When My Heart Redefines Me

Good morning, everyone! Whether you're here with us in the room or joining online—listening live or later—we’re truly glad you're here. You're part of our extended spiritual family, and we're thankful for you.

Hey, if you’ve got kids with you this morning—now’s a great time for them to head to class. We’ve got an amazing team ready to welcome them and help them know Jesus in a way that makes sense to them

For the rest of us, grab your Bible, get comfortable, and get ready for what God has for you today. We are continuing today on our journey through our series called—Treason & Triumph: Exposing Idols and Embracing Christ…So let’s dig in together…

Now, for the last few weeks we have been discussing idolatry and the reality of that idolatry in our own lives. Something I’ve said is that most of us think of idols as something ancient, primitive, maybe even silly—like bowing down to statues of wood or stone in far-off temples. But here’s the truth: idols are alive and well today, and they don’t look like golden calves. They look like paychecks, careers, children, sports, phones, beliefs, being right, the approval of others, and even our own comfort.

We’ve talked about how idols are rooted in our hearts, and how our hearts are idol factories continuing to pump out new idols constantly in an effort to keep control of everything that goes on. However, we’ve also talked about the importance of putting God back on the throne of your heart instead of yourself, or whatever your favorite idols are.

I gave us a working definition of an idol from Brad Bigney. An idol is anything or anyone that captures our heart and affection more than God.

Someone once said, “You can’t see your idols, but your idols can always see you.” Think about that. The things we chase—success, approval, control, comfort—are often invisible to us, but they are constantly shaping how we think, what we feel, and even how we see ourselves.

You can’t see your idol in the mirror, but it’s often staring back at you through your choices, your anxieties, your priorities. The idol of success makes you see every setback as failure. The idol of approval makes you read every silence as rejection. The idol of control makes every uncertainty feel like chaos.

That’s how the heart deceives us. We think we’re just managing life, pursuing what we want—but slowly, quietly, those desires start to manage us. They don’t just influence what we do, or what you pursue; they begin to redefine who we are.

And that’s the danger of idolatry—it doesn’t just capture your behavior, it captures your identity.

James, the brother of Jesus, reveals what our conflicts are really about. The issue isn’t just our behavior—it’s our hearts. Beneath every fight and frustration is a battle of desires. Our hearts are always worshiping something.

James 4:1–3 ESV

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

So, if our hearts are this deceptive, what happens when they start redefining us? How do we know when a good thing has become a god thing?

This morning we are going to look at three of the more common idols that people tend to worship. As we move through these, I want to ask you to sincerely ask God if any of these are idols that you have worshiped, or that you are currently worshiping. I want you to be honest with yourself, even if it makes you uncomfortable or you don’t really love the concept of addressing things in your own heart. This morning I don’t want you thinking of someone else that “really needs to hear this”…I want you to ask God what he is showing you.

Let’s Pray: Pray that God opens the eyes and ears of our hearts to glorify him. Remove barriers, and speak through me.

Ok, Idol #1:

I Am My Success: The Idol of Achievement

We live in a culture today that equates achievement with identity. When we success, we feel valuable…and when we fail, we feel worthless.

That’s not the Gospel though—that’s idolatry dressed up as ambition.

Let’s read some Scripture together…

Philippians 1:15–21 ESV

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

You know, we all read that passage we notice the two groups of people that are preaching the Gospel. However, they aren’t oth preaching the Gospel with the same motivation do they? You see, there is a group of people that have seen Paul go to prison and they are taking that as an opportunity to make their own name and attempt to hurt Paul. They aren’t preaching the Gospel because people need the Gospel, they are preaching the Gospel because they want recognition. They are preaching out of selfish ambition. They are preaching so that they will be important instead of Paul.

However, that isn’t want God has called us to is it? We see that still in Christianity today. There are those who preach the Gospel because they are attempting to be famous, or they want to have a “career”. I[ve seen it…Let’s take a step back from preaching…there are those who serve in various ministries because of what it says about them personally. They attempt to gain importance simply by doing enough “good deeds”.

Maybe it’s not even good deeds…Maybe it flows into work and you seek to be seen as the best. You see, when I worship the idol of achievement then..

Success becomes my savior

We start to believe that if we can just win, perform, or produce enough, we’ll finally be secure. The problem is that success never satisfies—it enslaves you.

Tennis champion Chris Evert said this in a Good Housekeeping article back in 1990.

“I had no idea who I was, or what I could be away from tennis.  I was depressed and afraid because so much of my life had been defined by my being a tennis champion.  I was completely lost.  Winning made me feel like I was somebody…  It was like being hooked on a drug.  I needed the wins, the applause, in order to have an identity.”  (Good Housekeeping, October 1990, pp.87-88)

When your worth is measured by performance, failure feels like death. The good news is that the Gospel says, “...to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

I mentioned that I’ve seen pastors who looked at their role as a pastor being simply a career. For many years, there was a segment of pastors who looked at every position of a pastor was a stepping stone into the next position of the next larger church or the next “higher” level of pastoral responsibility. Thankfully that has been changing over the last 10 yeas or so.

When achievement is your idol, then what you hear is, “You’re only as good as your last win.”

There’s a big change though when you are focused on the Lord and truly placing him at his deserved spot on the throne in your heart. You see, in Christ, our worth doesn’t rise and fall with our résumé. He defines us.

There is a danger though as you are struggling with achievement. Because when success can’t hold you, you often turn to something else—relationships. But they can’t carry that weight either.

Idol #2

I Am My Relationships: The Idol of Approval

Listen to how God describes the kind of relationship He wants with His people—one that starts in the heart, not in human approval.

Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

God is saying, ‘I’m not hiding from you—you’ll find Me when your heart isn’t divided.’ But our problem is that our hearts are divided. Instead of seeking God with all our heart, we start seeking people with at least part of our heart.

God meant for us to live in community with one another. He made us to be social beings… But our sinful, idol-making hearts start expecting other people to do the one thing they were never designed to do – give us identity… meaning… purpose… hope! We make their approval the thing we can’t live without. Instead of loving people, we start needing them in order to feel okay.

That’s what happens

When people become a god, what we worship fails

Author Paul Tripp tells about a conversation he had with Joanna

“Joanna thought she had grown in her faith.  The problem was that she had forgotten who she was, and it was not long before her identity in Christ was replaced by another identity.  Joanna’s children became her new identity.  They gave her meaning and purpose, and they really did give her hope and joy.  The problem was that they were not sent by God to do any of that.  Joanna lived vicariously through them, and the more she did, the more she became obsessed with their success.”

“Although Joanna was just as faithful in her personal devotions and public worship, God was no longer at the center of who she was. All it took was Jimmy to mess it all up.  With all his inner turmoil, Jimmy didn’t make a very good trophy.  Being with him often meant unexpected confrontations and public embarrassment.  The girls were forced to live in the wings of Jimmy’s drama and they didn’t turn out to be trophy children either.  Now that they were adults, Joanna was lost… In their tumultuous launch into adulthood, the kids not only broke Joanna’s heart, but they also robbed her of her identity.  She felt like it had all been for naught.  When she looked in the mirror, she felt like she didn’t know the person she saw there.”

We were created for relationships, but not to be defined by them. When people become our mirror, we stop reflecting Christ and start reflecting their opinions.

But God reminds us—He’s the one who truly sees the heart, and He’s the one who strengthens those who belong to Him.

True strength comes from the freedom in being Fully known by God

God’s not scanning the earth for the most impressive résumé or the most popular people—He’s looking for something else. He’s searching for hearts that are fully His.

2 Chronicles 16:9 ESV

For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him…

That’s what freedom looks like—a heart that’s loyal to Him, not captive to everyone else’s expectations. When your identity is rooted in Christ, the eyes of God are for you, not against you.

That’s why God says His eyes search the earth for hearts that are fully His—because only a heart rooted in Him can love others without demanding from them.

When you base your worth and identity on your relationship to Christ, you are freed from the expectations of others, and that allows you to really serve them best.  It’s tough to try to serve people and win their approval at the same time.

So first, we saw that success can’t define us—and now, we see that relationships can’t either.

But here’s where it gets even trickier: for many believers, we stop chasing worldly idols and start chasing religious ones. We turn our spiritual performance into our new measuring stick. That’s where we go next—the idol of spiritual performance, when I start living as if I am my own redeemer.

In reality…this is the most deceptive idol of all. Idol #3

I Am My Own Redeemer: The Idol of Performance

Maybe this is you…the person who constantly evaluates yourself, or others and always coming up short. you know Jesus saves sinners—but you live like it’s up to you to stay saved.

Let’s hear how the writer of Hebrews calls us to fix our eyes in the right place.

Hebrews 12:2 ESV

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

That’s the invitation—to stop obsessing over our own spiritual report card and start looking to the One who already finished the test perfectly. But our hearts drift, don’t they? Instead of resting in His perfection, we keep trying to prove ourselves worthy.

Let’s look at the

The Trap of Self-Redemption

For some believers, the greatest idol isn’t money or approval—it’s the false sense that we can make ourselves acceptable to God. We become our own Holy Spirit—constantly measuring, evaluating, criticizing ourselves, and others, thinking we can earn God’s smile through performance. That’s not humility—it’s pride disguised as piety.

Author Leslie Vernick wrote in his book called, How to Find Selfless Joy in a Me-First World.

“As I got to know Kaitlyn more, I found that she habitually fretted over her sins, flaws, and imperfections, both real and imagined.  When we, like Kaitlyn, are morbidly introspective or self-conscious, we turn in on our self, analyzing and examining, always trying to explain, understand, or make sense of our lives.  We become our own Holy Spirit, gazing inward, looking for flaws, and usually finding them.” 

Gary Thomas rightly suggests that when we are constantly anxious about or disappointed with ourselves, perhaps we have made an ‘idol out of our own piety.’  To grow into the person God wants us to be, we need to die to our habit of constantly gazing at ourselves, being morbidly occupied, worried, and anxious about our performance or lack of perfection.  Instead, we need to learn to take our eyes off ourselves and fix them on the perfection, beauty, and grace of God.”

But Scripture gives us a better picture of the believer’s struggle—not perfection, but perseverance. Paul puts it beautifully in

Romans 7:14–25 ESV

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Did you hear it? Your struggle is real, but the hope is stronger. Paul doesn’t look inward for deliverance—he looks upward: ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ That’s the gospel’s answer to every performance-driven heart. Real freedom is not found in self-perfection; it’s found in surrender. Real freedom comes when you

Fix your Eyes on Jesus

The gospel frees us from trying to be our own savior because we already have one. 1 Timothy reminds us of that simple, liberating truth.

There’s only one person who stands between us and a holy God, and spoiler alert—it’s not you or me.

1 Timothy 2:5 ESV

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

That’s why real freedom isn’t found in managing your sin better, because you will fail—it’s found in fixing your eyes on Jesus, the only mediator who never fails. He’s not asking you to perform for Him; He’s inviting you to rest in Him.

So, whether your heart clings to success, relationships, or performance, the story is the same—each idol whispers, ‘You can find life apart from Christ.’ But the gospel breaks through that lie with a better word: ‘Your life is hidden with Christ in God.’ That’s where we’ll finish—where the treason of idolatry meets the triumph of grace.

The Gospel Triumph

Paul gives us the gospel’s answer to all our heart’s confusion—where true identity and lasting freedom are found

Colossians 3:1–4 ESV

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

That’s it. That’s the triumph. The idol says, ‘Define yourself by what you do.’ The gospel says, ‘You’ve already died—and your life is hidden with Christ in God.’ That’s security. That’s freedom. That’s joy.

We began by saying that ‘You can’t see your idols, but your idols can always see you.’ But in Christ, that changes.

Idolatry is treason because it replaces the rightful King.

But Christ’s triumph is that He doesn’t just reclaim His throne—He reclaims you.

The gospel doesn’t just forgive idolaters—it transforms them into worshipers.

Please hear this:

You are not what you achieve.

You are not who approves of you.

You are not how well you perform.

You are who Christ says you are—hidden with Him in God.

When you know that, you can finally stop striving and start living. You can fail without fear, love without control, and serve without needing applause. Because your heart is His—and that’s the triumph of grace over treason.

Now this morning there are those who the Lord is convicting of worshiping one of these idols. I want to take a moment and pray a prayer of repentance. I want to pray this prayer becuase that is the way to come back in right relationship with God and others. Repent and place for faith in Christ, not yourself. This morning if you are struggling with the idea of these idols and you are trying to figure out what your next step is, let me invite you to repeat after me either out loud or in your heart. This is no magic prayer, but it’s a prayer of repentance.

Lord this morning I repent of the fact that I have placed something else in the throne that should be yours. Lord, I come to you to confess my sin and ask that you would forgive me and return to your rightful place in my life. Lord, thank you for the forgiveness that you have given to me and please continue to convict me when I place an idol onto your throne. Amen

There’s others here this morning that maybe are saying they need to give their life to God for the first time. If that’s you, just repeat these words in your heart or out loud

Lord this morning I repent of the fact that I have placed something else in the throne that should be yours. Lord, I come to you to confess my sin and ask that you would forgive me and receive me unto yourself. I love you Lord and I know there is no other way into the preseance of God for eternity except through you and so right now I give my life to you and ask that you would use me as you see fit.

Now just to be clear, there is nothing special about those words…what’s special is the heart that said those words. Listen, if you’re hear and you repented of your sins and idolatry I would to encourage you to connect with my later today. Send me a text, email, letter, or tap me on the shoulder and let’s have a talk about your next steps as you continue to grow in your faith.

Let’s pray