Idols of the Heart
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Two reasons why I think this message is especially relevant for us today:
1. The greatest hindrance to the goal of glorifying God is idolatry. As we seek over this coming year to bring more glory to Him with our lives, we will likely see that there are some things that will get in the way of this goal.
As Paul David Tripp says, “our natural inclination is to replace the King with a thing.” Those things are called idols and what a sorry exchange that is.
2. I feel very strongly that one of the things that God has been doing over the past year is exposing the idols of our hearts. Difficulty, trials, and pain are often the means that God uses to expose our idols, because most often it isn’t until our idols begin to fail us that we recognize they are there.
Our idols will never be able to hold up under the stresses and difficulties of life, only our Sovereign King can do that.
Idol: Anything or anyone that captures captures our hearts, minds, and affections more than God.
Heart: The ruling center of the whole person, the spring of all desires. The seat of the will, intellect, and feelings. Heart and soul are often used interchangeably in Scripture. The heart is the inner person.
19 As in water face reflects face,
so the heart of man reflects the man.
23 Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
Because of the deceitfulness of the human heart we are always in danger of professing our love for Christ with our lips, all the while, something else (our idol) is driving our desires, motivations, thoughts, and actions.
My own experience of idolatry has driven my focus in this area. It wasn’t until I started to recognize the sin beneath my sin, the idols of my heart, that I began to understand why I was doing the things that I was doing and that the root of my problems, though invisible, was actually something much worse than the outward expression of my sin.
We do what we do, because we think what we think, and we want what we want.
The problem of idolatry is always a problem of inordinate desires. In other words, our desires, even good desires, become so strong that they become ruling desires. Controlling the things that we think, say, and do. Essentially, taking the place of God in our hearts.
14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
There are some questions that we can ask ourselves to help identify if we have any desires that have become ruling desires:
What do you want, desire, crave, lust, and wish for?
What are your goals and expectations?
What do you think you need?
Where do you find refuge, safety, comfort, escape, pleasure, security?
What or who do you trust?
From whom do you desire approval and fear rejection?
Is there anything that you are willing to sin to get, or sin if you don’t get it?
What in your life, if you lost it, would leave you feeling hopeless, depressed, or devastated?
Maybe your still struggling to understand how this applies to anything that is going on in your life and you still have this picture of a golden calf etched into your memory every time I say idol.
Exodus 32:1-5 Rethinking a well known passage.
The concern of the Israelites was not what had happened to God, but what had happened to Moses? Which reveals that long before they made an idol of gold they made an idol of man, something had gone radically wrong in their hearts.
The problem of idolatry most often is not that we want bad things, but that we want good things too much.
When the good gifts of God become ruling things in our lives, we can be sure that a new king has ascended the throne of our hearts.
Ezekiel 14:1-8
There is only one reason why the elders of Israel would have been coming to the prophet. They were seeking a word from the Lord. However there was only one thing that God wanted to talk to them about, the idols of their heart.
5 things we need to understand about idolatry from this passage:
1. Idolatry has always been a heart problem
2. We are the one’s to blame for our idols
3. Idols blind us to our sin and cause us to fall into more sin
4. Our idols separate us from God
5. The solution to our problem is repentance
21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
We will not keep our hearts away from idols by shear willpower, we can only do this by God’s power and grace and it’s going to take a greater love. It’s not so much about loving other things less as it is about loving Christ more.
God didn’t take out our hard and stony heart and replace it with a soft and responsive one just so our idols would have a more comfortable place to stay.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!