The Most Insanely Idiotic Thing I’ve Ever Heard

By Zack Ford, Senior Pastor of Grace Bible Church

There’s a video that went around several years ago that you might remember. It was a clip of Victoria Osteen (Joel Osteen’s wife) followed by a clip from the Adam Sandler movie Billie Madison. The video begins with Osteen saying this: “When we obey God, we’re not doing it for God … we’re doing it for ourselves because God takes pleasure when we’re happy … When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really, you’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy, Amen?!” And then the video cuts to the Billy Madison scene where the judge declares: “What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard.”

And that’s exactly right — saying that we obey God, and we worship God, not for God, but for ourselves, to make us happy, to fulfill ourselves, that is completely unbiblical, completely foreign to 2,000 years of Christian history, and just downright false and wrong. The problem, though, is that this version of so-called Christianity dominates the modern-day Evangelical Christian scene, and dominates the so-called “Christian South.” When you survey the Evangelical American Christian landscape as a whole, it has become far more me-centered than God-centered.

The sad reality is that it is very very possible to go into many of the largest and most popular churches in America and hear very little about God and very much about you! Church has become all about us — Our preference. Our tastes. What feeds me. What serves me. What pleases me. And when this happens — when worship becomes all about my desires, my likes, my preferences, what I want — we have turned it in to nothing less than idolatry. This is what happens with Jesus-less religion — religion becomes a means to use God for what we really want rather than an experience of standing in awe of the living God and worshiping Him for who He is and seeing Him, Himself, as the ends and the treasure that we get in our relationship with Him.

Recently I had the privilege of preaching through the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, and in Ecclesiastes 5:1-7, Solomon exposes for us three religious rituals that, apart from faith in Jesus, are utterly meaningless. The three rituals that he highlights — our offerings, our prayers, and our vows — are three things that we are called to engage in and are good and fine things, but when disconnected from an active faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are mere formalities, mere rituals, and utterly meaningless and void of any power or significance.

Through Jesus, though, we can approach God rightly, with confident reverence, and bold faith. Solomon ends his section with this summary statement in v.7: “For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.” I think we have a hard time understanding the concept of the fear of the Lord because we live in a culture that has no reverence for authority, and certainly no healthy fear for the God of the universe. We no longer approach parents, teachers, coaches, officers, anyone in authority with respect.

Instead of approaching God with this sort of casual and trivial nature, we are to humbly submit to and stand in awe of God who knows all of our sins and empty promises. And the only way that we can appropriately approach this sovereign God of the universe, as we know from the rest of God’s Word, is through Jesus, and through Him alone.

Each and every one of us are separated from God because of our sin. Though the temple and the law and the sacrificial system gave regulations for approaching God during Solomon’s time, it was all temporary and was never able to truly cleanse the worshiper and reconcile him with God. But in the coming of Jesus, Jesus came as the better priest and the better sacrifice who can cleanse and reconcile us for all time. When He died on that cross, he perfectly and sufficiently took all the sins of His people and made atonement for them. When He rose from the dead, he perfectly and sufficiently defeated death and sin and Satan on behalf of all of his people. And because He has done this, we can now approach God’s throne with full confidence — not because of anything based on us or anything you or I have done, nor because of any ritual we perform or any act that we do, but we can approach His throne because of the finished work of Jesus on our behalf.

Zack Ford is Senior Pastor at Grace Bible Church. Zack was saved through faith in Christ in November, 2006 during his first semester at Clemson University. After feeling a call to ministry, he transferred to North Greenville University, where he graduated with a B.A. in Christian Studies. After graduating from North Greenville, Zack received his M.Div. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.

Zack and his wife, Brittni, moved to Rabun County in 2013 when he accepted a position as the Youth Pastor at Grace Bible Church in Mountain City. He then became the Associate Pastor and, on March 1, 2020, was installed as the second Senior Pastor in Grace Bible Church’s history following a 10-month pastoral transition period with Pastor Kevin Hurt. He and his wife have two children — one son (Ezra) and one daughter (Kiersten). When not working, Pastor Zack enjoys golf, reading, watching movies with his wife and playing with his children.

I’d encourage you to read the book of Ecclesiastes afresh this month and see how God is pointing us, though His Word, to the utter meaningless of everything apart from Jesus. And as you consider chapter 5 anew, be reminded of the emptiness of mere religion. Be reminded of the worthlessness and meaninglessness of religion without Jesus. No amount of words spoken, offerings performed, vows made, or any other religious exercise that you fill in the blank can atone for your sin and reconcile you with God. Jesus, and Jesus alone can do that. And as you keep this proper perspective and tether yourself to the full counsel of God’s authoritative, inerrant, sufficient, and perfect Word, you will spare yourself from speaking about the things of God and our worship of Him in such a way that would rightly have a Billy Madison “most idiotic thing” scene added to the end of it.