You Do You

He is infinitely wise and good and ultimate. He is the one thing in the entire universe that's worth centering your entire life around, giving everything to. He's good beyond all goodness. He's wise beyond all wisdom. He's just beyond all justice. He's worth it, selling your whole life around. If he's big, your life will be big. If God's small, you will become small.

CTK Sermons is a ministry of Christ the King Presbyterian Church. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to redemptive work in Raleigh. Amen.

If you wanna make your way back to your seats, please. Thank you. We'll have our congregation greeting one another. I'm gonna stand right here. We're gonna be finishing up our study that's gone on all this fall in the book of Judges today. I know Judges for Christmas really. I love preaching through Old Testament books and all these pages and all these passages in our Bibles take us back to the main point of our scripture which is Jesus himself and that's where we end up today. So we always get there.

So, if you'll turn your attention with me, we're going to be in Judges chapters seventeen and eighteen this morning and you can follow along as I read the scripture aloud. It'll be up on the screen behind me.

There was a man from the hill country of Ephraim named Micah. He said to his mother, the 1,100 pieces of silver taken from you that I heard you place a curse on, Here's the silver. I took it. Then his mother said, my son, may you be blessed by the lord. He returned the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother and his mother said, I personally consecrate the silver to the lord for my son's benefit to make a carved image and a silver idol. I will give it back to you. So, he returned the silver to his mother and she took five pounds of silver and gave it to a craftsman, a silversmith. He made it into a carved image and a silver idol and it was in Micah's house. This man, Micah, had a shrine and he made an Ephad and his household idols and installed one of his sons to be his priest. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what seemed right to him. There was a young man, a Levite from Bethlehem and Judah, who was staying within the clan of Judah. The man left the town of Bethlehem and Judah to stay wherever he could find a place. On his way, he came to Micah's house in the whole country of Ephraim. Where do you come from? Micah said. I he answered him, I am a Levite from Bethlehem and Judah. I'm going to stay wherever I can find a place. Micah said to him, stay with me and be my father and priest and I will give you four ounces of silver a year along with your clothing and provisions. So, the Levi went in and agreed to stay with the man and the young man became like one of his sons. Micah consecrated him. The consecrated the Levi and the young man became his priest and lived in Micah's house. Then Micah said, now I know that the lord will be good to me because a Levite has come to be my priest. In those days, there was no king in Israel and the Danite tribe was looking for territory to occupy. After that time, no territory had been captured by them among the tribes of Israel. They came to the whole country of Ephraim as far as the home of Micah and spent the night there. While they were near Micah's home, they recognized the accent of the young Levite. So, they went over to him and said and asked, who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is keeping you here? He told them, this is what Micah has done for me. He has hired me and I became his priest. When they entered Micah's house and took the carved image, the Ephad, the household idols, and the silver idol, priest said to them, what are you doing? They told them, be quiet. Come, keep your mouth shut, come with us, and be father and priest to us. It is better for you to be a priest to the house of one person or for you to be a priest for a tribe and a family in Israel? So, the priest was pleased and took the Ephad household idols and carved image and went with the people. They prepared to leave putting their dependence, livestock, and possessions in front of them. After they were some distance from Micah's house, the men who were in the houses near were mustered and caught up with the Danites. They called out to the Danites. He turned to face them and said to Micah, what's the matter with you that you mustered them in? He said, you took the gods I have made and the priests and went away. What do I have left? How can you say to me, what's the matter with me with you? The Danite said to him, don't raise your voice against us or angry men will attack you and you and your family will lose their lives. The Danites went on their way and Micah turned back to go home because he saw that they were stronger than he was. — Judges 17-18

This is the Danites, set up for themselves, Micah's carved image that he had made and it was there as long as the house of God was in Shiloh. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

You know, there are stories that we grow up hearing all the time that become part of the vernacular of our culture. One of those is the old Aesop's fable about the tortoise and the hare and how slow and steady wins the race. You're familiar with this?

One of the creators of the TV show The Office, BJ Novak, has a collection of short stories and he reimagined that story in a short story called "One More Thing." It's about how the hare woke up one morning after this race and said, "I want a rematch." So he went through all the training, doing two-a-day exercises. He built up his stamina. He challenged the tortoise and said, "You know what, what do I got to lose? I'm one and oh." He challenged him to a rematch.

So the day of the race comes and they line up at the starting gate and the gun goes off and, of course, the hare wins because this is the real world. And as BJ Novak says, "Slow and steady wins a race until truth and talent claim their place." In other words, this is ridiculous. There are these stories that get passed down through culture and we sort of just hear them. We grow up with them. They're familiar to us, but I don't know that we always think about whether they're really true.

Just like the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins a race? No, it doesn't. Truth and talent wins a race.

The American Gospel

Today's passage from Judges has a theme that's similar to that. We read in this passage:

Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. — Judges 17:6

It's kind of a summary passage for the entire book of Judges. And that statement—everybody did what was right in their own eyes—it is so right now that it could have been written last week in Hollywood or Washington DC. This is the world we live in.

I'm gonna call it this morning the American gospel: You should do whatever you want to do. You're free to do whatever you want to do. And we add a cost to it because we're not monsters. You're free to do whatever you want to as long as you don't hurt anybody else.

Y'all know it. Y'all know the American gospel, and it has all kinds of ways of saying this: "You do you." "Live your truth." "To each their own." "Be yourself." "Do your thing."

It's in our TV shows. Mindy Kaling says things like "do what you gotta do" or "live your life." David Freasel frequently uses lines like "you do you, boo boo." It's in our advertising. Levi's says "do your own thing." Nissan tells us "choose your own path." JCPenney, that really edgy company, says "be a rebel, make your own rules."

Elsa sings it, doesn't she? She says, "No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free. Let it go." And Colby Callery has a song called "Do You."

But I want to think about that statement. You're free to do whatever you want, sometimes you don't hurt anybody. The American gospel. Because I think, just like "slow and steady wins the race," it doesn't stand up. It really isn't real life, and it's got a hidden lie within it.

The Book of Judges

Now we're finishing up the book of Judges, and we've sort of gone off the paved roads into the gravel at this passage. We've been looking at all these passages about the leadership of Israel, the judges of Israel, and now we're down at ground level with normal people. Regular people. The last chapters of the book of Judges are all just about normal people—what's going on on the ground.

And honestly, the last two episodes are the most boring story in the Bible—the one we just read—followed by the most triggering story in the Bible in chapter 19. I was supposed to preach on it but mercifully, you don't have to hear that one. I'm gonna reference it later today. But they show us something that we don't often see: that the American gospel—everybody does what's right in their own eyes—is really dangerous. And there's both a religious version of this and a hedonistic version of this.

Let me just summarize this passage for you. Micah's mom has lost a fortune—1,100 shekels of silver. That is several million dollars in today's currency. She pronounces a curse upon whoever stole it. Then her son fesses up. Micah says, "I did it," and she surprisingly says, "Well, blessed be God because you told the truth."

What's interesting is that in that section, she even references God's name. She says, "Yahweh, blessed be Yahweh because you told the truth." So he gives the silver back. She takes it to a silversmith and has it made into an idol.

An image of god for her own and now, there's still a sanctuary, a tabernacle. We read the last part of this passage in Shiloh but Micah and mom want their own tabernacle, their own sanctuary, their own place to worship god in their backyard. So, they do all these things. They have idols made, an idol made in the image but and call it Yahweh, a little personal Yahweh.

Micah takes his son out in the backyard, has a little backyard ordination service for his son, makes him his priest, even makes him priestly garments, an Ephad to wear and then along comes this Levite who happens to be passing through and says, oh, wait, Levite? That in the Bible are the people who are supposed to serve in Tabernacle. I can even get a legit priest now. So he fires his son, hires the Levite, and he has his own backyard home gym. I mean, home sanctuary. And this is what he creates.

Now, the last part of the passage, the Danites hear about this. They overhear the guy, the Levite speaking out in the community. They're like, what are you doing here? They hear about what he's doing. They're like, we want you and we want that idol. So they go to Micah's house and they take the idol and they take the Ephad and they take the priest and they go on their way and Micah comes running after them with some friends and says, what are you doing? You've stolen from me. They're like, go back home or we're going to beat you up. That's the end of the story. Great story, right?

Now, to be honest, this is a really boring story. And you may be wondering like, why are we talking about this? It's an odd story. It's a boring passage. These are boring people. There's nobody in this passage I don't know if you felt it while I'm reading it. It's kind of flat. It's nobody we can cheer for. There's no great crisis. A good storytelling has a crisis, has a hero. Instead, we just get this weird story about this family who makes a home gym or a home sanctuary and that's it.

But I want to put this before you this morning. I have two points for you. So we'll put them on the screen. Two things I want you to get from this passage. How the American gospel makes us sick? And second, how do we get over it? How do we recover from the American gospel? Because that's what this passage is all about.

How the American Gospel Makes Us Sick

Remember, as long as nobody gets hurt, You do you. You're free. As long as nobody gets hurt. But what we don't often see is that somebody always gets hurt. Three somebodies. God, us, and other people.

How does god get hurt? Now, let me be fair. God is an infinite eternal being. You can't really hurt god. But the way that we view god gets hurt, gets majorly distorted by that statement, free to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anybody. You may listen to this, read this passage and say, wait, wait, these are religious people though. They're worshiping Yahweh. They actually say they're worshiping Yahweh. How can you say that they're abandoning the faith or doing something against god? These are people who are not throwing out god, right? But here's the problem. This is a family who has reduced god to a pocket sized version of god.

I can summarize the story really in three sentences. Mom cheats. Sorry, Micah cheats mom. Mom cheats god. Micah cheats god. I mean, Micah cheats mom. He steals the money even though he gives it back. Mom cheats god. Did you notice that she takes that 1,100 shekels of silver like probably 5 to 6 million dollars. Gets that back and then gives a little bit to god. She says, I'm getting all of this but she actually gives a little bit back to god and she has an idol made and calls it her Yahweh.

Now, that is expressly forbidden in the Bible. The second of the 10 commandments is you don't make an image of god. You don't make god into something you can handle. That's really central and these people clearly knew lots of their Old Testament.

And then finally, Micah cheats god. He knows there's a sanctuary in Shiloh but instead he builds one for himself. He copies it.

Couple weeks ago, my family we went to Nashville to see one of our sons perform. He's at Belmont University. He was in his pops group and they sang a cover of the Wolfpack song, "Back Pocket" and I can't get it out of my head. So the chorus goes, and I'll do the choreography. Ready? Put it in my pocket. Put it in my pocket. Put it my pocket. Put it in my back pocket.

That's what this passage is about. God in my pocket, put him in my pocket, put him in my back pocket. That's what is happening in this passage. This is what advanced sin looks like. We think advanced sin looks like atheism. We think advanced sin looks like hedonism but this is advanced sin. This is really bad. Micah and mom are doing what?

I mean, there's plenty of gods out there. We've been reading through the book of Judges. They could've worshiped any god they want to. All kinds of idols they could've made, but it said they take Yahweh—the eternal, infinite holy God—and they put him in the back pocket. They make him small. They shrink God down to size. They make him something that's manageable and tame.

This is the danger of the American gospel. "You do you" as long as nobody gets hurt, right? And there's a Christian version of the American gospel. When we add God onto that, put him in my pocket. Put him in my pocket. Put him in my back pocket.

A.W. Tozer once said that the most important thing about you is what you think about God. The most important thing about you is what you think about God. This is what we often think about God: God is just a bigger version of me. God is just me made larger. And when you think about God that way, you actually are making God very small.

There's all kinds of ways that we do this in our culture that we think of as normal. Let me give you some examples.

Have you ever heard someone say the phrase, "I can't believe in a god who would let blank happen"? We fill that in with all kinds of suffering and pain and death and cancer and all the things. And the logic goes like this: since I can't think of a good reason for something like that to happen, then there can't be one. God in my pocket.

And what about this one? You've heard people say this: "I can't believe in a god who would judge people for x." Again, if it doesn't make sense to you, if the logic doesn't work for you, then you don't want this God. Put God in my pocket, right? If the moral logic doesn't work, you can't believe in him.

Or we make deals with God. This is really common. We think God can be bought. I need strength. I need my marriage fixed. I need a job. I need to get out of this jam. I need to pass this test. I just need this right person to show up in my life, and if I do this—if I do the Christian things, if I come to church, if I do all the prayers and stuff—God will owe me. God in my pocket.

Or, "I've gotten over this. Surely God has too." Yeah, you and I are people who can get over something sometimes with the passage of time. We can move past something, but not God. For God, there's a moral accounting that has to happen in the universe. Sin either needs to be punished or atoned for. All of it is destructive.

For us, we think something that happened thirty years ago, we can move past. Something that happened yesterday, harder to get over. Do you know that for God, all times are present? All times are now. God is beyond time. What happened thirty years ago is as offensive to God as what happened yesterday. And when we take that logic of God and shrink him down, we're actually saying God is just like me, just a bigger version of me. God in my pocket.

The American gospel makes God pocket-sized. And if you don't have a God who can contradict you, if you don't have a God who can tell you right and wrong, you actually don't have a real God. If you don't have a God worth giving everything to, centering your whole life around, you don't have a God. You have a pet. That's what the American gospel does to God. God in my pocket.

What Does the American Gospel Do to You?

Second, what does the American gospel do to you? Remember, the American gospel is: "Hey, you're free to do whatever you want. Just don't hurt anybody." And we think about that and we don't apply that to one person in the room: self. Last time I checked, you are somebody. You're a somebody, and the American gospel hurts you.

I'm going to steal a couple of these points from Tim Keller from his commentary on this passage. God is not just a bigger version of you. He is infinitely wise and good and ultimate. He is the one thing in the entire universe that's worth centering your entire life around, giving everything to. He's good beyond all goodness. He's wise beyond all wisdom. He's just beyond all justice.

If God is ultimate—not just an accessory to your life, not just small, but if God is ultimate—he's worth it. Sowing your whole life around. If he's big, your life will be big. If God's small, you will become small.

Look at the story of Micah and Mom, right? What do they do? Can you root for these people? Are you excited about this story? No. This is a story of two very selfish people doing a very selfish thing. Boring. Boring.

A manageable, tame God will make you into a manageable, tame person. It'll make you small. God in my pocket makes us boring. Nobody talked about this more than C.S. Lewis. In the preface to one of his books, The Screwtape Letters, he describes the mark of hell this way. Now listen closely: "The ruthless, sleepless, unsmiling concentration on self." Boring.

Or his reflections on John Milton's Paradise Lost. He looks at John Milton's portrayal of Satan, the devil, as an incredible figure with incredible self focus and self preoccupation. He says this: to admire Satan in Paradise Lost is to give one's vote not only for a world of misery but also for a world of lies and propaganda of wishful thinking of—listen to this—incessant autobiography.

That phrase, incessant autobiography. I've heard that a lot recently. I don't know if you have. There's a lot of critique of what comes out of stand up comedy, of podcasting, and of open mic nights across this country as incessant autobiography. Standing up just telling more stories about me. And one of the biggest critiques of that is how boring Americans have become. Because we're so filled with incessant autobiography.

See, the American gospel, "you do you, boo boo." Long as nobody gets hurt, it does hurt someone. You're a someone. It hurts you. It makes you small.

Finally, who else does the American gospel hurt? It hurts other people. It leads to violence. Now, you may think, "Oh, that's preacher hyperbole. Come on, pastor. Leads to violence?" Let me show you.

The Story of Chapter 19

The chapter after the one we read—the one after this one—we read in the Bible is the most triggering and disturbing chapter in the whole of the Bible and I was really iffy on whether to read it out loud or whether to preach on it because it's so harsh.

Here's the story. Again, normal people. A man and his girlfriend come into this little town and they look for a place to stay for the night. In ancient Near Eastern culture, you're supposed to invite strangers in. So this older guy comes to the town square. He's like, "This is a bad part of town. Y'all come stay with me." So they go and stay with this guy, and pretty soon, there's a knock on the door, and the men of the town said, "Hey, send the stranger out so we can sexually assault him."

And the host says, "Are you crazy? Don't do this. Don't do this."

And the man says, "Don't do this. He says, tell you what, I'll send my girlfriend out instead." So he sends his girlfriend out to the crowd. He and the host stay up drinking and go to bed. They don't think about the girlfriend. And the people of the town sexually assault her all night.

In the morning, she's laying on the doorstep almost dead. The man gets up with the host in the morning, steps over her. It says, "Come on. Let's go. What are you doing?" And she dies. And he takes her body and dismembers her and sends it to the 12 tribes of Israel, FedEx style. It says, "See what happened. Somebody destroyed my property."

So disturbing. There's a civil war that breaks out because of that. Why? Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

This is why the American gospel leads to violence. Because when "you do you" is your unofficial motto, your slogan in life, with or without God, you have no moral authority. You have no right to say, "That's wrong. Don't do that." By what standard? By whose authority do you say that? If it's all "you do you" based on what principle?

If God is not big enough to contradict me and tell me I can't do whatever I want, that God is not big enough for me to tell that to somebody else. It's incredibly dangerous. It's incredibly poisonous. Someone hurting someone else can't even be categorized as wrong anymore. It's inconvenient. It's not nice, but if God doesn't have a right to tell me what's wrong, I can't tell you what's wrong. We don't have an authority for what's wrong, and it leads to people treating other people like objects just like the story in chapter 19.

I'm sorry to tell you that story this morning. It's a horrible story.

The Remedy

If that's what the American gospel is, how do we get over this? There is a remedy. There's a remedy. Here's how you get over the American gospel, and both parts of this are in this passage but they're in little tiny seed form. So I'm going to show them to you, but this is written all over the Bible.

First, you go to the tabernacle. Second, you go to Bethlehem.

The Tabernacle

The tabernacle. Step one: you go to the tabernacle. Now, he wrote at the end of my reading there, Chapter 18 verse 31: "There's still a tabernacle at Shiloh. There's still a place to worship God. There's still a place to go where you can worship the real God."

And if Micah and Mom had gone to the tabernacle, this is what they would have seen: a curtain, because they would have been able to walk in only so far. That tabernacle said something in a bold subtext. God is big. God is transcendent. God is holy, holy, holy. God is other. God is apart. God is infinite. God is eternal. God cannot be put in your pocket. God is that big.

This is one of the things that we need to see for the American gospel. And in the Holy of Holies, behind the curtains, the place where only the high priest got to go, there's an ark of the covenant with a throne on the top of it, made out of the wings of two cherubim that come together. And guess what's on the throne? Anybody know?

Nothing. Nothing's on the throne. So important. The high priest would walk in there and then he would see nothing that they could handle. Nothing that they could make small and grasp and manipulate. Nothing that they could control because God is that big. One of the things that we need as people is transcendence. Our hearts need to see that God is not something you can put in your pocket. God is so holy, so much bigger than us. This is one of the things that the American gospel we need so badly. We long for a sense of God who's really in charge of things. Well, he really is, y'all.

But one of the funny things about that empty throne is that the empty throne was never meant to be always empty. This is the second part of this passage. Go to the tabernacle. Go to Bethlehem. Did you notice in the story where the Levite came from? Where'd he come from? Bethlehem. Bethlehem? Now if you're reading your Old Testament and you don't know anything of the New Testament, you're like, really? Nowhere place? Backwoods? Bethlehem? Nothing from there. It's an insignificant little village just a few miles outside of Jerusalem. But something else is going to come out of Bethlehem. Someone else is going to come out of Bethlehem and I want you to think about that someone.

How did Jesus come to us in the Christmas story? How did he come? Did he come as an emperor? In power, in strength? To come in as a celebrity with all the spotlight on him. No. He came small. No fanfare. Actually, he came microscopic. The God of the universe became not only something that could fit in your pocket but an embryo that could fit in a womb. The God of the universe become very, very small. Microscopic. Why? Of course, he didn't stay that size.

Jesus became small enough to fit in a womb. But then he becomes human, becomes a person, grows up, and fills in his resurrection, the throne of the universe.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God. — Colossians 1:15

He is God incarnate with skin on it and we need to see the imminence of God. God come near us. This is what Christmas is all about. That God came and put on human flesh to draw near so that people could touch him. They could relate to him. We can relate to him. They could handle him. They could be near him. Closeness, nearness, physicality, imminence. It is our incarnation. He became someone you can relate to as a person. People could see face to face. They could eat with. You could touch.

This is why we need both. This is what we see at Christmas. We need both. We need the transcendent God of the universe. Go to the tabernacle. And we need the imminent God of Bethlehem. See, this is the infinite God before whom all of us, we're just little specks. We're so small. But he came to do one thing that we can't imagine any god ever doing. Remember how I said, you know, really you could hurt God? In his physicality, God became hurtable. In his physicality, God became vulnerable to us and what do we do with him? We killed him. We put him on a cross and executed him.

And in his resurrection and glory, he ascends and fills the throne of the universe and he becomes the one who's so great around which if you put your life around this, even though you're very small, your life will become big, your life will become great.

Here's what I want for our church this Christmas. Here's what I want for each of you this Christmas. That you would discover that there's something in Bethlehem worth putting your whole life around. This whole American gospel thing, it's poisoned the well for most of us. It's hurt us. But if you can let go of that, if you can go and find the real Jesus, transcendent, imminent. He's worth putting your life around.

In the Narnia books, in the second of the books, Prince Caspian. Lucy is sort of the hero of the story. She meets the lion Aslan who's the Christ figure again and she'd had this encounter with him in the first book. She sees him again and she notices he looks bigger than he did last time and there's this little dialogue that ensues. "Aslan, you're bigger." And he says to her, "That's because you are bigger, little one."

This is what needs to happen in us. This is my hope for you this Christmas. You've known this story. Y'all grown up with manger scenes in front of churches all over the country. And yet, have you taken this in? The transcendent God becomes small for us. It is worth giving your life to and centering your life around and if you're bored with Christianity, if you're a boring person, maybe it's because your life has become about incessant autobiography rather than this story.

In that same region, there were shepherds watching their flocks by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid."

For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be for all the people that unto you, this day is born in the city of David, a savior, who is Christ the lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising god and saying, glory to god in the highest and peace on earth to men. — Luke 2

In the name of the father and the son and holy spirit. Amen.

Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. Lord, help us to continue to find in you, in it, the light of life. Father, we confess to you, we're bored people. We're bored with the gospel. We're bored with Christmas. And we're becoming boring. Father, would you wake us up to the reality of the word made flesh? The transcendent become imminent. God in diapers. Father, would you reawaken in us the wonder, the glory of Christmas that we might live big lives because we have a big god. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

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