Everyday Idols – Week 2 (8-10-25)
Everyday Idols
Parenting, Performance, and the Pressure to Matter
August 10, 2025
An idol is a lie we live.
The struggle — not with bad things, but good things that slowly take God’s place in our hearts.
- Abraham leaves (age 75)
- Genesis 15:4–6 → (age 80ish)
“This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. - Hagar & Ishmael (age 86)
- God again promises a son (age99)
- Isaac is born (age 100)
Genesis 22:2
Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.
Genesis 22:8-12
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
The altar wasn’t a place of loss — it was the place Abraham finally let God hold what he couldn’t.
Where is the line? “proud of them” vs. “prideful because of them”
Matthew 3:17
“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
You’re not a failure because your child struggles — and you’re not a hero because they succeed.
Parenting is not ownership… it is stewardship
Colossians 3:1-4
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
What are you holding too tightly?
Is it time to place Isaac on the altar?
The altar isn’t a place of loss — it is the place we finally let God hold what he cannot.