Pursuing Vanity They Became Vain

Good morning. It's good to have everyone here. We're excited for all the baptisms, and I'm glad to see so many family members here to enjoy the pleasure of having children who are part of God's covenant come before us. This morning's sermon is entitled, Pursuing Vanity, They Became Vain. I was listening to my Bible a while back, and I was reading through this passage. And this phrase didn't stick out to me. But then as I was listening to it, all of a sudden I heard the words, pursuing vanity, they became vain. And it struck me. And this, so as I was thinking about, well, I finished my sermon on the Ten Commandments, my series on that, what should I preach on? I thought, you know, let's preach on this. Let's think about what it means to pursue vanity and what it means to become vain.

And then as I was looking more at the passage, I realized that this is very connected to the Ten Commandments. And in the passage that we have, the people of Israel are abandoning God's commandments, pursuing idolatry, and in doing so, they pursue vanity and become vain. And so we're going to begin in verse 7 to give us context, but the overarching theme is that. And my hope this morning is that each one of you will examine your life. and see what you are pursuing, what you're giving your time to, your thoughts to, your money to, and that you would give up the pursuit of any vain things, and instead you would pursue that which is true and lasting. If you would, please stand for the reading of God's Word. This is 2 Kings chapter 17. I'm actually going to start in verse 6, and we'll go on from there.

In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried Israel away into exile to Assyria and settled them in Hala and Habor on the river Gozan in the cities of the Medes. Now, This came about because the sons of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And they had feared other gods, and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel, and in the customs of the kings of Israel which they had introduced.

The sons of Israel did things secretly which were not right against the Lord their God. Moreover, they built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city. They set for themselves sacred pillars and ashram on every high hill and under every green tree. And there they burned incense on all the high places as the nations did, which the Lord had carried away into exile before them. They did evil things, provoking the Lord. They served idols concerning which the Lord had said to them, You shall not do this thing. Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and every seer, saying, Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments, my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through my servants, the prophets.

However, they did not listen, but they stiffened their necks like their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They rejected his statutes and his covenants, which he made with their fathers, and his warnings with which he warned them. And they followed vanity and became vain, and they went after nations which surrounded them, concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do like them. They forsook all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made for themselves molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the hosts of heaven, and served Baal. Then they made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, and they practiced divination and enchantments, and they sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him. So the Lord was very angry with Israel.

and removed them from his sight. None was left except the tribe of Judah. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. So our passage this morning, we find Israel in a really bad place. The once glorious people of God have lost their land, and they're being forcibly removed from their homes, similar to Adam in the garden. They've been given this great blessing, and now they've been booted out. This special chosen people that God called out have lost the blessings. And why has this happened? Well, we don't have to wonder why what's happening to Israel is happening to Israel. In the middle of 2 Kings, the author stops and gives us a summary of what has caused all of Israel's tragedies. Mainly, the forsaking As is often the case, we see that we're first reminded of what God has done for Israel. If you read through the Old Testament, notice how often God and his prophets remind Israel of how God has brought them out of Egypt. This is an integral part of their story and of who Israel is. Israel ended up being captured and horribly oppressed as slaves.

into the Egyptians. They were overworked. They had no rest. They were required to do work, but they were not given the materials that they needed for the work that they were given to do. Their sons were being slaughtered, and Israel was helpless in the grip of the Pharaohs. Finally, after 400 years of oppression, they called out to God and their dire need, and he answered them. And what did God do? Well, he raised up for them a godly and humble man like no other named Moses, who was to lead them out of bondage and into freedom. And that's exactly what he did. And this is about the most momentous thing that you could imagine.

It was true freedom. They were slaves and then they were set free. And this should have been a cause of perpetual gratitude and thankfulness from the Israelites. However, they constantly forgot what God had done for them. They forgot who they were. They forgot the history of God's graciousness to them. It's easy for us to sit down and read through large portions of the Old Testament. And see God's great mercy. And judge the Israelites. How could they forget? How could they so quickly depart from God? But in your life as a Christian, you've had a similar experience to what the Israelites did. If you're a Christian, then God has brought you out of bondage from your sins. He's freed you. And you are no longer a slave. You have freedom. And like Israel.

You will only be in bondage if you sell yourself back into slavery. Did you catch that at the end of the passage? Israel sold themselves back into bondage. Now, if you noticed throughout this passage, three times God warns or tells us that the reason they'd lost their exalted status, why they'd gone from glory and freedom into slavery. is because they went after the nations. What does that mean? Well, the simple answer is that Israel wanted to be normal. They didn't want to be like the nations that surrounded them. Notice in verse 8, it says, walked in the customs of the nations. Verse 10 sums up the next few verses and said, they did as the nations did. And in 15, it says that they went after the nations which surrounded them.

In 16, it says they forsook all of God's commands. Commands which have been given them by God to what? To set them apart from all other nations. They were to be holy, called out. That was the whole purpose. For his glory was to set a people apart for himself, to call them out from all the nations. And what's the point of being called out if you're just like the nations? They were to be different. They weren't to be normal. They were to stand out. They were to be unique. They were to be a light shining in a dark world, a city set on a hill. This temptation to be like those surrounding them, unfortunately, is not unique to Israelites. It's a temptation for every one of us. Every one of us feels pressure to conform in different ways, but we all feel that pressure, right? Some of you want to be up on the latest sports.

And like if you don't know which team won and the scores, you know that's going to be a knock against your social status. So you have to know. Like you're checking your sports right now probably, right? It's on in the background. How's the game going? You have to watch the latest movies because you don't want to be out of touch when everyone else is talking about movies. And you don't get the references or the jokes. The same thing with TV shows, with books. Sure, it might not be the greatest book, and there might be sexual innuendos and scenes or whatever throughout all of this stuff, but we have to watch it because if we don't participate in the things that everyone else is participating in, we're going to be weird, and we won't fit in, and we won't get the references. We'll stick out.

We better know what the newest social media trend is and have seen that funny video or else we won't be able to join in the laugh. And we'll be weird. We have to fit in. So we're going to swear and cuss because everyone else is swearing and cussing. And if we have a clean mouth, that will sure look weird. We better laugh at their bad jokes, their sexual jokes. We better dress similar to them. We better drink. We better smoke. We better do drugs. Even those of you who are like, well, I don't want to do all that stuff, right? I'm going to not conform. So you have some sort of ideal of nonconformity that you're going to go to. And all you're going to do is find some wackadoodle YouTuber and conform to his ideal of what normal is. We all feel pressured to conform, to look like the people who are around us. And if you think you don't, then you are deceiving yourself.

And you do not know who you are. You're a liar to yourself. This is what Jeremiah tells us. So why would we seek to be like the nations? There are countless reasons we could probably go over, but I have a few I want us to think about. Why do we, why are we tempted to be like the people around us? Well, one reason is pride. You know, have you ever heard someone say the real reason Like, if someone here, if someone in America, they want to try communism, right? And part of the assumption is that real communism has never been tried, and that's why it hasn't worked. But if Americans did it, then we could make it work because we're greater than everyone else, right? So there's this idea that it never has happened because the right person hasn't done it. Well, I think sort of we have that idea often where we think that somehow we can be as the nations around us, But we won't become vain. They're vain. And we can sample all their delicacies, and we can do all the sort of things that they do, but somehow keep ourselves from going as far as they do. Because, well, they weren't actually Christians. And so we can sort of guard ourselves because they haven't done it the right way, but we know that we could do it the right way. And that's just pride.

You think you can get away with it and you can't. Proverbs warns us, you cannot put fire in your lap and not get burned. And anyone who thinks they can is a fool. Why else would we become like the nations around us? Well, because we have a corrupted sin nature and we still have lusts. And our lusts are similar to the lusts of the world. And so, There is that which responds to us when we see them rushing headlong into whatever vain thing they're pursuing. There's something in us that responds and kind of is like, I kind of want to go with them. The difference between us and the nations around us, the people around us, is that if you're a Christian, you've been set free. You don't have to answer that call. We're to put the flesh, death, the old man in his flesh. Fear.

Right? That's why we want to be like the nations around us, the people around us. We're afraid. What will other people think? I won't be able to run with the cool kids in school. I'm just going to be an oddball out. Will I lose my friends? Will I lose my job? Will I lose the upcoming promotion? Will I lose a raise? And so we want to be like a chameleon and just blend in with the nations around us or the people around us because we think if we stick out, that won't be good for us. We're afraid of what the consequences would be to us or our family. And so we'll conform. The other thing is we really want to be normal and just fit in. Like, we really do. And here's the thing.

The desire to conform is actually part of who we are. The problem is if the vision to which we're conforming ourselves is the wrong vision. But we were always made to be like God. And so the desire to conform is a perverted desire if it's conforming to something else. But it's not not who we are. That's why the Bible again and again warns about who we make our friends and who we hang out with, because we will become like the people that we're like or that we're with. Now, pursuing vanity. I've been speaking about the desire to follow and be like the nations or the people around us. But in the midst of telling us how Israel has begun to seek after the nations and to follow them in the worship of false gods of idolatry, we come across this intense judgment of Israel. Remember what it says. They rejected his statutes and his covenant, which he made with their fathers and his warnings with which he warned them. And they followed vanity and became vain.

Here we have the summation of Israel and the other nations' worship. They pursued vanity and they became vain. You will become what you worship. What is vanity? Vanity is a breath. It's something that is insubstantial. It's short-lived. It does not have a long duration. It's worthless. This feeling of vanity. I remember years ago. We're on this construction site, and the GC was putting a lot of pressure on me to get this house finished. And tight timeline, you've got to get it done, okay? So what am I doing? Well, I'm getting my guys, and I'm putting pressure on them. We've got to work longer. We've got to work faster. We've got to get this done. So we're working really hard to try and get this house done to meet the timeline. And it's not my fault the job's behind, but, you know, I'm the dog that got kicked.

And so we're doing it. We're busting ourselves to get it done. And then we're just about done. We just finished. We've worked hard all week. And what happens? The GC comes, exactly, John knows. The GC comes and he's like, oh, you know, this changed and this part's not in and we don't need you to have this done and actually we're going to pull you and put you on this other job. That's vanity, isn't it? You know how discouraging that is? You put all this work and effort. You bent over backwards to try and get this job done, to meet the deadline they gave you. You worked so hard and then found out that the work wasn't worth it. It was vain. Can you imagine when you get to heaven and you come before the judgment throne of God and he looks at your works and the things you've given yourself to and pursued? What will his judgment be?

Will your life have been lived vainly and you be saved as though by fire? Will you get there and find out this crushing realization that all you've given yourself and strived for was vain, worthless, breath, gone, burned up, nada? Think about Lot. He was a righteous man. He was greatly afflicted living in Sodom, and he lost everything. He was a righteous man. He went to heaven. You'll meet him there. But his garments were smoking and tattered, and he had nothing to show. What does it mean that they're pursuing vanity? What vanity were they pursuing? Well, they're pursuing false gods, which is made clear in the next verses. Pursuit of idols is vanity. Idolatry is vanity.

A narrow definition of idolatry is worshiping God, a god or gods, through or in an image. Now, many of us, when we read the commandment about not making a graven image, we all think we're sort of fine, right? We don't have a problem here. We don't have carved statues around our houses. We don't have alcoves burning incense. In our sanctuary, there's no images. There's no portraits of people. We don't have an altar. We don't even have a flag. The gross, explicit forms of idolatry that readily come to our minds are not immediately apparent to us in our lives or in our culture, perhaps outside of Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism. So we can quickly move from the physicality of idol worship among pagans and Israelites of the Old Testament, and we try and contemplate the cold sins of our minds. We try and spiritualize.

But I want you to think more deeply about what idolatry really is. Idolatry is always tied to imagery. Always. But what is the key about the image with which idolatry is tied to? The image is an aspiration. The image is what the worshiper aspires towards. It's something they have a strong desire for. They want to be like. So when we think about idolatry, it's not necessarily about the stone or the wood. It's what the stone and the wood are representing. It's this ideal that you as the worshiper are trying to conform to. And so, no, we don't have statues of Greek gods around us today that we worship. But what are the ideals? What are the things that we hold up as a culture?

and say, this is what we should be like that. What are we aspiring to? Everyone will become like the thing that they worship. Pursuing vanity, worshiping vanity, they became vain. Now, this shouldn't be a surprise to us. It's been said before that the devil has no new art. He's not creative. All that he does is he corrupts and destroys the things that God has already created. God created us to do what? to worship him and to give him glory. And we are to be like him. We're told that we ought to conform to the image of Christ. We are to perfectly conform to his ways. And so in our worship of God, we are to become more like God. And so it makes sense that if we worship something else, our nature hasn't changed. We're going to become like that which we worship. It's how God designed the world.

And so when you remove God from his rightful place in your life and you insert some other aspiration, some other ideal, some other image of what you think is right, and then you pursue that, that is what you will be conformed to. And you will become vain, worthless, empty. In the fall, Satan tempted man from the true worship of God and told him that he could be like God when he disobeyed God. And the result of this was that man fell, but he did not stop worshiping and conforming to that which he worshiped. Rather, he began to worship false gods and vain things. And in doing so, man has become vain. You are what you worship and you will become what you worship. So what do you pursue? What do you give yourself to? And I don't mean what do you ideally pursue or what do you ideally give yourself to?

I want you to examine how you are spending your time and your money. What are you talking about? How you spend your time and your money and your conversation indicates what you worship and what you think is important. So ask yourself, are you seeking vain, idolatrous things with your money, with your time? The high priests and high priestesses of our day are TikTokers, YouTubers, and podcasters. We signal how cool and how in touch we are by knowing what they're posting and what they're saying. And we have our phones notify us as soon as they've dropped their words and commandments to us. So as soon as they speak, we can listen to their words. We give them hours and hours of our time scrolling through their ceaseless content, allowing it to shape our hearts and our minds. These influencers, give 30-second snapshots of how they want you to perceive their lives. And these snapshots are fake, vain propaganda pieces that will sap you of your joy and your drive. They will teach you discontentment because they sell you something that's not real. They sell you fake identities. They sell you fake lives, trying to say, this is what my life looks like, and if your life doesn't look like this, then you won't be happy.

Pornography is vain idolatry. You're literally prostrating yourself before a nothingness, an image, and giving up your strength to it. It is so vain. Here's the thing. You may be like, well, I don't do the internet. I try not to do that. I stay away from all that. Well, good. But here's the thing. You can pursue things that are just as vain outside of the internet. Maybe you don't spend your time online, but that doesn't remove the danger of pursuing vanity. Are you seeking man's approval? It's the same thing with money. There's the old quote about Ford after he made his first million. And they said, Mr. Ford, what would make you happy? One more dollar. And after that, one more dollar. And it's vanity. It's chasing after the wind.

If you think that you will find your purpose in work, you won't. Your work is vain. Now, we should work. I'm not saying we shouldn't work. Don't hear me denigrating work. But the reality is that after the fall, all work is corrupted. You have to redo it constantly. It will fail. It falls apart. And if your goal is work for the sake of work, It is vain. If you're feeling dissatisfied or unhappy, feeling like life has been meaningless, then consider well that you most likely have been pursuing vain things. You're giving your time and your life and your money and your thoughts and your words to pursue the vanity. Pursuing vanity will cause a lack of joy and meaning in your life because you have become vain, ephemeral, worthless.

When you spend your time on vain and worthless things, you become what you give yourself to. So there may be a really good reason why you feel like you don't have joy or like your life doesn't have meaning. Because maybe that's what you've given yourself to, meaningless things. So what's the solution? What should we pursue? What should we worship? Well, the solution is to pursue something that's real, that has substance. If you don't want to become vain, then don't pursue vain things. Jesus tells us, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you. In Romans it says, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. If you don't want to become empty and worthless, vain, then you must seek God's kingdom, his righteousness, and be conformed to the image of his son, not to the images of the things of this world. And then you will have worth and meaning. It's what we were designed to do. That's why God has to be the first and foremost priority. We work, not for the sake of work, but for God's glory. Have you ever seen

You know, Dave's probably experienced this recently. Teaching a new driver to drive, right? What do they do when they're driving down the road? They see something interesting. And what happens? They look at it, and the car goes to what they're looking at. They don't know how to look at something and stay straight down the road. This is us. The thing that you're focused on, if I say, hey, don't think about pink elephants. It's wrong to think about pink elephants. What did you all just imagine? A pink elephant, right? The thing that you think about is the direction you're headed. The thing you're talking about, the thing you're reading about, those are the things that are going to shape who you are and where you're going. So you have to be so careful with what you feed on. That's why we are to hold Christ before us. That's why our minds are to be renewed in him because that's who we're to be conformed to.

And so we have to constantly hold Christ out in front of us to pursue him. And then we'll get things right in our marriages and with our kids. But if you make your marriage or your kids the end goal, that's vain. The foundation of it all is God and the pursuit of God. And anything else that you lift in as the ideal, that's not... undergirded and surrounded and primarily about God, then that will become an idol and it will become vanity. You become what you focus on. So focus on God. How do we do that? Well, one thing is you need to be reading your Bible. I feel like I say this a lot, but I keep saying it until I finally see people reading it with joy and zeal. Not just doing it as a chore, but give your heart to the word of God. Let it cut you.

Write out the passages you're reading. And as you write it out, play with the words. Think about what each word means. Why is it this word? Why is it said this way? And understand, get into the text and understand what's being said. Memorize God's word. You should also be listening to God's word. It will hit you differently. It will strike you differently. It should be a constant melody in your life. It should be the background to all that you do. It said of John Bunyan that if you cut him, he bled scripture. Can you imagine if that was you? If that was what people said about you? That's not vanity. In all of your work, school, entertainment, seek to make God's glory its foundation and purpose. If you would be ashamed for God to know what you're watching, he knows. So don't do it.

Israel, do you notice in the beginning it says Israel was trying to secretly do these things as if God can't see what they're doing? If you're ashamed, if you'd be ashamed to have Jesus as he's clothed in flesh, sitting in the room with you, doing with you the thing that you're doing. Brothers and sisters, true joy is found in serving God. Your meaning is found in serving God. Worth is found in him. The reason murder is wrong is because we're in his image. Our meaning and purpose is bound up in him, not in all the things the world's selling you. So don't buy it. Let's pray.