You Are What You Worship
"Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened." Romans 1:21
Walk through the wings of almost any major museum in the world and you'll find that room devoted to idols. I have been to some great museums and they are generally there: Stone statues from Egypt, bronze images from Greece, wooden carvings from Africa, household gods from Rome. Throughout the world, civilizations have bowed before the works of their own hands, and they still do.
We imagine ourselves too educated, too scientific, too sophisticated to worship carved images. But Romans 1 exposes our heart and idolatry is found. According to the Apostle Paul, idolatry is a human problem. Every person knows there is a God (Romans 1:19). Every person suppresses that truth apart from grace (Romans 1:20). And every person, unless redeemed by Christ, exchanges the worship of the Creator for something else.
The idols may change but human nature does not. Romans 1:18–20 establishes that humanity possesses a "clear" knowledge of God. His eternal power and divine nature are plainly revealed in creation. Every sunrise, every mountain range, every newborn child, every law of nature teaches and preaches this fact: there is a Creator. This knowledge is not saving knowledge, but it is genuine knowledge.
Creation is God's witness.
Conscience is God's witness.
Providence is God's witness.
Paul's point is unmistakable: men are "without excuse.” But what does fallen humanity do with that knowledge? Paul answers in one word:
Suppression.
Truth is not only ignored, it is actively pressed down. Fallen man and woman spends enormous energy keeping that truth suppressed. Yet suppression of truth always produces a substitute. As truth is pushed down, something else inevitably rises to replace it--that substitute is idolatry.
The Idol Factory
John Calvin famously observed that man is a perpetual factory of idols. We forge idols within our heart. Nothing has changed in the five centuries since Calvin’s penned that truth. Human beings cannot help but worship as we were created for worship. The question is never whether we will worship. The only question is whom—or what—we will worship.
An idol is anything that occupies the place reserved for God alone. A definition of idol that I have found helpful is “anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.”
Idolatry is not a problem of ancient statues and false gods, it is a problem of the heart, and it could be anything.
Career.
Comforts.
Politics.
Family.
Approval.
Pleasure.
Success.
Control.
Even good gifts, which come from God, become idols whenever they become ultimate things. The first commandment forbids worshiping false gods. The second commandment forbids worshiping the true God falsely. Both are forms of idolatry because both replace God's self-revelation with something fashioned according to our own imagination.
The heart naturally says, "If there is a God, He must approve of what I approve. He must desire what I desire. God must look like me.” Instead of conforming ourselves to God's image, we conform God to ours.
We Become What We Worship
One of Scripture's running themes is worship, rightly or wrongly, transforms the worshiper. Jeremiah said, "They went after worthlessness, and became worthless.” Psalm 115 says, "Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them.”
Isaiah 44 mocks the absurdity of idolatry. A man cuts down a tree. Half of it warms his house. Part of it bakes his bread. The remainder becomes his god. Then he bows before it. The irony is intentional.
The idol cannot see. Soon the worshiper cannot see.
The idol cannot hear. Soon the worshiper cannot hear.
The idol cannot speak. Soon the worshiper cannot speak.
People become like what they worship.
That principle is not limited to pagan religions.
Habits shape us.
Practices shape us.
Liturgies shape us.
The person who spends every evening scrolling social media is becoming someone different than the person who spends evenings reading. The family whose calendar revolves around the Lord's Day is becoming different from the family whose calendar revolves around sports or entertainments. Every repeated act leaves an imprint on the soul.
Romans 1:21-23 identifies five exchanges that occur when humanity suppresses the truth and turns to idolatry.
Dishonor Replaces Worship
"Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God.” The first exchange is simple, humanity chooses dishonor instead of worship. Knowledge should have led to praise; instead it led to rebellion. Every human heart knows God deserves glory. That is why public worship matters so much. Corporate worship is a litmus test to your relationship to the truth.
Worship is humanity fulfilling the very purpose for which it was created. One of the first signs of spiritual decline is almost always a withdrawal from God's appointed means of grace. Bible reading goes first. Public worship becomes optional soon after. This should not surprise us. Suppressing truth requires effort. Yet, exercising faith requires effort too.
Os Guinness noted that "doubt occupies the middle ground between faith and unbelief." Doubt itself is not the greatest danger. The danger is allowing doubt to become an excuse for withdrawing from Christ instead of pressing more deeply into him. This is where dishonor sets in.
There is no neutrality. Either we glorify God or we suppress Him.
Futility Replaces Gratitude
Paul immediately adds another revealing phrase: "They were not thankful.” One of the earliest symptoms of unbelief is ingratitude. Creation should produce thanksgiving. Providence should produce thanksgiving. Mercy should produce thanksgiving. Instead, fallen humanity complains and grumbles and grows in “futile thinking.” Futile means vain.
Notice Paul's sequence. They were not thankful. Then they became futile in their thinking. Gratitude and clear thinking belong together. Ingratitude and foolishness belong together. The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote that if man can be defined by one characteristic, it is that he is "phenomenally ungrateful.”He is the “ungrateful biped.”
Saint Paul agrees.
The New Testament repeatedly presents thanksgiving as a weapon against sin. In Ephesians 5, Paul contrasts sexual immorality with thanksgiving. In Colossians 3, after listing numerous sins, he repeatedly commands believers to be thankful. Gratitude is spiritual warfare.
A thankful heart finds it difficult to nurture bitterness.
A thankful heart remembers God's providence.
A thankful heart resists envy.
A thankful heart acknowledges grace.
When gratitude disappears, vanity rushes in to occupy the void.
Darkness Replaces Light
Paul continues: "Their foolish hearts were darkened.” Notice carefully. Paul is not describing people who simply lack information. They already knew. Their darkness is moral before it is intellectual. Natural man does not merely fail to discover the truth, he or she resists it. How often have Christians heard objections like these?
"The Bible has too many contradictions.” "Nobody knows what the original text said.” "I could never believe in a God who judged the Canaanites.” The questions are asked, but the answers are not even sought. The evidence exists. The answers exist. The real issue is rarely intellectual, it is because unbelievers hate the God of the Bible.
Jesus explained it earlier: "Men loved darkness rather than light.” Darkness becomes comfortable as truth becomes threatening. History repeatedly illustrates this principle. Pharaoh witnessed miracle after miracle and still hardened his heart. The Pharisees watched Christ heal the blind and accused Him instead. Entire denominations that once defended biblical truth slowly drift into theological darkness because truth is suppressed one compromise at a time. (Cue the discussion about the PC(USA)'s polyamory debates at this year's General Assembly.)
The process rarely happens overnight. It happens one concession after another. Men love darkness.
Foolishness Replaces Wisdom
"Professing to be wise, they became fools.” Perhaps no verse better summarizes the history of human religion and even the experiences of your unbelieving friends and loved ones (can I name internet names here?).
Ancient Egypt worshiped crocodiles and dung beetles. The Greeks filled Athens with idols. The Romans declared emperors to be divine--and the Japanese did the same until the end of World War II. The French Revolution dethroned Jesus and enthroned Reason herself. Modern secularism has replaced carved idols with the worship of self, autonomy, sexuality, maxing, expressive individualism, and personal authenticity. The names have changed. The exchange has not. Human wisdom detached from divine revelation is foolishness. Even today's "post-Christian" culture demonstrates this reality. Ideas once considered obvious are now treated as controversial. (What is a woman?) Basic truths about marriage, human nature, and even biological reality become endlessly debated.
Paul's words continue proving true year after year; century after century. Those professing to be wise become fools. Christ alone is "the wisdom of God.” Outside of him, humanity continually mistakes folly for brilliance. The emperor--and internet writer--has no clothes.
Creation Replaces the Creator
Finally, Paul reaches the climax. Humanity exchanges "the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man.” Every idolator ultimately worships creation instead of the Creator. Sometimes that creation is literally wood or stone; more often it is ourselves. We worship personal happiness. We worship nature. We worship political movements. We worship sexuality. We worship success. Some even speak of "the universe" directing events or "manifesting" reality, as though ancient paganism has simply returned with modern vocabulary. Idolatry has always been irrational.
Isaiah exposed its absurdity centuries ago: the craftsman fashions an idol from the same tree that warmed his dinner. Yet somehow the carved becomes divine. Sin always blinds us our irrationality.
The Better Exchange
Romans 1 presents a series of tragic exchanges. But the gospel announces a better exchange.
Humanity exchanged truth for lies. Christ is the Truth. Humanity exchanged light for darkness. Christ is the Light of the World. Humanity exchanged wisdom for folly. Christ has become for us wisdom from God. Humanity exchanged the Creator for created things. Christ restores us to worship the Father in Spirit and truth. Second Corinthians 3:18 says as believers behold the glory of Christ, they "are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.” Notice the contrast. Psalm 115 says idol worshipers become like their idols. Second Corinthians says Christians become like Christ. Everyone becomes like what he or she worships
Examine Your Heart
Romans 1 is exposing the human heart, including your own. Ask yourself: What occupies my imagination more than Christ? What do I believe will finally make me secure? What loss would devastate me because it has become ultimate? What consumes my thoughts? Where do I instinctively run for comfort? These questions often reveal our idols.
The human heart cannot live without worship. You must worship something. Only Christ satisfies the soul. Only Christ transforms those who behold him. The idols of this world always promise significance, yet deliver enslavement. In him alone we finally find our lives.
In him we live.
We see.
We hear.
We smell.
We feel.
