September 12, 2025 • 23 mins
What does it mean to be faithful when your plans fall apart? Eleven years ago, Madison Church launched with meticulously researched strategies, countless prayers, and 200 empty chairs. Only 20 people showed up that first Sunday—half of them family members visiting from out of town. The humiliation was crushing, but looking back now reveals how God was writing a better story than anyone could have imagined.
This anniversary reflection draws powerful parallels to Paul's experience in Athens, where he confronted a city so filled with idols that historians noted it was "easier to find a god than a person." While we don't have marble statues to Zeus or Athena in Madison, our modern idols are perhaps more dangerous because they're less visible. We worship comfort through convenience, achievement through success, busyness through hustle culture, and find our identity in politics and consumerism.
The most concerning pattern emerges when we don't reject God for these idols but recruit God to serve them alongside us. We pray, but only so our lives become more comfortable. We worship, but only so God blesses our hustle. We've reduced the living God to a lowercase assistant for our agenda rather than the center of everything.
Through examining the idols of security, worth, and control, we discover how these false gods promise peace but deliver anxiety, promise love but produce exhaustion, and promise order but result in frustration. The invitation stands today as it did for the early Christians who were radically called to forsake all other gods: Will we turn from our idols to serve the living God?
The next chapter of Madison Church won't be built on comfort, busyness, politics, or spiritual highs, but on becoming a community where faith is not shallow but deeply rooted. What felt like failure then has become a testimony of God's faithfulness now—a story of changed lives, deep friendships, answered prayers, and hope rising in unexpected places. Join us as we surrender to the story God wants to tell.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.
Well, welcome to Madison ChurchOnline.
I'm Stephen Feath, lead pastor,and 11 years ago today, as I
mentioned just a minute ago, 11years ago today, we launched
Madison Church and I had done myhomework.
I had done the research.
I'd gone to all the trainings,the conferences.
I was working on a master'sdegree in missional church
movements from Wheaton College.
(00:21):
I was doing everything possibleto be prepared.
Our team spread the word.
We knew we needed to reach outto at least 6,000 different
households before we opened, toget at least 200 people there.
There was math and data andresearch for all of these things
, and we did it.
Every detail wasn't justplanned over, though.
(00:42):
It was also prayed for.
So we were a team.
We would go out and we wouldpray over the mailers or over
the door hangers before wehanded them out, and then
afterwards we would pray thatthat message would sit with
people.
I mean, we thought for surecrowds of people would come out.
This is Madison Church.
This was the church for thiscity.
We love it.
We wanted to be here, buthardly anyone showed up.
(01:06):
That first Sunday I was greeting.
I kept checking the clock,wondering where everyone was.
Were the directions not clearenough to where we would be.
Nobody showed up, and nearlyevery one of the 200 chairs that
we sat out were empty.
There was, yeah, set up 200chairs, and I think there was 20
(01:27):
of us in the room in theRadisson's really big conference
center.
It was embarrassing, it wasabsolutely embarrassing.
The people who were there wereprobably feeling like that
dreaded secondhand embarrassmentyou feel for other people, but
they were feeling it for me.
It was very awkward and it mademe wonder God, where did I go
(01:48):
wrong?
I did everything you weresupposed to do, like A to Z,
checked the list twice, wasfaithful, obedient.
I even prayed over this stuff.
I mean, I knew church planterswho did all the research and did
all the stuff, but they weren'treally praying for this stuff.
They just knew that you justhad to do X, y, z and this is
what would happen.
And I was like we even did itthe spiritual way, and
(02:11):
underneath my disappointment andhumiliation was something
deeper though, and 11 yearslater, as I reflect on every
year that we've had, I wantedGod.
Yes, and that remains true.
I wouldn't have come to Madisonand done the things that we do,
and have done it now for 11years, if that weren't true, but
I think I wanted the story toalso go my way.
(02:33):
There was a very specificnarrative in my head as to what
was going to happen when wemoved to Madison and we started
this church.
Page one of chapter one was 200people show up on the first
Sunday and immediately we had togo back to editing because we
(02:54):
had 20 people and half of themwere my family visiting from out
of town to see all the hardwork I was doing in Madison.
Well, it's been exactly 11years since that day and we are
going to have a celebration, weare going to have some cake, but
it's also an opportunity for me, for you, for the leaders of
our church, if you're membershere and if you're asking
(03:16):
questions about MC.
This is a Sunday for us toreflect.
What does it mean to befaithful, reflect what does it
mean to be faithful and whatdoes it mean to be the church
God wants us to be, right hereand right now, 2025, 2026, in
Madison, wisconsin?
What does it mean to live forGod when life doesn't go as
(03:40):
planned, when that first page,that first sentence of the first
chapter has to get crossed offor edited?
I've been rereading thisbiography that NT Wright wrote
on Paul, andi was reminded ofthis story that Luke tells of
Paul, recorded in Acts 17,.
And it's the moment that Paularrives in Athens and verse 16
(04:04):
tells us that Paul was deeplytroubled by all the idols he saw
everywhere in the city.
Now Paul Roman citizen, jewishbackground right, he's all of
the things.
So it's not like he hasn't seenthese idols before, but now he
has encountered Jesus.
And it's not just that he'sencountered Jesus.
His life has been changedforever.
(04:25):
And Paul has kind of gone away.
He's done some studying, he'sdone some self-reflection, he's
been working with the apostles,and now he's getting out there
and he's starting to do themissionary things.
And so now, upon his return toAthens, he looks around and he's
disturbed by what he sees.
The phrase full of idols isn'tan exaggeration.
Athens was famous for it.
The phrase full of idols isn'tan exaggeration.
(04:45):
Athens was famous for it.
As a matter of fact, ahistorian wrote that it was
easier to find a god in Athensthan a person.
It was easier to find some sortof god than it was a person.
Everywhere you turned, therewas a shrine, there was a temple
, there was a statue of this godof that god.
Every family meal, everymarketplace deal, every
(05:07):
government meeting, all wouldtie back to honoring the gods,
and there were quite a few ofthem.
If you wanted comfort, you wentto Dionysus, the god of wine
and pleasure, and if you wantedvictory and success, you
sacrificed to Nike.
If you wanted wealth, youprayed to Plutus.
If you wanted political power,you turned to Zeus or Athena.
(05:27):
And this is what grieves the nowchanged man named Paul.
Because idolatry isn't justabout what people do, it's about
who we become.
Okay, idolatry isn't aboutsomething that we do, it's about
who we become.
Nt Wright says when humanbeings give their heartfelt
(05:47):
allegiance to and worship thatwhich is not God, they
progressively cease to reflectthe image of God.
You and I are all image bearers.
We're created in the image ofGod.
Every single one of us, nomatter what's been said about
you or what you've done in thepast, you bear the image of God.
(06:10):
And what NT Wright warns iswhen there's idols in our lives,
every day, we increasinglybecome more like that which we
worship than the God who createdus.
It's a hefty warning, and thatis what Paul was seeing Not
marble statues, but people beingdeformed, losing the image of
(06:37):
God they were created to bear.
And if we back up a little bitin Acts, paul was just in
Thessalonica where he wasreasoning with the Jews and the
synagogue about the scriptures.
And he was doing some of that.
But at this point he's inAthens and we read in verse 18,
he had a debate with someEpicurean and Stoic philosophers
(06:57):
.
Paul is no longer in thesynagogue engaging the Jewish
community.
He grew up in and around.
He found himself in theAthenian marketplace arguing
with philosophers.
These are where the brightestminds of their day got together
to talk about and explore newideas.
(07:19):
And Paul stands up and says menof Athens, I noticed that you
were very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I
saw your many shrines and one ofyour altars had this
inscription on it to an unknownGod.
You got to have your basiscovered right.
Like when you have millions andmillions of gods, you don't
want to make one upset byaccidentally leaving them out.
(07:40):
So you just make a shrine andsay and all the other ones right
here, leaving them out.
So you just make a shrine andsay and all the other ones right
here.
And Paul says this God whom youworship without knowing is the
one I am telling you about Saysyou have this shrine for the God
that you do not know, and I amhere to tell you about the God
(08:02):
you do not know.
Now we don't have shrines toZeus in Madison.
You're not going to bump into atemple for Athena on your way
to work, but that doesn't meanwe don't have gods, we don't
have idols.
It just so happens that ouridols today are a lot less
visible.
Our idols today they're digital, they're cultural, they're
(08:28):
internal.
I mentioned all of those othergods you would go to 2,000 years
ago in Athens to pray forcomfort, but we still have the
god of comfort today.
We just call it convenience,doordash, amazon Prime, netflix.
I'm not saying those things areevil, but there's a desire in
our lives that our lives shouldalways be easy and fast and
(08:49):
frictionless.
So we worship the God ofcomfort.
There's the God of achievement.
We call that success, gpas,resumes, linkedin titles,
follower accounts.
My worth is what I produce.
I got to keep the God ofachievement happy, the God of
busyness, and we've even brandedit like hashtag hustle and
(09:12):
grind, and if I'm not grindingand multitasking and maximizing,
I'm falling behind.
The God of busyness, of hustleis relentless.
There's the God of politics.
We call it red or blue, left orright, republican or Democrat,
and my hope rises and falls withthe next election cycle, the
(09:35):
next leader, the next headline.
The god of consumerism.
We call it more.
I am what I buy, I am what Iown, I am what I drive, I am the
place I go home to at night.
Now again, please don'tmisunderstand me.
I'm not saying that comfort isbad.
(09:56):
Comfort can be a very goodthing.
Success is awesome when we findit.
Success is awesome when we findit.
Politics absolutely matter.
But when they become ultimate,when they define us, when they
drive us and they demand ourworship, they've turned into
gods, they've turned into idols.
(10:17):
Tim Keller says it so wellidolatry is taking a good thing
and making it an ultimate thing.
The uncomfortable part in all ofthis.
Sometimes we don't reject thesegods.
We recruit our God to servethem.
We recruit our God to servethem with us.
(10:40):
So I pray, but it's really sothat my life gets more
comfortable.
God, help me, appease the Godof comfort.
I worship, but it's so that Godblesses my hustle.
God, partner with me.
This God of busyness demands somuch I just can't do it by
myself.
I believe in God, but onlythose verses that prop up my
(11:04):
politics and the way that I leanleft or right or maybe none.
God help me.
I read the scripture, but it'sonly so that I can feel more
spiritual around those peopleall over the place.
Here we're like ah, I know moreBible verses, I've read more,
I've got more memorized.
But do you see what happens?
(11:25):
We take the living God and weturn him into a lowercase g God.
He's not God anymore, he's likemy associate, while I serve the
real God of my life Comfort,success, busyness, politics,
consumerism.
(11:46):
Now, this isn't a Stephenproblem alone.
This isn't a you problem.
It's not even a Madison Churchproblem.
This is a human problem.
You see, as people created inthe image of God, I believe that
we were created to worship.
We will find something orsomeone to worship, every single
one of us.
(12:06):
It's not a question of if weworship, but who or what we
worship.
Some of us, we worship that idolof security.
We want safety.
We want your life to bepredictable, stable, under
control, and there's nothingwrong with that.
But when it becomes our God, weend up being a disciple of it,
(12:30):
and what that looks like is thatyou stay in a job that you hate
because it feels safe.
You avoid a risk God is callingyou to because you don't want
to lose control.
You parent with fear instead offaith, bubble wrapping your kid
instead of trusting God withtheir future.
What does that God promise you?
(12:51):
Well, that God promises youpeace, but what many of you
already know is that that Godactually gives you anxiety.
It whispers.
You're safe.
You're safe now, but deep down,you're always afraid of losing
control.
It never is enough.
(13:12):
This God only takes more, andinstead you're invited to trust
the God that is with you.
Even when life is uncertain,even when you don't know what
tomorrow or next week will bring, god is with you.
Even when life is uncertain,even when you don't know what
tomorrow or next week will bring, god is with you.
Real security doesn't come fromcontrol.
It comes from God's presence.
(13:35):
Some of us are worshiping worth.
We want to matter, we want tobe loved, to be seen and to feel
valuable, and so that Goddemands that we overwork,
because our resume or ourInstagram bios aren't enough.
Yet we scroll through socialmedia and we fine-tune our posts
(13:58):
so we get the most likes andthe most comments.
We say yes to everythingbecause the minute I say no,
maybe they won't ask me againand I won't be needed anymore.
They will move on.
I won't have any worth if Idon't work.
The idol, this God of worth,promises love.
You'll be loved if you just dothis.
(14:18):
Instead, we're given exhaustionand burnout.
That God says work harder,prove yourself and then, I
promise, you will matter.
But no matter how much weachieve, it is never enough.
That idol will never fill us,it will only drain us.
(14:39):
Remember this your value isn'tearned, it's given.
You are already loved and youare already seen, already
delighted, as God's child.
God doesn't need yourperformance, he wants your heart
(14:59):
and some of us.
We worship control.
We want the world to bend toour vision of how things should
be.
We long for some really goodthings.
We want there to be fairness inthe world.
We want there to be peace.
We want there to be order, andthat God says okay.
For that to happen, all you gotto do is micromanage your
(15:21):
family.
All you got to do ismicromanage your coworkers.
Do not trust them because theywill screw it up.
You got to fight everypolitical battle on Facebook,
like the kingdom of God dependson it.
It's ridiculous to say, but howmany of us do that in practice?
We have to shut downemotionally and block other
(15:42):
people out who love us.
Because if I can't control it,I'd rather disassociate, I'd
rather escape, I'd rather justdisappear and go away.
The idol of control promises, it, whispers, peace.
All you have to do is this andyou'll feel peace.
You'll feel peace, you'll feelpeace, but you know what you get
is frustration, because you dothese things and all you get is
(16:05):
frustrated.
This idol, this God, will sayyou're in charge.
So why am I so angry all thetime?
Why do I always feel anxious?
Why do I carry the weight ofbitterness around about so many
people?
I'm so unhappy because nothingever goes my way and you start
(16:26):
to wake up.
You said that this idol ofcontrol doesn't bring peace, it
steals it.
When we yield to God's kingdom,we receive true peace.
We receive true justice, truefreedom.
These things don't come fromcontrol, but rather surrender to
the one who is in control.
And whether I named somethingthat resonates with you a lot,
(16:51):
or I didn't, I'm sure you canthink of something that you're
like man, this really.
I'm worshiping that, I idolizethat and there's a choice now
that every single one of us getsto make, and CS Lewis says it
like this.
He says there are only twokinds of people in the end those
who say to God, thy will bedone, and those to whom God says
(17:13):
in the end, thy will be done.
That's it.
It's control or it's surrender.
Will I tell God your will bedone or will God look at me and
your will be done?
So let's pause to ask ourselvestoday, on this anniversary
(17:36):
Sunday, I mean really askourselves where am I?
Where am I today?
Am I chasing security?
Am I chasing worth?
Am I chasing control?
Wherever you land, theinvitation for all of us today
watching, listening online, theinvitation is the same To stop
(17:56):
using God to serve our idols andforsake our idols to serve the
one, true, living God.
The living God is not a tool tobe used.
He's not an assistant to helpour agenda.
God is the center, the sourceand the goal I mentioned.
(18:21):
Paul was coming fromThessalonica before he got to
Athens, and one of the things hesays to the Thessalonian people
he says you turned to God fromidols, or you turned to God from
idols to serve a living andtrue God.
What he's saying is you didn'tjust pick up Jesus.
You didn't just pick up Jesus,you let go of everything else.
(18:45):
And I think that that'ssometimes the frustration we
have as followers of Jesuswhether we're just getting
started or maybe it's been downthe road and we've been
following Jesus for a long timethat we kind of go into cruise
control and at some point werealize I've got my arms full of
idols and I'm like, oh yeah,and Jesus too.
Got to get the church on Sundayright, got to make sure I pray,
(19:05):
get in a small group.
Now what Paul is saying is aradical thing, because at the
time he's pointing to the livingGod and he's saying forsake
everything else.
And the reason this is radicalis because you had lots of gods.
I mean, why would you risk it?
I mean, what if you were wrongabout Zeus?
Don't make him mad, we'll justkind of keep him over here.
(19:27):
The early Christians were calledatheists because they rejected
all of the gods but one, and itwas kind of a dirty term back
then.
It was like the atheists,they've rejected all of these
gods.
But it was this subversivebelief that came.
I mean, the subversive beliefcame with a cost greater than
name calling.
(19:47):
I mean, the subversive beliefcame with a cost greater than
name-calling.
To follow Jesus meant lettinggo of everything, every system
they had always known.
They had to let go of previousreligious beliefs.
They lost family traditions andrelationships.
They probably lost businessesand customers, because all of
these things, remember, weretied to idols.
(20:08):
Everything in Athens was tiedto a God.
Following Jesus wasn't just aprivate belief change.
It was public, it was costlyand total.
It was a complete reorientationof their lives.
And the call is the same forevery generation and it's the
one we face, not just today, butevery day, and last Sunday, and
next Sunday, and next year andthe year prior.
(20:31):
Will we turn from our idols?
Because it's something we'regoing to have to regularly do,
it's not just one and done.
Will we turn from our idols andturn to the living God?
Because this God is not anaccessory to our lives.
He's not one more app on ourhome screen.
He's not here to bless ourplans.
God, here's what I want to havehappen.
(20:52):
Please bless this.
He is the center, the source,the goal.
So let's stop asking God toserve our idols and instead,
today, in this moment, as we'vegathered here, knowing that God
is in us, around us, workingthrough us, and to say I
surrender everything to you.
(21:15):
The next chapter of MadisonChurch won't be built on comfort
Not that it ever has been butsneak preview of the future, not
changing anything there.
It will not be built onbusyness We'll never celebrate
how many activities we havegoing on during a week.
It will not be built onpolitics or consumerism or
chasing spiritual highs.
(21:35):
The next chapter will be kindof like the previous chapter.
We will be a community built onthe living God.
Scott McKnight puts itperfectly.
He says the gospel is not aninvitation to add Jesus to the
rest of our lives.
The gospel is a summons toreorder your entire life around
Jesus.
That's the vision of thiscommunity.
(21:56):
That's the vision of MadisonChurch to become a community of
depth, where faith is notshallow but faith is rooted, to
become a community of impact,serving our city, partnering
with other organizations, as Imentioned during the.
Today we celebrate 11 years ofGod's faithfulness at Madison
Church, and it's funny becauseif you were here on day one, you
(22:33):
would not have ever bet we'd behere on year 11.
Okay, I'm just telling you.
I was there.
I would have taken the odds theother direction.
It felt like failure in themoment and long after if I'm
being honest with you it didn'tstop feeling like failure for a
really long time.
But what I can see today that Icouldn't see back then was that
(22:54):
God saw that first sentence,the first page of the first
chapter, and he said that's notgoing to be a very good story.
And I thought it was going tobe a great one.
Then said he erased it and hewrote a better story, not a
story of big crowds or quicksuccess, but a story of changed
(23:15):
lives over 11 years, the storyof deep friendships formed here,
of prayers answered, of hoperising in unexpected places.
What felt like failure thenfailure in my story has turned
into something far greater thanmy imagination could have
(23:38):
conjured up, because the God whois faithful in that empty room,
almost empty room, 11 years ago, is the same God who is here
today and he will be faithfulfor the next year and the next
11 years and as long as he callsus to keep gathering as a
community.
All right.
Well, welcome to Madison ChurchOnline.
I'm Stephen Feath, lead pastor,and 11 years ago today, as I
mentioned just a minute ago, 11years ago today, we launched
Madison Church and I had done myhomework.
I had done the research.
I'd gone to all the trainings,the conferences.
I was working on a master'sdegree in missional church
movements from Wheaton College.
(00:21):
I was doing everything possibleto be prepared.
Our team spread the word.
We knew we needed to reach outto at least 6,000 different
households before we opened, toget at least 200 people there.
There was math and data andresearch for all of these things
, and we did it.
Every detail wasn't justplanned over, though.
(00:42):
It was also prayed for.
So we were a team.
We would go out and we wouldpray over the mailers or over
the door hangers before wehanded them out, and then
afterwards we would pray thatthat message would sit with
people.
I mean, we thought for surecrowds of people would come out.
This is Madison Church.
This was the church for thiscity.
We love it.
We wanted to be here, buthardly anyone showed up.
(01:06):
That first Sunday I was greeting.
I kept checking the clock,wondering where everyone was.
Were the directions not clearenough to where we would be.
Nobody showed up, and nearlyevery one of the 200 chairs that
we sat out were empty.
There was, yeah, set up 200chairs, and I think there was 20
(01:27):
of us in the room in theRadisson's really big conference
center.
It was embarrassing, it wasabsolutely embarrassing.
The people who were there wereprobably feeling like that
dreaded secondhand embarrassmentyou feel for other people, but
they were feeling it for me.
It was very awkward and it mademe wonder God, where did I go
(01:48):
wrong?
I did everything you weresupposed to do, like A to Z,
checked the list twice, wasfaithful, obedient.
I even prayed over this stuff.
I mean, I knew church planterswho did all the research and did
all the stuff, but they weren'treally praying for this stuff.
They just knew that you justhad to do X, y, z and this is
what would happen.
And I was like we even did itthe spiritual way, and
(02:11):
underneath my disappointment andhumiliation was something
deeper though, and 11 yearslater, as I reflect on every
year that we've had, I wantedGod.
Yes, and that remains true.
I wouldn't have come to Madisonand done the things that we do,
and have done it now for 11years, if that weren't true, but
I think I wanted the story toalso go my way.
(02:33):
There was a very specificnarrative in my head as to what
was going to happen when wemoved to Madison and we started
this church.
Page one of chapter one was 200people show up on the first
Sunday and immediately we had togo back to editing because we
(02:54):
had 20 people and half of themwere my family visiting from out
of town to see all the hardwork I was doing in Madison.
Well, it's been exactly 11years since that day and we are
going to have a celebration, weare going to have some cake, but
it's also an opportunity for me, for you, for the leaders of
our church, if you're membershere and if you're asking
(03:16):
questions about MC.
This is a Sunday for us toreflect.
What does it mean to befaithful, reflect what does it
mean to be faithful and whatdoes it mean to be the church
God wants us to be, right hereand right now, 2025, 2026, in
Madison, wisconsin?
What does it mean to live forGod when life doesn't go as
(03:40):
planned, when that first page,that first sentence of the first
chapter has to get crossed offor edited?
I've been rereading thisbiography that NT Wright wrote
on Paul, andi was reminded ofthis story that Luke tells of
Paul, recorded in Acts 17,.
And it's the moment that Paularrives in Athens and verse 16
(04:04):
tells us that Paul was deeplytroubled by all the idols he saw
everywhere in the city.
Now Paul Roman citizen, jewishbackground right, he's all of
the things.
So it's not like he hasn't seenthese idols before, but now he
has encountered Jesus.
And it's not just that he'sencountered Jesus.
His life has been changedforever.
(04:25):
And Paul has kind of gone away.
He's done some studying, he'sdone some self-reflection, he's
been working with the apostles,and now he's getting out there
and he's starting to do themissionary things.
And so now, upon his return toAthens, he looks around and he's
disturbed by what he sees.
The phrase full of idols isn'tan exaggeration.
Athens was famous for it.
The phrase full of idols isn'tan exaggeration.
(04:45):
Athens was famous for it.
As a matter of fact, ahistorian wrote that it was
easier to find a god in Athensthan a person.
It was easier to find some sortof god than it was a person.
Everywhere you turned, therewas a shrine, there was a temple
, there was a statue of this godof that god.
Every family meal, everymarketplace deal, every
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government meeting, all wouldtie back to honoring the gods,
and there were quite a few ofthem.
If you wanted comfort, you wentto Dionysus, the god of wine
and pleasure, and if you wantedvictory and success, you
sacrificed to Nike.
If you wanted wealth, youprayed to Plutus.
If you wanted political power,you turned to Zeus or Athena.
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And this is what grieves the nowchanged man named Paul.
Because idolatry isn't justabout what people do, it's about
who we become.
Okay, idolatry isn't aboutsomething that we do, it's about
who we become.
Nt Wright says when humanbeings give their heartfelt
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allegiance to and worship thatwhich is not God, they
progressively cease to reflectthe image of God.
You and I are all image bearers.
We're created in the image ofGod.
Every single one of us, nomatter what's been said about
you or what you've done in thepast, you bear the image of God.
(06:10):
And what NT Wright warns iswhen there's idols in our lives,
every day, we increasinglybecome more like that which we
worship than the God who createdus.
It's a hefty warning, and thatis what Paul was seeing Not
marble statues, but people beingdeformed, losing the image of
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God they were created to bear.
And if we back up a little bitin Acts, paul was just in
Thessalonica where he wasreasoning with the Jews and the
synagogue about the scriptures.
And he was doing some of that.
But at this point he's inAthens and we read in verse 18,
he had a debate with someEpicurean and Stoic philosophers
(06:57):
.
Paul is no longer in thesynagogue engaging the Jewish
community.
He grew up in and around.
He found himself in theAthenian marketplace arguing
with philosophers.
These are where the brightestminds of their day got together
to talk about and explore newideas.
(07:19):
And Paul stands up and says menof Athens, I noticed that you
were very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I
saw your many shrines and one ofyour altars had this
inscription on it to an unknownGod.
You got to have your basiscovered right.
Like when you have millions andmillions of gods, you don't
want to make one upset byaccidentally leaving them out.
(07:40):
So you just make a shrine andsay and all the other ones right
here, leaving them out.
So you just make a shrine andsay and all the other ones right
here.
And Paul says this God whom youworship without knowing is the
one I am telling you about Saysyou have this shrine for the God
that you do not know, and I amhere to tell you about the God
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you do not know.
Now we don't have shrines toZeus in Madison.
You're not going to bump into atemple for Athena on your way
to work, but that doesn't meanwe don't have gods, we don't
have idols.
It just so happens that ouridols today are a lot less
visible.
Our idols today they're digital, they're cultural, they're
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internal.
I mentioned all of those othergods you would go to 2,000 years
ago in Athens to pray forcomfort, but we still have the
god of comfort today.
We just call it convenience,doordash, amazon Prime, netflix.
I'm not saying those things areevil, but there's a desire in
our lives that our lives shouldalways be easy and fast and
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frictionless.
So we worship the God ofcomfort.
There's the God of achievement.
We call that success, gpas,resumes, linkedin titles,
follower accounts.
My worth is what I produce.
I got to keep the God ofachievement happy, the God of
busyness, and we've even brandedit like hashtag hustle and
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grind, and if I'm not grindingand multitasking and maximizing,
I'm falling behind.
The God of busyness, of hustleis relentless.
There's the God of politics.
We call it red or blue, left orright, republican or Democrat,
and my hope rises and falls withthe next election cycle, the
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next leader, the next headline.
The god of consumerism.
We call it more.
I am what I buy, I am what Iown, I am what I drive, I am the
place I go home to at night.
Now again, please don'tmisunderstand me.
I'm not saying that comfort isbad.
(09:56):
Comfort can be a very goodthing.
Success is awesome when we findit.
Success is awesome when we findit.
Politics absolutely matter.
But when they become ultimate,when they define us, when they
drive us and they demand ourworship, they've turned into
gods, they've turned into idols.
(10:17):
Tim Keller says it so wellidolatry is taking a good thing
and making it an ultimate thing.
The uncomfortable part in all ofthis.
Sometimes we don't reject thesegods.
We recruit our God to servethem.
We recruit our God to servethem with us.
(10:40):
So I pray, but it's really sothat my life gets more
comfortable.
God, help me, appease the Godof comfort.
I worship, but it's so that Godblesses my hustle.
God, partner with me.
This God of busyness demands somuch I just can't do it by
myself.
I believe in God, but onlythose verses that prop up my
(11:04):
politics and the way that I leanleft or right or maybe none.
God help me.
I read the scripture, but it'sonly so that I can feel more
spiritual around those peopleall over the place.
Here we're like ah, I know moreBible verses, I've read more,
I've got more memorized.
But do you see what happens?
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We take the living God and weturn him into a lowercase g God.
He's not God anymore, he's likemy associate, while I serve the
real God of my life Comfort,success, busyness, politics,
consumerism.
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Now, this isn't a Stephenproblem alone.
This isn't a you problem.
It's not even a Madison Churchproblem.
This is a human problem.
You see, as people created inthe image of God, I believe that
we were created to worship.
We will find something orsomeone to worship, every single
one of us.
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It's not a question of if weworship, but who or what we
worship.
Some of us, we worship that idolof security.
We want safety.
We want your life to bepredictable, stable, under
control, and there's nothingwrong with that.
But when it becomes our God, weend up being a disciple of it,
(12:30):
and what that looks like is thatyou stay in a job that you hate
because it feels safe.
You avoid a risk God is callingyou to because you don't want
to lose control.
You parent with fear instead offaith, bubble wrapping your kid
instead of trusting God withtheir future.
What does that God promise you?
(12:51):
Well, that God promises youpeace, but what many of you
already know is that that Godactually gives you anxiety.
It whispers.
You're safe.
You're safe now, but deep down,you're always afraid of losing
control.
It never is enough.
(13:12):
This God only takes more, andinstead you're invited to trust
the God that is with you.
Even when life is uncertain,even when you don't know what
tomorrow or next week will bring, god is with you.
Even when life is uncertain,even when you don't know what
tomorrow or next week will bring, god is with you.
Real security doesn't come fromcontrol.
It comes from God's presence.
(13:35):
Some of us are worshiping worth.
We want to matter, we want tobe loved, to be seen and to feel
valuable, and so that Goddemands that we overwork,
because our resume or ourInstagram bios aren't enough.
Yet we scroll through socialmedia and we fine-tune our posts
(13:58):
so we get the most likes andthe most comments.
We say yes to everythingbecause the minute I say no,
maybe they won't ask me againand I won't be needed anymore.
They will move on.
I won't have any worth if Idon't work.
The idol, this God of worth,promises love.
You'll be loved if you just dothis.
(14:18):
Instead, we're given exhaustionand burnout.
That God says work harder,prove yourself and then, I
promise, you will matter.
But no matter how much weachieve, it is never enough.
That idol will never fill us,it will only drain us.
(14:39):
Remember this your value isn'tearned, it's given.
You are already loved and youare already seen, already
delighted, as God's child.
God doesn't need yourperformance, he wants your heart
(14:59):
and some of us.
We worship control.
We want the world to bend toour vision of how things should
be.
We long for some really goodthings.
We want there to be fairness inthe world.
We want there to be peace.
We want there to be order, andthat God says okay.
For that to happen, all you gotto do is micromanage your
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family.
All you got to do ismicromanage your coworkers.
Do not trust them because theywill screw it up.
You got to fight everypolitical battle on Facebook,
like the kingdom of God dependson it.
It's ridiculous to say, but howmany of us do that in practice?
We have to shut downemotionally and block other
(15:42):
people out who love us.
Because if I can't control it,I'd rather disassociate, I'd
rather escape, I'd rather justdisappear and go away.
The idol of control promises, it, whispers, peace.
All you have to do is this andyou'll feel peace.
You'll feel peace, you'll feelpeace, but you know what you get
is frustration, because you dothese things and all you get is
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frustrated.
This idol, this God, will sayyou're in charge.
So why am I so angry all thetime?
Why do I always feel anxious?
Why do I carry the weight ofbitterness around about so many
people?
I'm so unhappy because nothingever goes my way and you start
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to wake up.
You said that this idol ofcontrol doesn't bring peace, it
steals it.
When we yield to God's kingdom,we receive true peace.
We receive true justice, truefreedom.
These things don't come fromcontrol, but rather surrender to
the one who is in control.
And whether I named somethingthat resonates with you a lot,
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or I didn't, I'm sure you canthink of something that you're
like man, this really.
I'm worshiping that, I idolizethat and there's a choice now
that every single one of us getsto make, and CS Lewis says it
like this.
He says there are only twokinds of people in the end those
who say to God, thy will bedone, and those to whom God says
(17:13):
in the end, thy will be done.
That's it.
It's control or it's surrender.
Will I tell God your will bedone or will God look at me and
your will be done?
So let's pause to ask ourselvestoday, on this anniversary
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Sunday, I mean really askourselves where am I?
Where am I today?
Am I chasing security?
Am I chasing worth?
Am I chasing control?
Wherever you land, theinvitation for all of us today
watching, listening online, theinvitation is the same To stop
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using God to serve our idols andforsake our idols to serve the
one, true, living God.
The living God is not a tool tobe used.
He's not an assistant to helpour agenda.
God is the center, the sourceand the goal I mentioned.
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Paul was coming fromThessalonica before he got to
Athens, and one of the things hesays to the Thessalonian people
he says you turned to God fromidols, or you turned to God from
idols to serve a living andtrue God.
What he's saying is you didn'tjust pick up Jesus.
You didn't just pick up Jesus,you let go of everything else.
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And I think that that'ssometimes the frustration we
have as followers of Jesuswhether we're just getting
started or maybe it's been downthe road and we've been
following Jesus for a long timethat we kind of go into cruise
control and at some point werealize I've got my arms full of
idols and I'm like, oh yeah,and Jesus too.
Got to get the church on Sundayright, got to make sure I pray,
(19:05):
get in a small group.
Now what Paul is saying is aradical thing, because at the
time he's pointing to the livingGod and he's saying forsake
everything else.
And the reason this is radicalis because you had lots of gods.
I mean, why would you risk it?
I mean, what if you were wrongabout Zeus?
Don't make him mad, we'll justkind of keep him over here.
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The early Christians were calledatheists because they rejected
all of the gods but one, and itwas kind of a dirty term back
then.
It was like the atheists,they've rejected all of these
gods.
But it was this subversivebelief that came.
I mean, the subversive beliefcame with a cost greater than
name calling.
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I mean, the subversive beliefcame with a cost greater than
name-calling.
To follow Jesus meant lettinggo of everything, every system
they had always known.
They had to let go of previousreligious beliefs.
They lost family traditions andrelationships.
They probably lost businessesand customers, because all of
these things, remember, weretied to idols.
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Everything in Athens was tiedto a God.
Following Jesus wasn't just aprivate belief change.
It was public, it was costlyand total.
It was a complete reorientationof their lives.
And the call is the same forevery generation and it's the
one we face, not just today, butevery day, and last Sunday, and
next Sunday, and next year andthe year prior.
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Will we turn from our idols?
Because it's something we'regoing to have to regularly do,
it's not just one and done.
Will we turn from our idols andturn to the living God?
Because this God is not anaccessory to our lives.
He's not one more app on ourhome screen.
He's not here to bless ourplans.
God, here's what I want to havehappen.
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Please bless this.
He is the center, the source,the goal.
So let's stop asking God toserve our idols and instead,
today, in this moment, as we'vegathered here, knowing that God
is in us, around us, workingthrough us, and to say I
surrender everything to you.
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The next chapter of MadisonChurch won't be built on comfort
Not that it ever has been butsneak preview of the future, not
changing anything there.
It will not be built onbusyness We'll never celebrate
how many activities we havegoing on during a week.
It will not be built onpolitics or consumerism or
chasing spiritual highs.
(21:35):
The next chapter will be kindof like the previous chapter.
We will be a community built onthe living God.
Scott McKnight puts itperfectly.
He says the gospel is not aninvitation to add Jesus to the
rest of our lives.
The gospel is a summons toreorder your entire life around
Jesus.
That's the vision of thiscommunity.
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That's the vision of MadisonChurch to become a community of
depth, where faith is notshallow but faith is rooted, to
become a community of impact,serving our city, partnering
with other organizations, as Imentioned during the.
Today we celebrate 11 years ofGod's faithfulness at Madison
Church, and it's funny becauseif you were here on day one, you
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would not have ever bet we'd behere on year 11.
Okay, I'm just telling you.
I was there.
I would have taken the odds theother direction.
It felt like failure in themoment and long after if I'm
being honest with you it didn'tstop feeling like failure for a
really long time.
But what I can see today that Icouldn't see back then was that
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God saw that first sentence,the first page of the first
chapter, and he said that's notgoing to be a very good story.
And I thought it was going tobe a great one.
Then said he erased it and hewrote a better story, not a
story of big crowds or quicksuccess, but a story of changed
(23:15):
lives over 11 years, the storyof deep friendships formed here,
of prayers answered, of hoperising in unexpected places.
What felt like failure thenfailure in my story has turned
into something far greater thanmy imagination could have
(23:38):
conjured up, because the God whois faithful in that empty room,
almost empty room, 11 years ago, is the same God who is here
today and he will be faithfulfor the next year and the next
11 years and as long as he callsus to keep gathering as a
community.
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