Idolatry in the Home

This last Sunday, I preached a message from Deuteronomy 6:4-9. In this text, Moses gives his farewell address to the people of Israel and is preparing the way for a transfer of leadership to Joshua. This is Moses' last chance to speak into the lives of those he has led for several decades. It is monumental what he says.

Moses challenges the people to love God and obey His commands. Then, he tells the people to teach these things to their children. Each of these admonitions are powerful. However, each of these are preceded by a crucial statement: "The Lord our God, the Lord is one." The reason Moses says this is because the Israelites had a history with idolatry. Idolatry is putting anything else in the place of the one true God.

In Exodus 32 we read of a sad situation when Moses was away from the Israelite camp and the Israelites began to grumble and complain because of his absence. Then, they turned to Aaron in their grumbling and said they wanted to erect a god to worship. They fell hard into idolatry. This was such a problem that God intentionally created a commandment against it. We read in Deuteronomy 5:8, "You shall not make for yourself an idol." In his farewell address, Moses wanted to remind the people to love the one true God.

In our American culture, we have allowed idolatry to creep into our lives and homes. Many who claim to have a relationship with God, sacrifice their walk and intimacy with Him to pursue other earthly attractions such as TV, music, internet, video games, food, sports, money, toys, etc. These are not bad in themselves, but they become bad as they take the place of God in our lives.

I have heard my Dad say from time to time, "Our children will run after the biggest god that they see." As parents we must rid our homes of idols. If we long to see our children walk with Jesus, we must clear the stage and allow Jesus to be the center of our homes. If our purpose, as parents, is to raise the next major league baseball player, then that will be at the center of our universe as a family. If that is the case then everything that we do will be to bow to the whims and wishes of the baseball gods.

However, if our goal is to produce followers of Jesus Christ in our homes, then we will develop a vision and execute a plan to lay a foundation for multi-generational faithfulness to the Lord. Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, "If anyone come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." If we are going to usher in the manifest presence of Christ in our homes, we must first deal with the idols, then we must schedule times of worship for our family to grow closer to Jesus. The sacrifices we will make to deny ourselves and our children the worldly distractions to focus on what matters most will result in eternal significance.