we behold. Let's behold Jesus. Amen.