FHBC Sermon Notes

Fear of Missing Out #FOMO - Part II

Acts 19:23-27

*There is more to gain by disobeying God than there is in being faithful to him.*

Like last weeks lie, this one is based in idolatry.  While we tend to not think of idolatry as a "modern" thing, that it is a thing of ancient culture who bows down to statues, we must realize that there are still many idols we have today.  Of these are our things we do for fun, or make our business.  We worship many things whether we admit it our not.

The book of Acts brings us a specific example of this in the time of the early church.

>About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, "Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship. Act 19:23-27

For Demetrius it wasn't the honor of his god that was at stake, it was his business. What does this tell us?  Look at the peoples response.

>When they heard this they were enraged and were crying out, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians Act 19:28

This leads to an important question.  What thing in your life is such a central component of your life, that you feel you can't possibly exist without it?  Is it your hobby, your business, your family even?  Consider the example of new parents.  Our anxiety as new parents leads us to sometimes protect so closely that nobody can hold the baby.  So worried that we make the center of the family our children.  Can we surrender even our children to God? 

**The problem with idols is that many of them are in an of them selves good things.  But when those good things become "god" things, then that is when we have a problem.**

So how do we identify what we made idols.  Considers these truths about idols.

**1. Idols must always be protected.**

So many things this is true of.  Consider our football teams; how as soon as we hear someone criticize our teams we get immediately up in arm.  HOW DARE YOU!.

In Acts, Demetrius hearing his idols were being supplanted by the gospel, got up in arms.  He was going to run Paul out of town.  "from this business we have our wealth…" The great and powerful Artemis needed to be protected. Our God is different, because God doesn't need us to be his attorney, but to be his ambassadors.

It is easy to pick on Demetrius, but we have much these same in our lives.

**2. Idols need sacrifices to keep them happy.**

Don't think this isn't true to this.  If romance is your idol, you walk out on your spouse as soon as the romance is "gone".  Idols want time, money, and will ask us to give up all the things of God

What do you love that pulls you to keep cutting corners and making excuses?

In the South, I think it isn't atheism that combats God, it is indifference.  "Sure I want to be a Christian, but just make sure it doesn't interfere to much with my life."

This isn't about addiction. This is about worship.  When you change not how you act, but who you worship, the game begins to change. 

Divorce, pornography, alcohol

Career, "romance", comfort

What do we sacrifice to keep these things. 

>But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. Rom 6:17-18

>But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom 6:22-23