We have been taking a journey through 1 Thessalonians 1. We’ve learned what happens when the true gospel of the true Jesus encounters a person. We also learned that persecution will come our way, and what we need to do when that happens. 

Turn To The Living God

The last thing we see in 1 Thessalonians 1 is Paul commending the believers for turning away from serving idols to serve the living God. 1 Thessalonians‬ ‭1‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭(ESV) says, ”For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.“ ‭‭‬‬

Serving Jesus means we put away every single idol we served pre meeting Jesus. What is an idol? Simply put an idol is anything we place as more important than our relationship with God. Make no mistake, an idol is not just an inanimate object we bow down and worship. No, an idol can really be anything. 

Some common idols people tend to have come in the form of entertainment, success, family, and power. Let’s look at each of these areas in more depth and see how they become an idol in our life. 

Entertainment As An Idol

Entertainment is a huge priority in the world. We all love to be entertained. Hear me when I say that entertainment itself is not an idol. It becomes an idol when it takes up too much of our time and focus. I love curling up on the couch and watching a good movie just as much as the next person. Watching the movie or going to the concert or whatever you like to do for entertainment is not in and of itself idolatry. However, when going to that movie or concert continually takes the place of going to church, it may be an idol.

I also believe we, as followers of Jesus, must be careful what we allow to entertain us. If you are over the age of 40 or so, you probably remember when tv shows were called programs. I have come to realize there is a reason they are called programs. The world is literally trying to program us to believe whatever they want us to believe. It’s worked too! Just think about it. In the 1950s it was absolutely unheard of for a girl and a boy to live together before they were married. Forget having a baby out of wedlock. That was just plain and simply disgraceful. 

Then Hollywood started portraying sex outside of marriage and people living together before marriage as something normal and even good. What has happened? Slowly but surely society as a whole now believes that it’s not only ok but the right thing to do to have sex before marriage and live together pre marriage. After all, you must find out if your are compatible before you get married, so they say. 

God’s Standard Never Changes

Just because the standards of the world change, does not mean God’s standards change. It was wrong to have sex and live together before you were married when Jesus walked on the earth, and it is still wrong today. I’ve had front row seats to the devastating consequences of people living together before marriage, and then splitting up. 

Just recently a friend’s son was living with his girlfriend. They were planning a wedding for the following year, and things seemed to be going well. Then someone entered into the girl’s life who tore the relationship apart. My friend’s son was devastated, which is completely understandable. However, because they weren’t married there was a great dispute as to who got what. It wasn’t like they could go to divorce court and have a judge determine who got the house, cars, dishes, etc. 

It came to light that this girl planned on stealing everything- all of their possessions and money. Her plan was to take everything and leave my friend’s son with nothing but a broken heart. Thankfully God allowed my friend’s son to discover this evil plot and he put a stop to it. 

While this couple may not have been able to avoid a breakup, my friend’s son could have saved himself from jeopardizing losing everything he had worked so hard for. Not to mention this couple now has a soul tie from having sex with each other that will need to be dealt with at some point. Brett and I have witnessed situations like this many times over the years of ministry. It’s always heartbreaking. It’s always messy. It never honors God, not even a little bit. 

Our Standandars Have Changed

Somewhere along the way we as a society have allowed the standard of what we view as acceptable behavior to lower until many followers of Jesus have no higher standards than the world who doesn’t follow Jesus. A change of standards is an indication that something like entertainment has become an idol. We see this in the Old Testament all the time. God would do amazing miracles in the lives of his children, those people would have their own children and fail to teach them both the ways of God and the miracles God had done, then we would see the children of God fall away and serve idols. 

This Is Not New

Perhaps the best example of this is found in Judges 2:10-13 (ESV), ”And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.”‬‬

The service of the Baals and Ashtaroth were extremely ungodly. Some of the things these gods demanded was prostitution, cross dressing, and eventually human sacrifice. Where the parents of these people would have never even thought to kill their own children or have sex with a prostitute, the children lowered their standards to the point that these acts were not only ok to do, but an honorable act of worship. 

Again, God never lowered his standards. He was and is very clear that human sacrifice is always wrong, and sex outside of marriage is also always wrong. He offers grace and mercy for those who made bad choices, and offers redemption. However, he will never change his standards. He will tell those who have sinned in these areas the same thing he told the woman caught in adultery in the New Testament, “Go and sin no more.” 

Entertainment In The Church

I have seen the idol of entertainment infiltrate the church in ways where the leadership of a church is more interested in the presentation of the material over what they are teaching. I know someone who worked at a church. His job was the production side. He was in charge of the sights and sounds of the church service. My friend is a man who does everything with excellence and integrity. He is a man I am happy to call a brother in Christ. While nobody wants to sit in a church service with the sound off or the lighting directed in the wrong places, this church became obsessed with the way things sounded and looked. 

They would often change the way the lights were positioned on Thursday afternoon. This meant that my friend would have to go in on his day off and work a full day to make those changes. Over time, the music guy would forget what he said and be in the wrong places, and as such the lights would be directed in where he said he would be instead of where he actually was. In the mind of the music pastor and lead pastor, this made the music guy look bad. 

The Breaking Point

Eventually my friend had to tell the music guy he couldn’t keep changing things on Thursday afternoon. This made the music guy angry. Let’s just say that things escalated to the point where this church became a toxic place for my friend to work. He eventually was forced to leave, and I am happy to say that God gave him an even better job. He and his family are doing well. 

The pitfall this church, and many churches across America found themselves in is placing too much focus on the “making things look good” side of ministry. The idol of entertainment snuck in and destroyed the job of my friend. I pray they have repented and turned back to focusing on what is actually important!

Sports As An Idol

Success and power often go hand in hand. People will put their success in their jobs or athletic abilities ahead of their pursuit of God and his ways and definition of success. I live in Texas and the one thing I noticed almost immediately after moving here is how important sports are to people. Parents literally spend thousands of dollars just so their kids can play a sport. I’m not saying thousands of dollars once you add up equipment, travel, and such. No, they pay thousands just to get their kid a spot on the team. Furthermore, having a game on a Sunday or even on Easter Sunday seems totally normal. I’m not kidding. I know a family whose kid had a tournament over Easter Sunday weekend on more than one occasion. 

I can only speak for my family. My children wouldn’t have been doing any kind of tournament or game on Easter Sunday. I don’t care how “important” it may seem to them. We would be celebrating the resurrection of our Savior that day. Furthermore, as long as we went to church on Sundays, I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to be playing games those days either. 

Remember God’s standards haven’t changed, only ours have. God says, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” This means we honor God first and foremost on the Sabbath. In America, most people celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday. Therefore, we should honor Sunday as a special day to spend time with God and our family. I’m not saying that we should never miss a Sunday church service for something else. What I am saying is we need to be very careful that our activities and desire to be successful in a sport doesn’t come before our desire to be spiritually successful. 

Success As An Idol

Success in business can also become an idol in someone’s life. Spending too much time on work and ignoring your family and relationship with God is one big sign your job has become an idol. Power and prestige can be intoxicating and drive people to place those above everything else in life. Sadly, the end result of this drive for power and success often leads to loneliness because a wife (or husband) and kids get tired of being a last thought. They go off and live their lives without the spouse, and at the end the husband (or wife) has missed everything regarding their family. Likewise, they find themselves without a relationship with God, and not even knowing how to hear God’s voice anymore. God gives his children success when they put him first. 

However, success in the eyes of God often looks different than success looks in the eyes of man. Success may look like a happy, healthy family. It may look like a close walk with God. The kind of walk where you know exactly what to say at just the right time. Success may also look like promotions at work, yet maintaining a healthy family/work life balance. 

Family As An Idol

The last on our list of common idols is our family. I feel like while the drive for success and power are often idols men struggle with, family as an idol is something women more often struggle with. You may be asking, “How can my family become an idol?” When we place more value on being a mom (or dad) than we do being a child of God. Children need lots of things from us, and they take up a lot of our time and energy. We must not allow our kids to take up so much of our time and energy we no longer have anything left for our husbands and God. 

Family becomes an idol when their wants and needs come above your time with God. Part of this is being a good steward of our time. However, we must remember that time with God is the most important thing we do everyday. Our families need to respect that time, and we need to be an example of what true godliness looks like. 

Remember what Paul said to the Thessalonians? Thessalonians‬ ‭1‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭(ESV) says, ”For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.“ ‭‭‬‬

We Must Turn Away

Just like the people in Thessalonica, we must turn from serving idols and serve the living God. Then thank Jesus for delivering us from the wrath to come. What does turning from serving idols to serving the living God look like? It looks like putting God and his standards first. It means sounding like a prude because you hold to the standard of sex should only be done in marriage between a man and woman. Serving the living God means saying no to watching that movie or tv show that is clearly not something God would want to watch with you. It’s realizing Hollywood is trying to program you to think like they want you to think, and turning off Hollywood and turning on entertainment that wants us to think like God thinks. 

It’s allowing God to promote you and saying no to your job when necessary. Serving the living God means saying no to sports or any activity that interrupts your ability to go to church and put God first. It’s telling your children to wait because you are spending time with Jesus.

Basically it’s putting your priorities in order: God, husband, kids, job, friends and ministry. It’s changing the way you think about the world so your thoughts align with God’s thought. It’s renewing your mind to think like God thinks. (See Romans 12:2) When you choose to do these things, Jesus tells us what the results will be: ”But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.“ Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭33‬ ‭(ESV)‬‬ Then sit back and watch how God blesses you and shows you how to do all those things you want to do – like play a sport, watch a movie, spend time with your family, etc.