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[0:00] You're great. All right. So open your books to chapter one. So we're going to take the first five minutes. I want to hear from you, you know, a couple of you. What were your overall impressions of chapter one?

[0:11] You may need to go back through and look at your highlights, your underlines. But if you had to summarize chapter one or what you remember of it in your words, what would it be? And I have some review notes as well, some summary notes.

[0:23] So I'll fill in the blanks a little bit. But anything that comes to mind, and again, you know, we're rewinding a month now. But as you looked at chapter one, open your book, go through it. I mean, really, it's almost on page 17, and it's a third of the way down, or halfway down the first.

[0:42] Idolatry is perhaps the Bible's most pervasive theme. All right. And I mean, just looking at that, and as you read through, I mean, shoot, the Old Testament is just riddled full of it.

[0:56] Just watching, rinse and repeat. Repeat. It's a repeat. How basically Israel just, that's all they would recognize, and then they would fall right back into idols.

[1:09] All right. And then just, yeah. So, I mean, you can see that theme throughout. And I think that, yeah. All right. So the one main thing you took away from chapter one is idolatry is perhaps the Bible's most pervasive theme.

[1:23] We see that loud and clear. Not only in the Old Testament, but clearly, you know, in the New Testament is Christ looks at the heart, right? And so that's where it gets a little bit more complicated when we look at the heart.

[1:36] It's saying that idols hide. Idols hide. They're hard for us to identify. All right. They hide. They're hard for us to identify. Why are they hard for us to identify? And again, looking from what he said in chapter one.

[1:48] Because we don't see them. Because we don't see them. And why don't we see them? And we don't smell them. We don't smell them. Okay. And the heart is deceitful above all things. All right. So it's pervasive.

[1:59] They're hard to find. They're deceitful. Anything else? Anybody else? Just the highlights from chapter one. You generally don't want to give them up. You don't want to give them up.

[2:10] Yeah. Why is that? Because they're fun. They're good. They're pleasurable. They're still satisfying. They can be all kinds of things. At least in the short term. Right? They are. And that's sort of what we've walked through in all.

[2:23] It's just like sin, right? In all five chapters. He sort of walks into that. All right. Well, let me share a little bit. Here's some of my summary notes as we look at chapter one. So the title of chapter one, if you're on page 17, right?

[2:35] It's all about gospel drift. Right? It's about, listen, we're going to be either drifting toward the gospel, toward Jesus, or away from Jesus. And when we're drifting away from Jesus, we're drifting toward something else.

[2:48] Right? Because Big D explains, and Scripture explains, that we are worshipers. God designed us, created us to be worshipers. So if we're not worshiping Christ, we are worshiping a Christ replacement.

[3:00] And that's one of the definitions that Big D has for what idols are, Christ replacements. So Big D starts into chapter one talking about that. I'm just sort of looking through my notes here.

[3:12] He calls idolatry one of the Bible's most pervasive themes. He argues that every move toward an idol is a move away from the Savior, just as I mentioned. And then 1 Corinthians 15.3, he refers to that.

[3:26] What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15.3? It's also at the top of page 18. So either one. Either you're a copy of your Scriptures or at the top of 18. I'll read it.

[3:38] Okay. Now brothers, I want to remind you of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.

[3:54] Alright. So that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. That's one very brief way to define, describe what the Gospel is. And so how does Paul describe the Gospel?

[4:05] Of first importance. And so that's what I sort of had underlined in my book there. So big in me citing this, citing what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15.3, he insists that whatever pushes Christ's work off center stage in our life leaves us open to, again, spiritual drift, gospel drift, spiritual sickness, or whatever.

[4:26] So that's one takeaway from chapter 1. Alright. As he moves through chapter 1, again, some of my notes here. Next, he refuses to treat idolatry as an Old Testament problem.

[4:38] Right? So Mark brought that up. It's clear in the Old Testament, but big to make sure that we don't misunderstand or misinterpret that it's just an Old Testament issue. Right? And so first, the very last verse in 1 John.

[4:52] Do you remember what that says? And turn to 1 John. There's five chapters in 1 John. The very last verse. What's that verse say?

[5:04] Little children, guard yourselves from idols. Yeah. At the end of that, the very last thing is, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Right? He uses that plus some other Scripture as sort of, hey, these are evidences in Scripture that this is, you know, idolatry is not just an Old Testament issue.

[5:22] Certainly, it is in the New Testament. Again, we are worshipers by nature. So if we're not worshiping Christ, we are worshiping Christ's replacements. On page 19, Bigney says that Christ holds the title deed to our hearts.

[5:37] But what do we do? We sort of let squatters in. Right? Right? Right? Christ owns, you know, if you would, from a real estate sort of analogy here, Christ owns a title deed to our hearts.

[5:48] But we allow squatters to come in into that. And then Bigney talks about, I think it's still on page 19. Right? There's a gap between our confessional theology.

[6:00] So what does Bigney mean by confessional theology? What we confess. Right? What we say we follow. What we say we believe. And our functional theology.

[6:11] What would functional theology be? What we actually do. Right? And Bigney says, hey, y'all, there's a gap. There's a gap between what we say we believe and then what we're actually acting out.

[6:22] What we're believing. And, right? Would everyone agree with that? We see that in ourselves, right? Quite a bit. And so this gap hides from us. And then Bigney says that God will not help us chase our idols.

[6:37] So again, all this is on page 19. I should have just read a lot of that page. God will not help us. Why will God not help us chase our idols? Because He knows they're not good for us.

[6:49] Yeah, He knows they're not good for us. But even more. Okay, so you're right. But even more significant. It's basically contrary to His Word. Contrary to His Word.

[7:00] It's not pleasing to Him. Why is it not pleasing to Him? It's not pleasing to Him. He wants all your worship. That's it. That's it. It steals glory. It steals glory from Him. Right? You're giving your affections, your attention.

[7:11] You're giving glory to the idol. And you're stealing. You're a thief. You're robbing that from the Lord. So is the Lord going to help you? Steal from Him? Of course not. No, no. This does give me pause.

[7:24] You know, part of what I preached this past Sunday, you know, on prayer. Right? Right? Paul was clear about how we just don't know how to pray. Right? And part of the reasons why we just don't know how to pray is because sometimes we're praying that we don't know this.

[7:42] Right? But sometimes we pray for things that will draw our hearts closer to idols. Right? To the exact things that God doesn't want us to draw toward. And so it just takes some discernment. And, you know, just going to the Holy Spirit.

[7:53] Thankfully, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. But it's sort of interesting. I didn't bring that point up. But as I was preparing for tonight, it's like, yeah. Why isn't that amazing how in harmony Scripture is?

[8:05] So as we look at some of the Scripture references here, that, yeah, God doesn't help us chase our idols. He doesn't want anything to get His glory. Right? No other thing. That's Isaiah 42.8.

[8:16] And so what's He doing instead? And on page 21, I like this analogy. He gives us His Word to wake us up. What did He refer to on page 21?

[8:29] God's Word is a smelling salts. Has anyone actually smelled smelling salts? Have you ever passed out?

[8:40] Yes? Yeah, yeah. Of course. You administer it quite a bit. Right? So I've had the opportunity in my younger years to get a whiff of smelling salts. And boy, yeah.

[8:51] It resonated with me. Right? God smells idolatry. So He gives us His Word to wake us up and to see what we're doing. Okay. Lastly, in chapter 1, I'm already spending longer than I wanted to.

[9:03] So on page 24 and 25, He sort of paints a picture on page 24 and 25 that idolatry. Now this is where He's sort of looking at the heart. Right? Idolatry, there's a hub.

[9:15] A hub and spokes. A thing of a bicycle tire. Right? And Bigney lands on the idolatrous place is at the hub of the wheel, and every sin is a spoke.

[9:28] Right? That's tracing back to the heart. And you all see that? I think it's at the top of 25. Think of a bicycle wheel. The hub is the heart where the idols are. Each spoke is a specific sin, but you can trace each sin back to the hub, the heart.

[9:44] So what's the implication? What is Bigney reminding us of here? Is sin coming from without, or is it coming from within? Within. The heart. Right? The heart. The heart. Of course.

[9:55] All right. So He'll expand on that in chapters 2 and beyond. He has a reference to John Piper, that sin is what we do when we're not satisfied in God.

[10:08] What do you all think about that? Do you all agree with that, or does it make you think? On page 26, he, I don't know, did he quote?

[10:21] Yeah, right there on the top full paragraph, he quotes John Piper. John Piper summed it up this way. Sin is what we do when we're not satisfied in God.

[10:31] And then, let me give you a corollary principle. Sin is what you do when you're chasing after something other than God, namely one of your idols. But, do you... You can do something. No, well, I...

[10:42] God's not doing this right. I can do it better. Oh, we'll get to that one. No, we'll get to that one. We'll get to... Yeah, you want to be in control. Yeah, but that's still... I'm not satisfied with what he's doing. With his timing.

[10:53] So I'm going to go do it because I can do it better. Yeah. If you don't like what he's doing or when he's doing it, then you're going to do that. So, sin is what we do when we're not satisfied in God.

[11:03] Would you ever characterize yourself as... Yeah, at times I'm not satisfied in God. I mean, Mark just said, yeah, sometimes I don't like his timing or what he does. That's pretty sobering.

[11:16] I mean, it's like... I don't know that I would... How dare we? I don't want to admit that. How dare we? Who am I to say I'm not satisfied in God? Watch the lightning bolt come down. All right.

[11:28] So that was pretty good. So the last point Bigney made, he goes to Ephesians and Colossians. He basically ties covetousness to idolatry.

[11:38] Right? You don't like what God's doing or how he's doing it. You want it a different way. You want it to be done differently. Right? That's coveting. You're coveting. You want something that you don't have.

[11:49] So you're going to do it your own way. And that's... He's just equating coveting to idolatry. Greed. All right. So now go to your outline.

[11:59] So based on that, now, this is not a quiz. But here's the three points that if we had to distill down... So listen. So my memory is so bad. Right? I've joked about that a lot.

[12:10] It's not a joke. It's reality. But so when I have to look back at five chapters, by the time I get to chapter five, I forget what's in chapter one. Right? So I need to distill things down to pictures.

[12:21] You saw that Sunday. Give me a picture or a diagram. I can remember things that way. Or just some main points that you can sort of hang your hat on. And so I've come up with three main points. And this is sort of what I'm doing tonight with you.

[12:33] Sort of outlines. Main points. If you don't remember anything, maybe remember these main points from each chapter. All right. So if you would put the focus on PowerPoint. All right.

[12:46] Go ahead and advance the slide then. It's... You actually, you've clicked on PowerPoint?

[13:02] I am clicking on PowerPoint. You've clicked on the slide. So the cursor is there. All right. Where is it?

[13:18] Well, I just disappeared because I just... There it is. Do you want me to slide it back up there?

[13:38] No, no. It doesn't slide. No. It doesn't slide. Oh, very resume slideshow.

[13:55] Is that it? But let me click now. Let me click it. All right. Let's see if the... I'm giving you time to fill out number one.

[14:07] There we go. All right. All right. So can you all fill out what number one is? Oh, I don't have the... I need one of your all's... All right.

[14:20] So based on what... Hey, everything that we just talked about is in these three points. All right. So I'm going to give you the whole line. Anybody want to guess? All right.

[14:33] What's the title of this chapter? What's the title of the chapter? What? Gospel drift. All right. So gospel drift and... Idolatry.

[14:44] You got it. Right. So gospel drift and idolatry are basically two sides of the one problem, the same problem. Right. So when we talk about gospel drift, moving away from the gospel, what are you moving toward?

[14:57] You're worshiping something other than the gospel. Which is an idol. Right. So one of the main points Big D makes out of chapter one, moving away from the gospel, is idolatry.

[15:10] Because you're moving your affections to something else. You're worshiping something else. You're giving something else. Preeminence in your life and not the gospel. When the gospel slips from first place, something else fills the vacancy.

[15:27] We are worshipers by nature. Babe, can you turn on the back monitor too? All right.

[15:39] That's the first one. Number two. Oh, come on. Y'all remember this one. Which one? Our what theology can contradict our what theology? Our confessional theology.

[15:51] Right. So he says, hey, as believers, it shouldn't be that way. But what we confess, what we say that we believe, our confessional theology can contradict and does contradict.

[16:03] Right. Our functional theology. Yep. Yep. Yep. Either one. They contradict each other. So what do I have? I have functional, contradict, confess.

[16:15] Okay. All right. We may say Jesus is Lord while other things, right, approval, success, or a perfect family actually rules our thoughts and affections.

[16:31] All right. And the third thing, I'll go ahead and give you the answers. Sin is traced to the, you would have figured this one out, right? Right. Right. The hub and the spoke, right?

[16:41] When you look at the sin, right, that sin starts where? From outside or inside? Inside the heart. So sin is traced to our heart. And the unfortunate news is the fight against our idols and sin is lifelong.

[17:00] Word driven. Marvin said the heart is deceitful, right? You were quoting scripture, right? Only God's word can expose and uproot sin. And the battle lasts as long as we live while we're still in the flesh.

[17:15] This, again, goes back to the sermon on Sunday, right? While we wait to be revealed as sons of God, right? Until we wait for that glory, right? We're clothed in flesh. And so we're going to have a hard life.

[17:27] And we're going to groan, right, as we wait. All right. We've got chapter one. Try to distill it down, right? Gospel drift, idolatry, right?

[17:40] We conflict what we say. It conflicts with what we believe sometimes and do. And then sin. You can't blame others outside. Circumstances, right? It starts with the heart.

[17:52] The situations that we're in, the circumstances that we're in, right? We could blame our circumstance. We could blame the flat tire. We could blame the unruly co-worker. We could blame our spouse. But that's all wrong, right?

[18:04] Because it just reveals what's in our hearts. All right. Chapter two. I'll give you a chance. Anything out of chapter two as you flip through your book?

[18:15] Any highlights or underlines that, any aha moments that you have with chapter two? Do you remember how he started in chapter two?

[18:30] He actually goes, rewinds back to childhood. A lot of the idols that we have weren't necessarily usually not things that would just sort of happen recently. We can actually trace some of those back to we've been idolaters since we were born.

[18:45] I stuck out on 29 stating the struggle and what that is. God is glorious. Yes, he is.

[18:55] He's powerful. But he's not always on our timeline. Bingo. That's what you were mentioning a minute ago. Right, right. So middle of 29, Mark was highlighting that one of the things that resonated with you is, oh, yeah, yeah.

[19:08] God's glorious. He's powerful. But he doesn't follow our schedule, does he? Yeah. He's not always on our timeline. Anything else sort of stand out as you were reading chapter two?

[19:25] That was still several weeks away. So it's been a little while. I did add to the bottom of that. That Jeff said that our idols serve us so poorly they hurt us.

[19:39] He said they cost us what we think. We're in the house. He means they're most predictable than God is. And they keep us in the driver's seat. That is a lie. He said he wrote that in his garden.

[19:50] So I did the same thing. Okay. So that's page 29, the bottom of the next to last paragraph. There you go. Because God's time is not our timing.

[20:01] So what do we do? Mark, you just mentioned it last time. Since God's time is not our timing, will we turn to something we can control? Even though it serves us poorly, I would probably add there, initially it may serve us okay.

[20:14] But again, that's a lie, right? Because it'll eventually. Our idols serve us poorly. They hurt us. They cost us. But we think they're more predictable than God is. And they keep us in the driver's seat, or so we think.

[20:26] At least temporarily, initially. Yep. Yep. And then the next line, there's an unpredictability about God. All right. Anything else?

[20:38] Stand out? Yeah. I'm sorry? God is good, but not safe. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we camped out on that one that night, right? The top of 30.

[20:48] God is good, but he's not safe. And so Jeff sort of clarified. We wanted to make sure we didn't leave that night with a general impression that God is not safe, right? But the context here is that you may think he's safe because you may think he's going to tend to your idol.

[21:07] But you're not safe in that regard. He's not safe in that regard, right? He's going to use the word and circumstances to expose the idols in our life. And it's going to be painful, but it's for our good.

[21:18] It goes back to God is good and he does good. So, yeah, he messes with our business, and that means getting rid of those idols. Yeah. Anything else?

[21:28] Out of chapter 2? Where are you? 31. 31. However, since we were made to relate to God, but do not want to face him, we forever inflate things in this world to religious proportions to fill the vacuum left by God's exclusion.

[21:50] There you go. Richard Keyes quote. So right in the middle of page 31, Mark, you were reading, however, since we were made to relate to God, right? We're made to be worshipers, to worship him, but we do not want to face him, right?

[22:03] Because we're rebellious, right? We forever, therefore, we forever inflate things in this world, right? These God substitutes, these idols to religious proportions, right? We make them preeminent to fill the vacuum left by God's exclusion.

[22:19] We're excluded. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that exclusion is a God-sized hole that we try to fill. Yeah. All right. Let me run through some of my notes, which will, again, help us with the fill in the blank, right?

[22:33] So, again, going through chapter 2, again, he talks about how our idols, a lot of our idols that we have take root as children, right? Who teaches our children? Who's taught us, right, to love idols, to love God's substitutes, right?

[22:49] No one has taught us that. We've spent years perfecting them and protecting them, right? So that's one thing that sort of stood out to me. Bigney says, back on 27, our idols become friends.

[23:02] They've become security blankets, right? That we've grown comfortable with them because they do serve us well. Well, not so well, temporarily, right?

[23:13] Because sin is like that. Otherwise, we wouldn't sin, right? We sin because it feels good, you know, makes us happy, at least temporarily. But the cost is far, far more, far more grievous.

[23:26] And therefore, since we sort of depend on them, then I think Bigney says here, we're tempted just to sort of give a Christian makeover, right?

[23:37] When God calls for a radical amputation on page 28, right? That's what we're called. That's what this book is calling us to do. And that's what Jeff and I are trying to encourage our church family here, is to have some radical amputations of these idols that are just so ingrained in us, in our hearts.

[23:57] So, you know, the point there being that this is sober stuff. This is not, we're not playing patty cake here, right? This is serious. This is serious. Bigney turns to Romans 1.

[24:08] I think we're, hopefully most of us are familiar with Romans 1. We, you know, we exchange the truth about God for a lie, and we worship and serve the creature instead of the creator, right?

[24:18] Romans 1, 25. Bigney makes a note on 28 that both God's creation and our own conscience, right?

[24:29] They leave us at a point where we are aware of God, right? But Romans 1 says that, but then Romans 1 says we deny that, we exchange that.

[24:40] So we're left without excuse. On page 33, Bigney sort of shifts a little bit to more practical things.

[24:51] Psalm 139, 23 and 24, search me, O God, and know my heart. Again, so as we, you know, at the end of chapter 2 is when we were given that assignment to go, go listen, you know, go spend some time to identify, you know, maybe look at our behaviors.

[25:09] And from our behaviors, the fruit, we can then work to the root, which is the real idol that's in our heart. And so we have to work on something, right?

[25:19] You have to define what that is and identify what that is. And so we, hopefully, we've all have been praying as we've been working on these exercises. Search me, O God, and know my heart.

[25:31] We are poor listeners. And then he also mentioned, so Alonzo, you mentioned this, right, on page 33. A believer's idol rarely looks gross.

[25:42] It usually hides behind a good desire. It hides behind something that comes across as good. I want to be a diligent worker. I want to do ministry.

[25:53] I want to help my neighbor. I want to love my spouse. I want to serve my kids. And all of those are great until they start ruling your life, right?

[26:06] And you put them above God, right? And then that's when they become idols. All right. So, all right. Here's your three points. So go into our outline for chapter two. And again, I'm trying to pick up the pace a little bit here.

[26:18] So can you all, you want to guess at the first one? So idolatry is our natural bent, right? And we come to blank our idols.

[26:33] We come to love our idols. Yeah. Yeah. Right? No one has to teach us how to love and do idols, right? And the idols we protect often reach back all the way to childhood.

[26:45] Because they feel like companions, we are tempted to tweak them just a little bit, right? Versus reject them, amputate them all the way out. That was one of Bigny's main points out of chapter two.

[26:59] All right. Second one. We turn to idols because we want blank more than blank. We want blank more than blank.

[27:09] We want control. Yes, that's it. We turn to idols because we want control more than God.

[27:20] Yes. Trust. Trust. But yeah, trust in God. Yeah. Right? We don't want to be patient and wait and trust on God. Right? We want control.

[27:32] We want our timing. We want to see how it's done. So we turn to our idols because we just want control. That's just how we are. We're impatient. That's because we're not trustworthy, but He is.

[27:44] Yeah. We don't want to do it. Yeah. We need to trust Him and His timing versus helping Him out. Right? Just think of Abraham and Sarah, right? They were trying to help God out.

[27:58] So though creation and conscience both show us God's glory, right? He is not safe, in quotes, or predictable. He doesn't run on our timeline. Therefore, hey, idols promise to ease the discomfort of waiting.

[28:12] They do. But that's a lie. It's a lie and they cannot deliver. All right. Third thing. Again, third. Again, this is me sort of summarizing just in my reading.

[28:24] You may have some different things. But number three, the best idols hide behind good desires. Yeah, they hide. They're deceitful.

[28:34] They hide behind good desires. So we must ask God to search our hearts. You got it. Who said that? Was that you, Kate? All right. Yes. Yes.

[28:46] Yeah. The best idol. Best, I mean, maybe most effective would be a better word than best. There's no idols that are good.

[28:57] But they hide behind good desires. Psalm 139, 23, 24. Some good verses to memorize there. All right. So that was chapter two. So again, you can relate that back to the title of the chapter.

[29:11] That'll help you remember. Right? So idolatry is the inside job. So Big D was trying to remind us. It's in the heart. It's been with us our whole life. All right.

[29:22] Chapter three. We'll keep rolling. All right. Give you a moment. Two or three folks to mention. Now we're getting to chapter three. We're getting to a little bit more recent. So maybe your idols' memory is a little bit better.

[29:34] So chapter three, the title is Enough is Never Enough. So what we're... And by the way, did you all find...

[29:46] I found this, especially after going back through... As I was reading chapter three, then four, then five, I'm like, I think I just read that. Was that this chapter or was that the previous chapter?

[29:56] I found him... He was very redundant. But he does that by design on purpose. I appreciate it. Because again, I can't remember things. So that was good.

[30:07] So we may be redundant tonight in some of the points that he makes. But good. You all found that too. Okay. I'm not... I'm not... Yes. I'm not imagining. And I was redundant too.

[30:18] So Sunday. All right. Enough is never enough. Any highlights that you all remember or you've made note in your books? All right.

[30:41] Page 44. Page 44. I had made two notes. We live in the middle ground. We are ready and not yet. Ooh, yeah. That in between, we're already, but we're not fully there yet.

[30:57] But then a couple sentences after that, the power and penalty of sin have been broken. So there's the already. But the presence of sin is still remaining.

[31:07] So it has not yet been relieved from us. Amen. Amen. And that was Romans 8, by the way. You notice that? The top of that, the first of that paragraph. It was Romans 8.

[31:18] So it's familiar. Yep. Now Paul goes to praise God for Jesus, who was given the death blow to that problem that he talks about up in Romans 7, the battle that we keep fighting is ongoing, fighting idols, fighting sin.

[31:32] But already, not yet. Anything else? Thank you, Mark. Anything else stand out to anybody? If not, maybe we'll mention some things tonight that you can highlight.

[31:46] All right. So let me run through a few of my notes in chapter. So chapter 3, right? So big news starts out by pressing the point on page 41. Even a good thing can become an idol, right? So we've already mentioned that.

[31:57] He uses the example of a woman who serves tirelessly at church. That she may be meeting her own need to be appreciated when her family goes neglected.

[32:10] Right? So again, it comes across as good, but maybe not so good after all. And then Bigney, you know, sort of just, you know, self-confession, right? He says the same thing about his testimony a little bit.

[32:23] His own ministry busyness became his idol. He moves on to, and I think, yeah, I have the same note here, Mark, that you just mentioned, right?

[32:34] Bottom of 43 and through 44, he locates the source in the heart, James 1.14, right? Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by what?

[32:47] By his own desire. Again, so he's repeating what he mentioned earlier, that sin and idolatry come from within, not from without. And then he uses the examples of, you know, Bigney says he sees it in gamblers.

[33:02] He sees it in men who work 80 hours a week. And then he uses that, he likens life without God to breathing underwater through a failing oxygen hose.

[33:13] So again, that's on 44 or 45. And then we get a little bit of insight from Solomon and Ecclesiastes, right? So Jeff, again, was preaching about this recently.

[33:24] And so, yeah, you work your whole life. Your idol is your job. Your idol is your success. But at the end of the day, what did Solomon say to Ecclesiastes?

[33:36] It's all vanity, right? Striving after the win. Bigney goes on, page 49. Idols are shallow substitutes for Christ. And then he compares, and I like this one on 50, right?

[33:51] Bigney compares everything else to drinking salt water in a lifeboat. Who's had a mouthful of salt water when you've gone to the beach and you're out body surfing and whatnot?

[34:03] And yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes me thirsty, as a matter of fact. So yeah. Yeah, relief comes at first, right? I think the analogy he...

[34:14] Let me turn to page 50. I think he was saying, hey, you're... If you're... Let's see. You're adrift on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean.

[34:24] Your tongue clings to the roof of your mouth. Your throat's parched. Your lips are cracked and bleeding. You're dying for a drink of water. The problem is, if you give in to that temptation, if you lean over the side of the boat and gulp down mouthful of that water, you will feel an immediate sense of relief and satisfaction that will quickly be followed by a ravaging thirst that is far worse than what you had before.

[34:48] I tell you, that spoke to me. What a great picture. What a great picture. And again, it goes back to, you know, you're taking it upon yourself to help out God and His own timing and how He does it.

[34:59] It's so tempting. It makes total sense. We are our own little gods, aren't we? So, I highlighted that one. Again, these word pictures, that one was good.

[35:13] Yeah. I didn't bring any salt water tonight. I could have brought some salt water if anybody wanted to laugh at somebody and take a drink of that. All right. So, idols. Shifting our attention, our gaze, our affection to idols.

[35:28] Drinking salt water. Relief first, and then it just gets worse afterward. All right. Big Me, his point near the end of chapter 3. He says, idolatry threatens the soul.

[35:42] Peter says, fleshly passions wage war against your soul. 1 Peter 2. That's on page 52 and 53. And God withholds peace until we throw our idols overboard.

[35:54] And sing and pray with the psalmist. Psalm 73. There is nothing on earth that I desire beside you. I like the phrase that says, He gives us the storms.

[36:09] So, we'll wake up and realize that idols have to go. So, for the recording, Alonzo said, you like the part about, hey, the storms sort of wake us up. And remind us.

[36:19] No, don't we need to be reminded? We're such forgetful people, right? We're reminded. The business of life sort of distracts us. And so, circumstances in our life wake us up. Whether it be smelling salts.

[36:30] Whether it be drinking salt water. Right? All these analogies. These pictures. To remind us that idols have to go. They're just not good. They're not good for us.

[36:42] They're not bringing us closer to the Lord. They're replacing the Lord. God, the bottom of 52, the paragraph start of the last paragraph. God doesn't give peace to people who are frantically clinging to, protecting, and perfecting their idols.

[36:59] Yeah, amen to that. He gives peace to those who reject them and then lift open hands to Him and say, God, rescue me, help me, deliver me. I am done trying to make it happen.

[37:12] I'm done pursuing things that I think make up the quote unquote good life. Tearing up my list, laying it all down. God, come in and evict every usurper to the throne of my heart.

[37:25] That's a good one to copy and paste for prayer, right? Throw down every squirming, swarming idol that's smothering me. Do you know you're smothering?

[37:35] We're smothering. So that I can't breathe and come reign and rule in my life. All right. So idolatry threatens the soul.

[37:47] And so as chapter three came to a conclusion, there was another worksheet that Jeff didn't put up on the screen until the following Wednesday, which I think was just this past Wednesday, about once we identify our idols.

[38:01] So that was in chapter two, right? Our homework was to look at our behaviors, look at the fruit, find the idol. That's the root. And then once you find it, what do we do about it?

[38:12] And the first thing we need to do is once we identified is we have to repent, right? All right. So we got to turn, confess it, repentant, turn. And get rid of and then add.

[38:26] What's the phrase? Yeah. Yeah. Replace. So get rid of the idol, the sin, and then replace it. Replace it with something else.

[38:36] So we're going to do that a little bit later on tonight. But that's the second half of tonight is we're going to work on that exercise as well. But that was how chapter three concluded.

[38:46] All right. So our three top points for chapter three. Get your outline out. So idolatry springs from the blank of our own blank.

[38:59] Yeah. Desires of our own hearts. Y'all are good. See? When Jeff gets back, you tell him, Greg took it easy on a Wednesday night. No quizzes at all yet. No quizzes.

[39:10] We're walking through these, right? So idolatry springs from the desires of our own hearts. Where in the Bible? Is one place to go look at that. Men. Where's Matt? James.

[39:21] Yeah. James. Right. Our own heart. All right. Outside pressures are not the main culprit. Even good pursuits. All right. All right.

[39:32] Whoa, whoa. Go back. Shh. Close your eyes. All right. Number two. Number two. Idols can never blank because they feed a continual lust for blank. Idols can never satisfy, right?

[39:45] Because they feed a continual lust for more. More. Yeah, yeah, yeah. More. More. Little sign language here. More. That was one of Bigney's points in chapter three.

[39:58] It can never satisfy. Again, as we go through, you know, these Wednesday nights and as, you know, at home or in your context, when you're really working on this homework and just praying to the Lord, maybe talking to a loved one about your idols and working through them.

[40:14] You know, these are just great truths. Idols can never satisfy. Why? Why am I continuing to pursue this particular idol? Right? You just speak truth to yourself.

[40:25] Preach truth to yourself. Preach truth lovingly to a loved one. This cannot, it may satisfy you temporarily initially, but it's not going to satisfy you. Why are you doing this?

[40:37] That helps. That could help. All right. Number three. Real freedom requires specific blank with eyes fixed on blank. All right.

[40:47] Real. So this was the put off, put on. That's what I was trying to remember a minute ago. All right. Real freedom requires specific. Those are all right.

[40:58] That's not the word I was looking for. So once you identify the idol, what's the first thing you need to do? Repent. We're just playing. Yeah. Got to repent. Repent. Right. What have you done when you recognize an idol in your life?

[41:10] You've recognized sin in your life. What do you do when you recognize sin in your life? First thing you do? Go to the Lord. Repent. Repent. And then, with eyes fixed on whom?

[41:23] Yeah. Yeah. Christ. God. Yep. So real freedom requires specific repentance with eyes fixed on Christ. All right.

[41:35] All right. You got your outline filled out? Now, are you already planning? We're going to do this outline when we're done tonight. You're not going to fold it up and stuff it in your Bible and then throw it away.

[41:47] Right? You're going to take it home. You're going to put it on your refrigerator. Right? All right. You're going to put it somewhere on your bathroom mirror. Right? It's going to remind you. Remind you this stuff.

[41:58] I'd say put it in your car, but I don't want you distracted. Don't do that. Don't distract it. All right. Chapter 4. What's the title of Chapter 4? Remind you to have it in your relationship.

[42:09] Yeah. So more truth about the result of idols. Remind you to have it in your relationship? Rex. Rex or reeks? Either one. Wreeks havoc in your relationship.

[42:23] All right. Let me just run through my notes real quick since time is already getting away from us. So Chapter 4. Again, just some observations that I go through through the chapter. So Bigney argues right on that first page on page 57.

[42:37] Idolatry does its worst damage in our closest relationships. Well, that makes sense. Right? Because your closest relationship is typically who interacts with you.

[42:48] Not all the time, but folks who interact with you the most. So idolatry tends to do its worst damage in closest relationships. He looks at James 3.16.

[42:59] Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice. Yeah. Yeah. Then he refers to a quote from Paul Tripp.

[43:12] You know, he insists, Tripp insists that God never gets a wrong address. So the conflicts that we resent are actually divine appointments by which the Lord exposes our hearts and realigns them to himself.

[43:28] All right. We mentioned that earlier as well. Right? So hopefully we all would agree that, you know, God doesn't get it wrong. Right? He doesn't make a mistake. He doesn't. There's a certain situation that he intended for Michael and it ended up, you know, in Alonzo's life.

[43:42] Right? You know that doesn't happen. Right? If Michael is in the middle of a situation, a temptation, a trial, you know, God ordained that for Michael. For his good and for God's glory.

[43:53] And that could be to reveal. To reveal something that was there that he needs to address. So big to use, again, another analogy of developing film.

[44:04] Now, I'm looking around. All you younger folks, you may not even understand film development. Everything's digital now. Right? But, you know, the olden days, right, when you go into the dark room.

[44:16] Right? When you're developing film. Right? An image appears. Well, that image wasn't put there in the dark room. Right? That image was always there. Right? So, like developing film, conflict in one's life was there all along.

[44:30] So, again, just keep remembering. And, again, going back to Sunday and the trials and the tribulations and the suffering of life. Just rest in the fact that you've got God the Son and God the Holy Spirit interceding for you.

[44:47] I hope that was an encouragement. It was an encouragement for me. I just shared it with you. Hopefully, y'all would be encouraged as well. But that scripture in preparing for Sunday was so encouraging that in times of frustration, temptation, trial, suffering, I've got two of the three persons of the Trinity that's interceding to God the Father, the third person, on my behalf.

[45:10] Because I try to pray something, but I'm probably praying wrong. So, that's so encouraging. And when God reveals the ugliness and the nastiness that's in my heart from idols, we can rest in the Spirit working in us and through us.

[45:25] Through, right? Through that idol. Through that sin to make us better. All right. Idols, on page 62, 63, Bigney says that idols have declared war.

[45:37] It declares war on everyone else. Right? So, the idols in your life declares war on others. And he references James 4 where it's written there that we are ruled by idols.

[45:50] And that people, we start to use people. Right? People either help us get what we want or they stand in our way and we get mad at them. Right? So, this is about the relationship, wreaking the havoc in your relationships.

[46:01] Right? So, idols will make us either use people to get what we want or if they're not helping get what we want, then we sort of just get angry at them, get frustrated at them, try to move them out of our way to get to that idol that we're looking for.

[46:16] And again, that's on page 62, 63. And then it's on page 70. Did you all catch the little process? Hey, being an engineer, I love these process diagrams. This is great. Top of page 71.

[46:28] Hope this resonated with you all as well. Right? Desires. You know, when you have a desire for something good, chocolate chip cookies.

[46:39] I desire chocolate. There's nothing wrong with me desiring a chocolate chip cookie. Right, Lucy? Right? But then, a desire could morph into a demand. Lucy, make me chocolate chip cookies.

[46:51] I need chocolate chip cookies. See, I need it now. Right? I don't desire it. Now I want it. I need it. I need. Right? So, desire morphs to a demand. Morphs to a need.

[47:03] And then when I need it, well, I expect Lucy to fix me chocolate chip cookies. Because she's a loving young lady and she's going to help her elder, her pastor out. So, she's going to make chocolate chip cookies for me.

[47:14] Because she knows that that's my need. Right? And then when she doesn't, because she's not perfect, she's living a life, she doesn't have enough money to buy a lot of chocolate chip cookie ingredients at the store. Right? Then what happens?

[47:25] Then I get disappointed. I get disappointed at her. She's letting me down. Lucy. Lucy let me down. I get disappointed. I could get mad at her. Right? Jessica, work with your daughter.

[47:37] She's going to be making me some chocolate chip cookies. Right? And so, it spirals down and I ignore her and I make faces at her when she's not looking. Right? So, it's a funny example, but you know, that's how desire, you know, in a real sense, that's how desires work.

[47:50] Right? A desire to a demand to a need. And when that need is there, right, when you have a need, you sort of have an expectation that someone, a loved one, is going to meet that need.

[48:01] Right? So, now the weight of that responsibility that they were never designed and created to bear. Right? Now, it's on them to meet that need. And they're not going to fulfill that need all the time.

[48:15] And that ends you being disappointed or even angry. Right? It's just a cycle. It's just a cycle that we read in Scripture of how these idols start very, very mild, even in good nature.

[48:27] There's nothing wrong with chocolate chip cookie. I mean, they are the best cookies known to man. Chocolate chip. Right? Lucy. Right? You would agree with me with that one. All right. So, but how those morph into demands and needs and expectations.

[48:41] All right. So, that resonated a lot with page 71. Is that going to be on the, we'll see if that's on the outline. That's on the outline. All right. Good. Good. So, I'm glad I spent time on that one. All right. So, anything else that I, that was probably the main thing.

[49:00] Yeah. On page 6364, I got ahead of myself a little bit. Bigney talks about the way out, the way out of this spiraling, wreaking havoc on one's relationship is when one person repents of his own agenda rather than waiting for the other to change.

[49:19] Wow. That's a good one. When you think of friendships, clearly marital relationships, but family relationships, friends. All right. Well, I'm not going to apologize until he apologizes.

[49:31] I'm not going to apologize. Well, she, you know, she needs to put all the branch out. And again, to stop the spiraling of how idols wreak havoc on relationships, the way out begins with one person repenting of their idol.

[49:47] Isn't that sweet? You can break that cycle. You have the power to do that. You have the Holy Spirit. You have the power to do that. It's like the key of the counselor. Yeah. Got to recognize it.

[49:57] That recognize the sin. Recognize the idol. And then what's the first thing you do after that? Repent. Repent. Repent of it. Yep. Ask forgiveness and repent. So, he mentions that on page 63 and 64.

[50:10] Yeah. James 4, 6 through 8 calls the double-minded to humble themselves. That's part of being able to repent is to humble yourself. And God gives grace to the humble.

[50:22] God gives grace to the humble. All right. Chapter 4. Got your outline out. Ready? Here we go. Does everyone have a perfect score so far?

[50:35] All right. Yeah. Sure. Okay. All right. God uses... Oh, this might be a hard one. God uses relational blank to expose and realign our blank.

[50:47] Conflict. Hearts. Yes. And yet... That was perfect. That was perfect. You got it. So, God uses relational conflict. Because, again, this chapter is sort of focused on relationships, right?

[50:59] So, one of the points is relational conflict. To expose and realign our hearts. Just like we've talked about. That goes along with the exposure of the printing, right?

[51:10] Yes. Yeah. Yep. Exposes our... This is another way the Lord exposes our hearts. Is in these relational conflicts. God never chooses the wrong moment.

[51:21] And the people who irritate us are often the means by which hidden idols surface. What do you all think about that? Yep. But they really irritate us. We were...

[51:32] Marvie and I were talking about this on the way here, right? Some other situations outside our family that are irritating. And it's like... It's hard.

[51:43] It's hard to deal with people who irritate. Because they're so wrong and I'm so right. Right? I'm so right. So, those relational conflicts. And that's not even...

[51:53] That's not marital. That's not family. That's just... Are we recording? This would be... Okay. Okay. All right. So, anyhow. Other people. Other people. Rather than blaming the other person, we should ask what the conflict reveals about what we crave.

[52:07] Are y'all practicing that? Right? Especially for those of us who are married. Right? Rather than blaming... You may not be blaming, but are you asking yourself what this... Whatever's going on between us?

[52:18] What does it reveal about what I crave, what I want? All right. I'll move on. I don't want to get too... All right. Number two. Here's the answer. Idol turns legitimate... What? Desires.

[52:28] Chocolate chip cookie. Into what? Demands that destroy relationships. A godly desire becomes a need clutched in a closed fist.

[52:41] Breeds expectation, disappointment, and punishment. All right. Lucy's never going to look at me again the same way when we talk about chocolate chip cookies. Oh, goodness.

[52:56] Lucy, the point is, is I'm in the wrong with that. So, that's got to keep it in a light-hearted demand. Or desire. No, man. Desire. Desire. All right. See, legitimate desire.

[53:08] Legitimate desire. It's legitimate. It's legitimate. All right. All right. Here we go. Third one. Third one. As the clock is like, go fast. All right. Third one. I'll give you the answer here because I'm about to run out of time. Idols can wear the disguise of godly virtue.

[53:21] So, repentance must start with ourselves. Right? This is the one where other people or situations you're in, other people may not help you recognize that idol.

[53:33] Right? You've disguised it. Again, the heart is so deceitful. We've had some of these our whole life. So, we look godly. We look virtuous. And so, repentance must start with ourselves when God allows us to see the idol for what it is.

[53:50] Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the one where the last four or five pages of chapter four was that account of the lady. The lady was... I'm not going to go into that. But, yeah.

[54:00] That was crazy, wasn't it? Okay. All right. Chapter five. Chapter five. So, chapters four and five are the most recent chapters. Let me give you 30 seconds.

[54:13] Anybody want... Does anybody just really want to share something out of chapter five that really you resonated with, that you read, that you're like, aha. Aha moments, light bulb moments.

[54:24] What's the title of chapter five? Changes your identity. Oh, my goodness. Another one. So, this is... So, chapter four was about relationships. Chapter five is about sort of your own.

[54:36] What do you find your identity in? Yeah. That's... Yeah. That was... This is the chapter. Yeah. Chapter five. Your identity. It says...

[54:48] Page 82. It says, you start defining yourself in light of that particular idol. Yes. Yes. Do you all know what that meant? What he meant by that? What does it mean to define yourself by your idol?

[55:02] Like, what was the examples that he used in the book? Like, success, defining yourself by your... Yep. Yep. On page 85 and 86, he gave two common counterfeits, he calls them.

[55:13] Two common idols. The first one was, I am my success. Yep. That's on page 85. Hard work is good, but when the craving for recognition takes over, ah, we move from working for God's glory to idolatry.

[55:29] And God, who does not give his glory to another, may topple our house of cards. All right? That was one, was a common counterfeit, was I am my success.

[55:42] We look at our, we are defined by, we see our identity in our success versus in Christ. We are heirs. We are heirs of God, co-heirs with the Son, Jesus Christ.

[55:57] That is what our identity is. And idolatry is, we find our identity in something completely different. So that was one, that was one, I am my success.

[56:07] On page 91, there's the second counterfeit that he gave. I am my relationships. Right? So this is the fear of man.

[56:22] Right? This is, you turn people into a means of getting acceptance. Ooh, this is a hard one. All right? I'm not going to ask anyone to raise your hand if you fight with this one, because I think if we're honest, a lot of us would probably raise our hand, including me.

[56:36] Right? I am my, I view my identity in how other people value me. In my relationship with others. I do as much as I can to gain acceptance from others.

[56:50] In this chapter, Big Knee used Paul and Pilate as bad examples. Also Peter. Right? Peter with the Judaizers. Right? Right?

[57:00] The, the, let's see. On page 93, I think. Yeah. Bottom of 93 and top of 94. He gives an illustration there where, about Peter eating unclean animals.

[57:12] But then when the Judaizers show up, he, he, he. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because why? Because he was, he, he was concerned about what they thought of him. Right? He found his, his, his, I am my relationship with the, with the religious, with the religious leaders in the day.

[57:30] So he just used that as an example. What were the two good examples? He also gave some good examples. I think. Did he? Oh yeah.

[57:43] Paul in prison and Philippians one. And then John, John the Baptist. Yeah. John, John the Baptist. He must increase and I must decrease. That's beautiful.

[57:54] John three 30. That's modeling the right, the right way to relate to others. Right? You're finding your identity in Christ. So the main thing out of, of chapter five, well, I'll have three main points for, for chapter five, but, but yeah, I think the, the one that's the top one is just remember who we are in Christ.

[58:17] What is our identity in Christ? That will help us root out idols and get them out of our life. If we, if we find ourselves, if we're finding, defining our identity in something else other than Christ, there's your idol.

[58:32] There's your, there's your area to, to, uh, to go after the, uh, back at the beginning part of the chapter, then we'll move to the three points.

[58:44] Bigney says he's citing Paul trip again. Bigney says that we suffer from identity amnesia. And whenever we stop rooting ourselves in Christ, we end up replacing him with something else.

[58:57] So identity amnesia. I sort of liked that phrase. Like, yeah, we forget who we are and we end up define ourselves based on whatever we, we want, whatever we need, whatever we demand, desire.

[59:10] Yeah. So we replace Christ with something else in our heart. All right. Three points. Um, first one, idolatry replaces our blank and blank with something else.

[59:27] Identity in Christ. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just said that. Yeah. When we define our job ourselves by a job or by our children or, you know, any threat to that thing feels like the loss of self.

[59:39] Yeah. If you remember last Wednesday, we, we talked about this. Jeff talked about this a little bit, right? When you define yourself by something else, that something else you're going to protect. And when that something else is threatened, you're going to go on the attack, right?

[59:52] Because it's threatening. It's threatening who you are as a person. Yeah. All right. Secondly, identity idols leave us blank by others and craving their blank.

[60:11] Identity idols leave us threatened by others. That was a little harder. But because the reason I just said, right? So identity idols leave us threatened by others and craving their approval.

[60:28] Right? If you define yourself by your relationship, by others, right? You're going to crave their approval or they're going to threaten you, right? If you identify yourself as a top dog at work and someone's hired and they're actually outperforming you, you're going to be threatened because your identity is you being the top dog at work.

[60:53] And so when someone comes in and now they're, they're threatening your, your identity, they're threatening who you are. And so instead, instead of welcoming this coworker on board and being more productive and getting, you know, making more money for the business or whatever, um, instead you're threatened.

[61:09] And then, you know, I just go south, right? In that relationship. So that, that's sort of what that means there. You, you, you are not working for the glory of God and to do with all things with excellence. You're, you're working there because you like being known as a top dog and you're being threatened.

[61:24] That's, you're finding your identity in your work. That, that's sort of what the threatening means there. All right. And lastly, the remedy is to keep blank who we are in blank.

[61:36] The remedy is to keep remembering because we're such forgetful people. The remedy is to keep remembering who we are in Christ.

[61:50] Scripture does not merely list commands, but repeatedly tells believers who they are. Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you go through some of the pages there at the end of chapter five, they're like over and over.

[62:02] It's like, oh wow. All right. There's multiple places in scripture where, where there's a command to remember, to remember, to remember. Rested in Christ has given us, has given us, frees us.

[62:17] Whoops. I messed up there. Rested in Christ has freed us to, given us freedom to repent of every counterfeit identity. I got to remind, I got to fix that slide before I upload it.

[62:29] I was typing too fast. All right. I'm looking at the clock. We're out of time. We're actually, we're five minutes till we finish. And this next exercise, we need more time than, than that.

[62:41] Um, so we'll, oh, what happened? Oh, you just took over. Are you, you can go ahead and, you can go ahead and close that down now. So we may next Wednesday, you know what?

[62:54] Next Wednesday we'll do what I plan tonight. Um, yeah, let's just hold that. I'd rather, I'm so guilty of, oh, two or three more minutes. I can cram something in and then 20 minutes later. Right.

[63:04] It's like, no, let's stop it here. All right. Any other, so summary chapters one through five. So anything, again, I've asked this several times. Anything resonate, anything like, all right, thank you for reminding me of some of these things.

[63:18] Or, oh, I remember reading that a month ago and I forgot it. And so that was good to remember. God is not your sugar daddy in the sky. God is not your sugar daddy in the sky.

[63:29] Okay. Back to chapter one. All right. He's not there to serve you, is he? Right. I mean, he's, he's given us, he's given us everything in Christ. But yeah. This is not a one and done.

[63:41] Oh, this is not a one and done. Right. This is warfare until, until Christ returns. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chapter four at the end, where the story of the 30 years.

[63:54] Yeah. The lady. Just really looking at that scene. Mm. The effect of somebody's idol initially being a good thing and then how it just blossoms outward and then affects second generation, third generation.

[64:10] And just really. And everybody around. Everybody around. And yeah, it just, it's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. That was sobering to see that, see that example.

[64:22] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It happens so often. No. No. Right. Well, yeah. His point of, oh, well, that's a, you know, that's a one-off. No. It's like, oh, no, actually. No.

[64:32] No. So, yeah, it's pretty. Yeah. This whole, this whole idolatry thing. I mean, Jeff is just, just warned us the last several Wednesdays.

[64:44] This is something we just, we just can't take lightly. Right. It is so pervasive. It is so impactful. It is so destructive. It is, it's just crazy how it impacts every facet of our life.

[64:57] If we're, I don't know, chained, imprisoned to our idols, our, you know, our God replacements. And, yeah.

[65:09] I think it requires us to be proactive. Proactive. Versus just, you know, just going on every day, but being proactive and looking for them.

[65:19] Yeah. Yeah. Jen even said, that was one of the very, one of the things you were mentioning earlier. Plan. Plan. Right. The plan, got to plan ahead. Things just don't happen. So be proactive. Yeah.

[65:30] So, so again, the homework so far has taken us to look at our behaviors, which is the fruit. Right. That'll, that'll lead us to our idols, which is the root, the root cause, the root symptom.

[65:42] Let's, let's don't, let's don't try to treat the symptom. Let's try to treat the cause. And then once we find the cause, we repent. And then the put off, put on.

[65:54] So we were going to do that tonight. We were going to take an example and I'll just, I'll hold and I'll, I'll, I'll talk to Jeff. And I may just, next week I'll lead us in that exercise where, where we're going to, I actually had sort of wanted hoping, but it was, I think it's just too much for us right now to maybe connect with one of you all to say, Hey, is, is there an idol?

[66:14] Greg, that's really getting personal. But is there an idol that, that we can sort of go through that worksheet of the put off, put on, but I won't do that. I'll find one that's I think common to many of us.

[66:25] So, so we'll, we'll go through that. And we're going to, as a group, it's just going to be a very practical exercise of, okay, what are these, what are the symptoms of this idol? What is the idol?

[66:35] What's all the wrong thinking? It's that spreadsheet that we looked at last week, but we're going to pick a different one. But instead of reading it, we're going to, you are going to suggest what the wrong thinking is, what the right thinking should be, what are some verses that we can apply to that.

[66:51] Right. And so, and so again, just, it'll be, it'll be sort of a practicum, an exercise, a practice doing that so that you can go back home and on your own with privately with your own idols that you have identified.

[67:04] You pick one, right? Jeff told us last week, y'all don't, don't, don't go after all of them. Right. Pick one. Pick one and make progress through that one. And so that, that was the intent.

[67:15]  So we'll do that next Wednesday. All right. Let me pray. And then, um, hey, thank you for who brought the goodies tonight. Raise your hand if you brought goodies. So Karen, what did you.