Tear Down the Idols: Success • Ps Kina Landy

``He doesn't wait at the finish line for high achievers. He meets the tired people under the weight and the burden that we were never made to carry. You know, we live in a day where people are desperate for rest. We have meditation clubs, We have yoga. We have spas. We have calming apps on our phone. We have microdosing to try and just let us have a little bit of peace. But, really, that is elusive because it's only taking away a symptom of feeling tired. But, actually, the rest that Jesus is offering us, it goes beyond that. He's not just offering a nap or a little time out. He's offering soul rest. [00:24:11] (52 seconds)  #SoulRest

Soul rest is rest from proving. It's rest from pretending. It's rest from guilt. I should have done more. I should have done it differently. Someone else is better. I should be more ahead than that. This is the rest that Jesus gives us. He gives us rest in our soul. He gives us rest when we don't know whether money is coming for the next payment. He gives us rest in the hardship and in the hard times. He gives us rest when our kids are struggling. He gives us rest when our marriage just feels too heavy and too hard. [00:25:04] (40 seconds)  #RestFromProving

And as we've been sharing, we've been talking about how an idol is anything that takes the place of God in our lives. The time that God wants in our lives, the heart leaning that God wants in our lives, if anything gets in the way of that, that is what we're referring to when we speak about an idol. So the idol of success, it is dangerous because it's not always obvious. It's applauded. It looks respectable. It looks disciplined. It looks productive, admired. It looks fruitful even in ministry, even in the church. [00:03:33] (35 seconds)  #IdolDefined

And the idol of success, it's it's tempting because it gives us something visible to hold. It gives us a safety, a number, a reputation, a salary, a title, a measurable sign that we're doing okay. But rest, the Sabbath, it forces us to lay that down, to believe that God will continue to work on our behalf. You see, daily bread tears down the idol of success because it teaches us that we are not kept alive by achievement. Sabbath tears down the idol of success because it teaches us that we are kept by God. But for many of us, the deepest problem isn't that we have full calendars, that we have full schedules. The deepest problem can be that we have false masters. [00:22:20] (52 seconds)  #LayDownFalseSecurity

Second way that God tears down the idol, God teaches them that they can trust him by providing daily bread. Exodus sixteen fourteen says, God provides bread from heaven, not a warehouse full, not a lifetime supply, but daily bread. This is formation. Formation simply means that God is not only changing their location, he's reshaping their instincts, their habits, their trust. In Egypt, they survived by making more bricks. Now God is teaching them to survive, to come to him for their daily bread. He's teaching them to trust him. He's he's saying, in Egypt, you relied on fear, but now I'm calling you to rely on my trust. [00:18:51] (41 seconds)  #DailyBreadTrust

And can't we do the same? When the future seems uncertain, even slavery starts to feel safer than trusting God in things that we cannot see. When we step out in faith because God has called us to take more ground in our life, and it's hard work. We gotta think different. We gotta pull ourselves up. We've gotta read scripture. We've gotta memorize scripture. We can often say it was easier when. It wasn't that bad. We can start to think and wanna go back to the ways of Egypt, back to the rhythm of Egypt. It's easier sometimes to complain than to trust. It's easier to keep an old mindset than to make, to do the work and have a new one. [00:16:55] (46 seconds)  #ChooseTrustNotComfort

Pharaoh had such great fear that if the Israelites were let to left to go and worship their god, that his production line would stop, and actually, they would overtake him because there was more of them than there was of his own very people. And so behind the idol of success is fear. If I stop, I'm gonna fall behind. If I rest, someone else will get ahead. If I fail, people will lose respect for me. If I'm not producing, maybe I'm not valuable. And it could be the fear of missing out on the ideal Aussie lifestyle. If I stop working now, I'm not gonna get the house that I want. I'm not gonna get the two cars and the two dogs, the spoodle and the groodle. [00:12:22] (47 seconds)  #FearBehindSuccess

We can leave the old way of life, but we can still think like Egypt. We can still have the old mindsets that haven't been renewed. We can be rescued from a pharaoh in our life and still live by the rhythms that pharaoh placed in our lives because they're now physically free, but Egypt's system, it's still in them. Exodus sixteen two says they are hungry. They begin to grumble. They look back at Egypt and they say, in effect, at least we had better food in Egypt. But Egypt was hardship. It was slavery. But they look back and they think, hey. I reckon it was probably better back then. [00:16:13] (42 seconds)  #EgyptMindset

and they are now on their way toward the promised land that they knew that God had for them. And so we find in Exodus sixteen three ways that God tears down the idol of success. Firstly, God takes them out of Egypt, and he begins to take Egypt out of them. When God delivers Israel from Egypt, he just not only takes them out of Pharaoh's land, he begins taking Pharaoh's ways out of their hearts. And the same can be for us. We can be saved by grace but still live like everything depends on us. We can leave Egypt. [00:15:31] (42 seconds)  #LeaveEgyptBehind

Jesus cooked breakfast on the beach for his disciples after he had risen from the dead. Jesus had just risen from the dead. He could have done this incredible sermon on the next strategy to save the world, and here he is at the beach making breakfast fish for his disciples. He sat around tables with people. He played with children. He stopped and enjoyed nature. He said, smell the lilies. You know, rest can look different in our different seasons of life. As a parent, sometimes the rest looks like getting out of the front door of the car and walking around to the other side to get your kids out. [00:26:32] (49 seconds)  #JesusSimpleRest

And we see now that when time gets taken from his, from God's people to be with him, God goes to war for his people to have time with him. Today, God is still at war Yes. Great. Wanting to have time with his people. Yes. Great. I wonder what that can look like for us. Can our list be so long that time with God gets pushed to the side, that time with God feels irresponsible, that time with God feels like it's gonna be unproductive? I can feel this as a pastor Yes. Because there's always gonna be more to do. Yeah. And I've gotta be careful that I don't treat my time with God as preparing for ministry. [00:13:52] (53 seconds)  #FightForTimeWithGod

And many of us here today are leaders. Many of us here today are on team, and we gotta be careful that our time with God isn't preparing for ministry. God is calling us to have time with him, just to be with him. You know, Pharaoh had everything the world calls success, power, wealth, control, status, but Exodus shows us that success without God does not create freedom. It creates slavery. It becomes an idol. But God doesn't only show the idol of expose it. He begins to retrain his people in tearing it down. So we jump ahead a few chapters. We find ourselves in Exodus 16, and God has indeed taken and delivered the people out of the land of Egypt, [00:14:44] (47 seconds)  #TimeWithGodNotPrep

And that's not healthy ambition anymore. This is a voice. This is the voice of the idol of success. Farrah's system didn't just make people tired, it made them despair. When they cannot meet the impossible quota, pharaoh calls them lazy. But he says in Exodus five eight, they are idle. They're lazy, and that's why they cry out, let us go and worship our god. Exodus five eight. And that's what the idol of success does. When you stop to worship, it calls you unproductive. Wow. That's very good. That's very good. So From the beginning, god wanted to be with his people. [00:13:09] (43 seconds)  #SuccessKillsJoy

You should be more productive than you are now. You cannot rest now. If you rest now, someone else is gonna get ahead of you. You know, the taskmaster in our life may not be a boss, it may not be a family person, it may not be a friend. Oftentimes, the taskmaster in our own life is our own voice. Sometimes, it's saying to us, more results, more recognition. You need to be more disciplined than that. More. More. Anybody hear that? More bricks. And, you know, the truth is that there's fear behind the idol of success. If we look into scripture at that time, [00:11:37] (46 seconds)  #InnerTaskmaster

You know, some of us have come in today carrying bricks. Maybe it's a brick of striving. Maybe it's the brick of pressure. Maybe it's the brick of not feeling worthy. Maybe it's the brick of lordship, choosing your own calendar instead of allowing God to do it for you. Maybe it's a brick of feeling irresponsible when you wanna have time with God. Maybe it's a brick of, I should have done better. I should be further along than I am now. But we've all come in carrying some kind of brick today. That's why Jesus addresses it in the scripture. The brick of fear, what if I stop? And Jesus doesn't stand here this morning asking us to make more bricks. He stands here this morning and he says, give me your bricks. Let me take the pressure. Lay the pressure down. Let me take what you may feel is not worthy, and let me tell you that you are worthy. [00:30:25] (70 seconds)  #GiveJesusYourBricks