The Unholy Trinity (Rival Gods) // Ty Gibson

there's this delightful little story about an extremely wealthy NBA player who was in a restaurant a pretty posh restaurant with his buddies and he was kind of showing off I won't say the name of this particular NBA player but he's one of the most famous and.and this story has kind of haunted him as he was sitting there in the restaurant with his buddies he had used up all of the butter that had been brought to the table for his bread and he had bread left and so he did something that he thought was quite normal within the scope of his powers he simply without looking out of his peripheral vision saw the waiter going by snapped his fingers and said butter the waiter approached the table and said may I help you he said more butter and he said well actually sir you've had your allotment of butter and you can't have any more well he was being a little ornery because of the way he was being addressed of course there's butter available at this restaurant but no sir actually you've used up your allotment of butter to which this very wealthy very powerful NBA player in front of all of his friends said do you have any idea who I am to which the waiter responded and said actually I don't do know who you are do you have any idea who I am and he said no who are you he said I'm the guy in charge of butter and you ain't getting any that's a true story with a little bit of Thai embellishment but it highlights something that goes on in human psychology and relationships that we're delving into in our rival gods series now I'd like to peel back the layers with you on what happens to a human being when they undergo the transformation that wealth and power affords them the person on the screen before you right now is Cynthia hi mole in the 1980s and 90s she was a very prominent American author she just died recently in fact in the last couple of years but she was a satirical author with a lot of smarty pants to go with her writing skills and she was an excellent columnist and she wrote a number of best-selling books now what she specialized in was observing celebrity culture and she hobnobbed with a lot of the rich and famous actors and rock stars and and from her experiences with all of these people at the upper echelons of society she would go to work writing her columns writing her books and she would bring to light in a funny way through comedy but also with science and observation she would bring to view what's going on inside of a human being when they amass wealth and power when they become celebrities in their culture she commented in one of her books with the experience regarding the experience that she had she says that the minute a person becomes a celebrity is the same minute he or she becomes a monster now she's tongue-in-cheek but she's about to unpack something that's very real Sylvester Stallone these are individuals that she actually had interactions with these are people that she spent time with Sylvester Stallone Bruce Willis and Barbra Streisand or once perfectly pleasant human beings with whom you might lunch on a slow Tuesday afternoon nice people but now they have become supreme beings and their wrath is awful she watched them undergo the transition from being perfectly Pleasant human beings to becoming in their own estimation supreme above and beyond everybody in their world she's describing what we're going to refer to for our purposes the monster fication of man in other words human beings undergo dramatic changes as they allow wealth and power to exert influence on them rather than keeping their identity separate from their wealth and power well she goes on it says when God wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you he grants you your deepest wish and then he giggles when you suddenly realize that you want to kill yourself again tongue-in-cheek but she's making the point that if you get everything you want you will precipitously descend in your sense that life has any meaning or value are you tracking with me while she goes on the night each of them became famous they wanted to shriek with relief finally now they were adored they were invincible they were magic I'm famous now I'm a celebrity I have what I have been aiming for all along and the morning after the night that each of them became famous they wanted to take an overdose of barbiturates it is not by accident that drug addiction that suicide and that all kinds of obsessive self-destructive behaviors tend to follow in the wake of wealth and power it is not by accident all their fantasies had been realized and yet and yet the reality was still the same they woke up as it were the morning after fame had come upon them and realized hey wait a minute internally in here right here nothing's changed I'm the same person that I was before I achieved all of this wealth and status if they were miserable before they were twice as miserable now that they were celebrities because that giant thing they were striving for that fame thing that was going to make everything okay that was going to make their lives bearable that thing that thing finally they got what they wanted and nothing had changed they were still them you've heard the saying wherever you go there you are it doesn't matter what you acquire it doesn't matter what you achieve in life the fundamental identity that is housed within your psyche is going to remain the same the disillusionment turned them into howling and turned them howling and insufferable in other words they became the kinds of people that nobody wanted to be around their wealth their fame their celebrity turned them into monsters so that we might draw a lesson from the rich and famous and it is this the best thing that has ever happened to you and to me is not getting everything you want and I'm not speaking here in hyperbole I'm not exaggerating for a fact the best thing that's ever happened to you is that everything that you want isn't delivered to you on a silver platter because to the degree that you get everything you want you will undergo a morphing process in your character like silly buddy you will be shaped and molded into the kind of person that you never thought possible when a whole lot of money and power is in your possession I human being I'm suggesting to you becomes the worst version of themselves when they get whatever they want the best and fastest way take the word best out of there the fastest way the most efficient way to turn your child into a monster is to give them everything that they want every time they slap their hand on the table or stomp their foot just deliver what they want and you will gradually incrementally bit by bit turn that human being into the kind of human being that you don't want to be around anymore again this is what I'm referring to as the monster fication of the human being the Philadelphia Enquirer a newspaper in Philadelphia apparently ran this headline back in 2017 what a headline huh it's official the fancier the car the more likely the drivers a jerk and then the article informs us it turns out the rich really are different from you and me they drive like entitled jerks that's the opening line of the article now lest you're offended by the usage of this language to describe any human being the point of the article is actually that groups of individuals have tracked with traffic patterns and the kinds of cars people are driving to make some amazing discoveries that's the authoritative word from the researchers who keep track of this sort of thing what's the authoritative word the fancier the car the more the individual is likely to be the kind of person you don't want to be driving around or living with even three studies over the last five years show that people driving expensive cars were more likely to cut off other motorists and less likely to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks the mentality is get out of the way get out of the way get out of the way because here I come it's me you know me me so move whoever you happen to be the article goes on quoting a couple of psychologists who have analyzed the data on traffic patterns driving habits and one of them says this data suggests that wealthier drivers may reflect adherence to ethical codes geared toward maximizing one self-interest often at the expense of others says psychologist jeremy boyd that's highly academic talk for the simple fact that he's simply saying that a ethical code a value system develops in their minds in which they assume that the rules don't apply to them anymore and that what does apply to them is whatever is in their best interest regardless of how it affects you the article goes on and says something else if the clicker works in other words says Paul piff a University of california-irvine professor of psychology and social behavior who conducted a motoring study of his own so he's done his own study on the activities and habit patterns of people who drive on the highways of America and here's his conclusion money makes you more likely to exhibit the characteristics of being a jerk that's a scientific statement he's offering it to us as a scientific conclusion wealthy people piff says are less willing to take up the perspective of another person wealthy people are less willing to take up the perspective of another person and less concerned about another's well-being and they tend note the words 10 - equate being better off with being better than others now of course this isn't true of all wealthy people I happen to know a number of wealthy people and the ones that I happen to know while some of them are like this but most of them are not so these are generalities but they're generalities that reveal something to us now some of you will know this car Steve Jobs was was famous for himself parking in the disabled parking spots wherever he went and always parking kind of crooked just just to make the point I'm here Steve is here and if you pan in a little bit closer to his Mercedes you'll see he has no license plate he never had a license plate well he did have a license plate back when he was a clerk at Best Buy while he was never a clerk at Best Buy but if he had ever been a clerk at Best Buy if Steve Jobs would have been a clerk at Best Buy for his entire career you can bet your bottom dollar that he would not have been parking in the disabled handicapped parking and he would have had a license plate he would get pulled over repeatedly repeatedly repeatedly because of not having a license plate until finally in the area he lived in California the police force in masse simply said oh that Steve stop pulling him over as they would pull him over and say you need a license plate he would say why I'm Steve this was his mentality they would write him citation after citation and he developed a habit of saying can you just pass that on to my accountant please and he'd drive off so something was going on in little Stevie's mentality as he grew up getting whatever he wanted and I'm gonna suggest to you that in our rival gods series what we are discovering what we have been discovering and we're going to continue discover is that there are three primary means by which people become dehumanized I mean there are other means as well but I'm going to suggest you that there are three primary three main ways that a human being can be divested of humanity the way these are three ways that people can be drained of empathy three ways that people can become monsters who appear to be humans power money and sex are those three means these are the factors the three primary factors that have a corrupting in fluence on the psychological makeup and the relational habits of human beings if you get all the power that your world can afford you and all the money and all the sex that this world can give you it will change you at the most fundamental level of your humanity so in our rival gods series in this particular message this morning at this juncture of our time together I'm gonna entitle the message the unholy trinity now of course we know from the biblical narrative that there is Father Son and Holy Spirit and we know from the biblical narrative that the very definition of God is encompassed in the oneness that exists between father son and spirit if you were to summarize the identity of God the character of God as presented within the biblical story it would be something like this God is other-centered self giving love in constant motion that's the biblical story that's the picture of God that you find from Genesis to Revelation Father Son and spirit each moving in a constant ebb and flow of outgoing self giving love to the others and receiving from the others so the geometry of the Trinity is love or other centeredness the way God exists you might say the psychology of God the psychology of God is giving well the psychology of all false worship systems and all false gods all idols all rival gods the psychology of all rival gods is me myself and I and in that sense I compose a Trinity of narcissism in myself me myself and I it's all about me I get what I want don't you know who I am butter well the fact is that there are many gods that are at play in human history the Apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians chapter 8 verse 5 says explicitly there are many gods and many Lords now one version the nooner national version does something very fascinating with this passage it puts the word gods and lords in quotation marks kind of indicating that really there aren't many gods and lords there's only one true God the embodiment of love and Father Son and spirit there's only one true God but there are many quote-unquote God's many quote-unquote Lords because there's a whole lot of masquerading going on in our world there are a whole lot of demonic beings who are masquerading as deities down through human history as we've discovered in a previous time together and we won't go into the details of recovering that information except to say that there was a fall of holy angels into sin and rebellion according to a previous time that we spent together the fallen angel and angelic hosts then were transformed in character into monsters we call that the Bible calls demons so holy angels became demons and then according to the biblical narrative those demons set up shop here in this world to establish worship systems and presided over those systems down through history as God's lowercase God's lowercase Lords and so we named in a previous time that we spend together some of these gods that are named in Scripture Dagon and Molech and Ishtar and Bale these are some of the gods in quote mark that are named in Scripture these are gods that are Paul will later say no gods but they fancy themselves gods they imagine themselves God because the ego becomes so inflated in a fallen angel that a fallen angel through that inflated ego begins to project himself as a god well the same phenomenon occurs with a human being a human being with an extra dose of power begins to imagine that he or she occupies a position in the world that is above and beyond the rest of us it's the same with power it's the same with sex the unholy trinity of power money and sex is the fastest way for a human being to become dehumanized well there are many gods the Apostle Paul says now you have to remember the historical context in which Paul is writing this Paul is writing this in the first century and the world that surrounds Paul is what we call the greco-roman world the Greek Empire was just in Paul's time giving way to the Roman Empire and as the Greco Roman Empire was now becoming the Empire for all of the world to reckon with it was a polytheistic culture that is to say there were many gods there were so many gods in fact this is an interesting historical fact there were so many gods in the Greek and Roman world that when Jesus came to the world and his followers began declaring him to be the one and only true God and Lord the Roman philosophers accused the Christians of being atheists interesting historical fact atheists in what sense well you had just believed in and a whole pantheon of gods and now you've narrowed it down to one you atheists certainly you need more gods and the Christians were saying no we only need one his name is Jesus and he's tightly connected with intimate love with the father and the spirit and we know God through the medium that is his life death and resurrection Jesus for the world a kind of atheism in the sense that Jesus overturned and negated all other deities so the Roman Empire said you are a bunch of atheists why well because there was at Paul's time what we refer to in history as the Greek pantheon and then there of course is the Roman pantheon and the Greek pantheon is simply pan which means all and Theo which means God the Greek pantheon is the whole host of Greek gods and there were specifically 12 of them that occupied Mount Olympus that are named in Greek mythology chief among them was Zeus Zeus was a powerful figure because Zeus represented what we might call sheer power he's often depicted in ancient art holding Thunderbolts in his hand because he is the god of sheer power dominance control this is Zeus but among this pantheon of Greek gods there was also Plutus Plutus is often depicted in a contemplative mood just holding his chin and thinking not because he's super philosophical he's he's contemplating his wealth because Plutus was the Greek god of wealth or material goods things stuff he was the God in the Greek pantheon that would give you whatever you want to increase your holdings in the world and so he's just contemplating all his stuff all his material well this is Plutus the god of money the god of wealth in the Greek world and then of course there is Aphrodite Aphrodite is in the Greek world in the Greek way of looking at worship systems in general what we would call idolatry but they understood to be actual true worship Aphrodite was the god of beauty aesthetics and sexuality this was the god of eroticism now as the god of beauty I've thrown another slide in here because she would not appreciate this profile so this is a front view an artist's rendering of Aphrodite that she would obviously be happier with Aphrodite is all about that dreamy look in her eyes and capturing the affections of every passerby Aphrodite is the ancient equivalent of modern porn basically and the hyper-sexualization of our culture which will occupy an entire message in this series in the future so Zeus put us Aphrodite these are the three prominent gods in the Greek pantheon and what I'm going to suggest to you and if we can wrap our minds around this we will understand something that is crucial not just to understanding ancient Greek and Roman culture but something is crucial to understanding our own nature as human beings and it is simply this that idolatry is the worship of self through the medium of an external subject or object can you just contemplate that with me for a minute one more time for the sake of clarity I don't want this to pass straight through us idolatry is not merely the ancient practice of ancient pagan peoples in the ancient past with little statues set up on shelves and bowing down idolatry is an extremely sophisticated psychology of self worship through the medium of any external subject or object person or fame if you take any person or any thing and elevate that person or that thing to the place of highest value in your value system then you are anti litter we could say it this way I elevate and i venerate what i want to imitate have you wondered what the psychology is behind the celebrity culture I mean you go through the checkout line and you see all those magazines that are covered with the faces in homes and cars and jewelry and belongings and the luxurious lifestyle of the rich and the famous you see all of those magazines you see the billboards you see the commercials you see the television show what's the deep psychology going on beneath all of these images that we're constantly being bombarded with well the psychology is simply this none of that would be on any shelves unless people are actually buying those magazines cooking on those ads visiting those sites watching those programs are you tracking with me in other words the only reason why we are a bombarded with a constant barrage of images of the rich and the famous and the reason why we are a celebrity obsessed culture is because secretly deep inside we elevate and we venerate all of that because that's what we want we want to be like them and so vicariously by constantly tracking with them and knowing exactly what their body weight is and what they had for breakfast and what their dream and what kind of neighborhood they live in and all the details of their life were obsessed with these people because secretly vicariously we want what they have we want the power we want the money we want the hyper-sexualized lives that they are constantly displaying to us the idolatry of power money and sex inevitably however makes monsters out of human beings now there are exceptions to the rule as I've mentioned but over and over and over again we watch the elevation the exaltation and then the descent of our cherished celebrities over and over again we watch the culture elevate and venerate and then we watch the lives of those individuals implode with obsessions and addictions and paranoia and oftentimes completely spinning out of control because to get what you want when you want it in totality is not good for the fallen carnal human heart the only way that we can understand what it means to be human beings who have at our fingertips have at our disposal the acquisition of power the acquisition of money the acquisition of sex even in our smaller spheres as human beings we are witnessing we are witnessing a phenomenon unlike anything in human history right now we're what used to be only available to the extremely elite and rich and powerful is that the fingertips of anybody at this point in history in fact studies have been done to show us that every person in this room if you're an American and you have a car in a house now there are those who are in American culture who are very disadvantaged but if you're an American who has a car in a house you have a standard of living that is significantly higher than the standard of living that was enjoyed by King Henry the eighth that's the world you live in right now you live in a world of cush and comfort and forced air heating and cooling you don't even have to experience the discomfort of being a little too warm for your liking or a little too cold for your and you can literally walk down minutes from your house or drive minutes from your house and get anything you want to eat that's the world we live in the only way for human beings to shall I say it this way manage their power their money in sex is to understand what John communicates to us in first John chapter five verse one track with us whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God now watch where he goes with this and everyone who loves him that's Jesus everyone who loves him who begot also loves him who is begotten of him there's a little complex right here's what he's saying if you love God you love people that's what this is saying if you love God the way you know you love God is because you love everybody that is his child his son his daughter you love people if you love God if you don't love people you're professed love for God is not true it's a lie so the worldview that Jesus brings to us Jesus comes in the world proclaiming the arrival of the kingdom of God what is the kingdom of God the gospel the good news of the kingdom of God the kingdom of God that Jesus brings in the world is an entirely different value system in which people are valued over power in which people are valued over products in which people are valued over pleasure Jesus comes into the world proclaiming his kingdom and his kingdom the word kingdom literally means an alternative arrangement of the world a different way to be a different way to process your resources and your powers and your talents and your abilities you can be you can be a young teenage girl and you can throw yourself into the heat ism of pursuing sex and money and power or you can be a teenage girl and say I'm going to go to Honduras and I'm gonna work at an orphanage and I'm going to elevate the quality to the best of my ability of these children's lives because I don't need power and money and sex as much as I need for those little kids to be okay the kingdom of God is a radical new arrangement of human society it's a completely different way to be human it's a way of saying I'm gonna use my power whatever degree of power I have I'm gonna use my money whatever degree of money I have I'm gonna use my sexuality I'm going to manage my person toward the betterment rather than the oppression and abuse of the world he goes on and he says but this we know there's a certain level of certainty here but this we know that we love the children of God human beings men women and children we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his Commandments the commandments of God simply pan out to treating people well that's what he's telling us here for this is the love of God that we keep his Commandments and His commandments they're not a burden to us they're not a burden to us for whatever is born of God overcomes the world that is the world system the way the world operates with its elevation of power money and sex to the pinnacle of reality completely upside down and backwards value system that puts power and money and sex above people he's saying listen if you're born of God if you if you if you come through Jesus to the Father and you're born again your entire value system changes you just start to see everything and everybody differently and you know that you're born of God when you begin in your world to overcome the external world around you with its demeaning dehumanizing value system and this is the victory that overcomes the world our faith our faith located outside of ourselves in him in Jesus locating the highest value system at its pinnacle that the hierarchy of the value system is Jesus and why is Jesus the one who's deserving of our attention our affection our adoration our worship because Jesus has modeled for us what it looks like to value and to love people above himself to the point of death who is he who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God and begins to live out the implications of his kingdom for there are three that bear witness in heaven the father the word that's Jesus and the Holy Spirit and these three are one in love john is saying listen when you're born of God you begin to you begin to homed in on what it looks like for God to be God Father Son and Holy Spirit live in a constant never-ending cycle of self giving love to one another and when we're born again were born into that try you love were born into that Trinitarian fellowship we begin we begin to give and then to receive from the community around us without getting the worst thing that a human being can spin their life of doing is getting the best thing that a human being can do with their life is to give and let the getting part take care of itself while other people give in to your life we know that whatever whoever is born of God does not sin by not sin here he doesn't mean all that person never ever commits them demeanor of character or behavior by sin in this context whoever is born of God does not violate others relationally that's what he means people above products people above power people above pleasure but he who has been born of God keeps himself or or or or exercises check this out keeps himself exercises self-control I have resources I'm going to exercise self-control over them I have power I'm going to exercise self-control over the power I have sexual needs as a human being I'm gonna exercise authority over my sexual needs I'm not gonna let my sexual urges and my money and my power order me around tell me what to do no I'm gonna tell my power money and sex what to do I'm born of God I choose by His grace to live within the Trinitarian love of the father the word and the spirit and so I keep myself and the wicked one can't even touch me the devil has no access to me because of the way I'm managing my humanity in the image of Jesus we know that we are of God but we also know that the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one obsessed with power money and sex the whole world is under the sway of the wicked one and then he closes with this and we know that the Son of God has come Jesus has come and what has he given us he's given us an understanding he's opened our minds he's opened the floodgates of our comprehension we see things now in a whole different light you know if you've read scripture at all if you've attended a church at all you know that Jesus came bringing salvation Jesus came bringing forgiveness Jesus came bringing grace all of that's true but do you ever pause to think that here John says Jesus came to give understanding to open our comprehension of what it looks like to be a member of his King his society that we may know Him who is true and we are in Him who is true we are in the one who is true in His Son Jesus Christ and this this is the true God and eternal life and then this is the last line first John the last line are you ready for it little children keep yourselves from idols amen in his context he has pinpointed the deep dark urges in human nature as what will topple us as human beings and Monster fie us you will be gutted as a human being if your value system is focused on getting getting getting power money and sex if your world revolves around the acquisition of control and things and to take advantage of people sexually you are living the life of an idolater but you can be born again in Christ idolatry at its core is all about giving but Jesus man tell me if he's not beautiful because his kingdom is a kingdom in which power is always subordinate to love and you have some you have some power you don't have the kind of power that some people in this world has but you have autonomy you have agency there are one or two or three people who are under your power your sons your daughters other family members friends in the workplace you have power you have your little sphere of influence don't you and you have power the question is how are you going to wield that power as members of the kingdom of God born again in Christ power is subordinate to love money is subordinate to love in his kingdom you say I'm broke well no you're not broke compared to King Henry the eighth you got some resources at your disposal and the resources you have at your disposal are to be held subordinate to the love of God in Christ to meet people's needs sex is to be held subordinate to love one of the worst things we're going to explore this in one of the future messages in this series one of the worst things going on in our culture right now in our world right now is the hyper sexualization of our culture to the point that we live in a culture of prostitution on the highest level and I'm not talking about the usage of the word prostitution for the exchange that occurs between an individual and another individual I'm talking about the fact that our culture is a wash in the selling of nearly every product and service that we enjoy by the objectification of female bodies we live in a world that is so hyper sexualized that we are surrounded with people even in this room one out of three females and one out of five males have been sexually violated in the world in which we live but in the kingdom of Jesus sex is subordinate to love Jesus came preaching a kingdom Jesus came preaching a way to process life a way to understand he came what did John say and he gave us an understanding well we're taking a little peek into part of that understanding this morning you know that Jesus is very present to your mind in your heart when you begin to sense your mind opening up and you begin to see everybody differently you begin you begin to see every person as somebody in need of love you begin to see every opportunity every circumstance as an opportunity to leverage your power your money or your sexuality to be good to people rather than to cross lines and violate them the kingdom of God is a beautiful kingdom in which people are valued above all the one and only true God manifested in Christ is worthy of our worship and our adoration precisely because this God this one true God this God is love only ever and always love God is love and he loves you this morning hey thanks so much for watching we hope that message was a blessing to you God's Word is powerful it penetrates into our minds into our hearts brings about transformation in every aspect of our lives listen we don't want you to miss any content so again we want to encourage you to click on subscribe and track with the content that's going to be coming out week after week and if you'd like to partner with us in this global Ministry of taking the gospel of Christ to the whole world we want to invite you to become a partner in this ministry click give and join with us

Channel: Storyline Church

Views: 4,630

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Keywords: storylinechurch, rivalgods, tygibson

Id: mNYKN9MExkI

Length: 45min 17sec (2717 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 20 2019