Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 4, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Idol In Your Heart

Transcript

February 4, 2018 | Dear Israel: You're Killin' Me! - Idol In Your Heart · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful snowfall outside.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: And we're here in the warm.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking forward to this.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: When my grandson uh Judo was two years old, we had a strange and wonderful relationship.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: He thought I was strange.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: I thought he was wonderful.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: And we uh were very physical with each other.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: I'd uh go over to their house, Martin Katie's house, and and when he'd see me, he would just start running full tilt toward me.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: I'd get down about his level, and he'd run just smack into me as hard as he could.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: And uh continually getting him 15-yard penalties for helmet-to-helmet contact.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh I decided to do something about that, and so I decided to scare him, and I decided to threaten him, and so I grabbed a hold of him, and I said, I'm gonna turn you upside down, and I'm gonna teach you a lesson you'll never forget.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: And his eyes bugged out, so scared.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: So I grabbed a hold of him and I turned him upside down and started shaking him.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: And I put him down and I think he thought that wasn't that bad.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: He went back and ran at me again, and we kept doing that.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: And then after a while, what was really funny is after a week or two, I'd come to the house, he'd come over to my house, and he'd run to me and say, Papa, Papa, turn me upside down and teach me a lesson.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, when I come to Ezekiel chapter 14, I would say that you and I, if we're holding up this chapter before God and saying, Teach us out of this chapter, we are basically saying, God, turn us upside down and teach us a lesson that we'll never forget.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Because this chapter uh does turn upside down some of our values, some of our understandings about how the Christian life really works.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series on the book of Ezekiel, if you're visiting.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: Our title this morning is Idle in Your Heart.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: I hope some of you are taking, in fact, I don't have to hope, I know that about 800 of you, my uh communications, uh communications uh pastor tells us, uh, are taking the Ezekiel challenge.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: You're going on there and you're reading four chapters a week.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: If you wonder where we are, we've just finished the 16th chapter, just finished the fourth week.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Next week will be 17 through 20.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: If you wonder where we are, write devotionals on those four chapters each week so you can get on there and go through those devotionals.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: You'll learn a lot about the book that way.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll do it.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: But this morning uh we get back into this text, and again, we're talking uh uh this Ezekiel lived and his book is written to people uh really who lived not in Jerusalem but 600 miles away from there in Babylon.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: All right?
3:04
SPEAKER_00: And the question that this book tries to answer, like most of the minor prophets, the major and minor prophets try to answer, is why would God do that?
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Why would God allow his people to go into exile to be to be uh taken captive?
3:20
SPEAKER_00: And Ezekiel's answer to that question, it may be a little different than what you would guess if I was to give you a quiz.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: His answer to that question, and it's slightly uh different than some of the other prophets, he expresses it like this throughout his book.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: The principal cause of the exile to Babylon is idolatry.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Idolatry.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, um we tend to sort of yawn widely at that term, but we keep coming across it.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: One of the first and greatest church fathers, Tertullian, lived the second, really the second generation after the apostles, said the principal crime of the human race is idolatry.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: I say, well, what did he mean by that?
4:07
SPEAKER_00: What did Ezekiel mean when he said, uh, what does he mean when he has God constantly saying, your crime is idolatry?
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you investigate Ezekiel, you find out that that God's answer to that is, well, you need to understand something about me, and that is I'm jealous.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm a jealous God.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: And we struggle with that.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: We have a little trouble with that.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: That's why this chapter is going to turn us upside down a little bit, because to us, jealousy to us, in our common, in our common vocabulary and in psychology, jealousy is a green-eyed monster.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: It's a sign of weakness, it's a sign of insecurity, it's a sign of obsession.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: We quote, thou shalt not covet.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Once in a while we will see a sign that says something like, jealousy is the best compliment that you can receive.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: When we come to Ezekiel, we find he's much closer to that second idea than the first.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And if you will allow me, let me share with you what I think of as some of the most important introductory paragraphs in the 1800-page two-volume commentary on Ezekiel that happens to be my best friend during this series.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Written by Daniel Bloch.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And he says it like this: He says the word kinah, that's the Hebrew word, kinah, jealousy, translated jealousy, expresses the underlying motif of Ezekiel's ministry.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, the term jealousy is misleading.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: In common parlance, jealousy tends to be associated either with envy and covetousness, the desire to own what someone else possesses, or exaggerated possessiveness over what one already owns and unwillingness to share it with others.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: In psychiatric terms, jealousy amounts to, quote, vindictiveness born of sexual frustration, unquote.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Both of these definitions perceive jealousy as a negative quality.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel would accept neither definition.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Instead, one should hear in the word jealousy the amazing passion of God for one whom he loves.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: This love is fueled not by an exploitative need to dominate, but by ardor for the well-being of the object.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, kinaz aroused when a legitimate and wholesome relationship is threatened by interference from a third party.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: Thus the word expresses an entirely appropriate response by a husband or wife when another lover enters the picture.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: So as we turn to Ezekiel, we hear God saying over and over, I'm jealous because you've taken another lover.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And by that he means idolatry.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: So we open up Ezekiel chapter 14, verses 1 through 8 this morning, and we read a rather interesting little episode.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: It seems mundane, except for a certain phrase that keeps reappearing.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Some of the elders of Israel came to me, says Ezekiel, and sat down in front of me.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Then the word of the Lord came to me.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Quote, Son of Man, these men have set up idols in their hearts, and have put their sinful stumbling blocks in front of themselves.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Should I actually let them inquire of me?
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: So this story is that Ezekiel's living by the Brook Kibar, and he has a house, and what happens is the delegation of elders, meaning a delegation of the political leaders and religious leaders, for they were both, these political bigwigs from the Jewish settlement came in and without giving him an explanation at all, just simply pulled up some chairs and sat down in front of them.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: Now Ezekiel knows what they want.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they want to know the future.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: They want Ezekiel to consult God and answer their questions about the future, and they're hoping that God's answer about the future.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: They're hoping he'll say something like, Listen, I'm protecting Jerusalem.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem is the city after my own heart, and before long you'll be back there safe and secure in your own beds, your tummies full of schnitzel and hummus, uh, Mazletov.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: That's what they want to hear, which definitely is not going to happen.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Before those, these uh these uh senators, these politicos even open their mouth, notice, God beats them to the punch.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: The Lord speaks clearly in Ezekiel's head, and he says something like this: Hey, Zeke, before these guys get started, let me tell you what I see, what I see in their hearts.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: I see idols in their hearts.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: I see idols in all four chambers of their hearts, I see idols leaning up against the septum, I see idols crowding the atrium, I see idols stuffed into the valves, I see idols everywhere.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: They've pushed me out of their hearts, and yet they've got the chitzpah to be coming to you asking me to be their fortune cookie.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Not exactly what God says, but it's close.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: And of course, I am kidding about there being actual physical idols of wood or metal or stone in their hearts.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in their hearts, right?
9:10
SPEAKER_00: That's the real point here is that those idols, their physical idols, got left behind back in Jerusalem.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the point.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: God ripped them away from Jerusalem so he could rip them away from their idols and bring them 600 miles away from their idols.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: But here's what's happened is even worse is they have internalized those idols.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Those idols are now invisible, but those idols are still crowding now their hearts.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord shares this personal dilemma with Ezekiel.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm struggling here, Zeke, he says.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really?
9:40
SPEAKER_00: Should these are my children, and they have yet no room for me in their hearts.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Yet they're coming to me asking me to be their crystal ball on call.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Should I even answer them?
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Should I even respond to them?
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the next time this happens, in chapter 26 chapters later, the next time the elders come, plot themselves down in front of Ezekiel without an explanation.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Again, the Lord speaks before they open their mouths.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: He said, Ezekiel, it's not gonna work.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: No way, I'm not responding to them.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm not even gonna say a word.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: However, this time, this first time, God apparently goes back and forth and then decides, yeah, I'm gonna respond to them.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say something because he does say something to them through Ezekiel.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Not at all what they want to hear, not the positive middle attitude message, not a buck-up, it's all gonna work out okay.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what we read in verses four and five is he says, Well, therefore, speak to them and tell them, quote.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord God in Hebrew, Adonai Yahweh, says, When anyone from the house of Israel sets up idols in his heart, there it is again, and puts his sinful stumbling block in front of himself, and then comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will answer him appropriately.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: I will answer him according to his many idols, so that I may take hold of, literally seize the house of Israel by their hearts.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: They're all estranged from me because of their idols.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: So God says, I know they're playing games with me, I know they're pretending to be spiritual and righteous, they're coming to you like people go to church, they're coming to you like people go to prayer meeting or whatever, they're coming to you to consult Yahweh, the traditional God of our fathers.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, all along they really couldn't give a flying fig about me, as shown by the fact that they'd much rather buy flowers and Valentine's cards for at least a dozen other gods rather than me.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And they're just hoping I'll give them a feel-good answer and tell them to don't worry, be happy.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not going to happen.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: What I really care about is getting their hearts back.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: And if I have to seize their hearts to get them back, that's exactly what I'll do.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: But for their part, and he continues in verse 6, say to them, this is what the Lord God says, repent and turn away from your idols, turn your face away from all your detestable things.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Do a 180.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: This is what they have to do.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: They have to put me back in their hearts and shove the idols out.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: And I promise terrible things, God continues if they don't do it.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: He says, verses 7 and 8, for when anyone from the house of Israel, or even from the aliens, the Gentiles who will reside in Israel, separates himself from me, sets up idols in his heart, puts these sinful stumbling blocks in front of his eyes, and then comes to a prophet to inquire of me, I, the Lord, will answer him myself.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: I'll turn against that one, I'll make him a sign and a proverb, I'll cut him off from among my people.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Then you'll know that I am the Lord.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: The most common phrase, the theme phrase in this whole book.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: And there it is.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: This is verses one through eight.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And we ask ourselves, okay, how serious is this really?
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is nice, but we have a lot of commands in the Bible.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: How serious is this idols in the heart thing?
12:51
SPEAKER_00: And I take you back to the text, which falls into three parts.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: He uses the phrase three times, and each time we passed over it quickly.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Look how serious it is.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: They've set up idols in their hearts, verses one through three.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Should I actually let them inquire of me?
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Idols in your heart?
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Don't expect me to answer your prayers.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: You know how we come to God?
13:18
SPEAKER_00: We want things from him, we pray to him.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Second.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Verses five and six.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Idols in the heart.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: All I care about is arresting them and seizing them and repent, having them and repent and turn away.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: This is the second.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: This is how serious it is.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Idols in your heart?
13:35
SPEAKER_00: My answer to every one of your prayers.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: No matter what you pray for, my answer to your prayer is stop, turn around, get the idols out.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: You want to know how serious it is, verses 7 and 8?
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Idols in your heart, that means you've turned against me, turn back to me, or I'll turn against you.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: But you know, you and I still say, this is idolatry.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: What does idolatry have to do with us?
14:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, I mean, how can we help?
14:05
SPEAKER_00: You and I can't help, really, but but think of idols as we, you know, think of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, that golden thing there, and so forth.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: That's, and frankly, when you travel the world, as some of us do, you see that people around the world still do worship, actual physical, you know, visible images made out of wood and stone and metal.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it still happens.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what he's talking about here.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about something that actually you and I do idols in the heart.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me talk to you about that for a moment.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you how I think it starts.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: I think it starts with a desire.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: I think it starts with a simple desire and a desire for something that's generally not bad at all.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Something that's good.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: A desire, let's say, for a nice car.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely nothing wrong with that desire.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: It's not sinful, it's not inappropriate.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Desire for a nice house.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Again, that's a that's a fine desire.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: That's something you could want.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with wanting a nice house.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: A little cash in the bank and in my pocket.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Again, absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be out of debt and wanting to have a bank account, wanting to have cash in your pocket.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Health.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Help for me and my family.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's a good thing to want.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: To want good health for me and for my family.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Safety.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: That's also a great desire to want your children to be safe, to want your family to be safe, to want your loved ones to be safe.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: I want my children to be athletically successful.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: That's a good desire.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with wanting your child to be a soccer star, or maybe even to earn a college scholarship.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: So long as you hold these desires, which are not sinful in and of themselves, you hold them in an open hand.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: And what's in your heart is God.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: He's the one thing you want more than anything else.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: He's your one true desire, he's your one true love, he's the one non-negotiable in your life.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And so you have all of these other desires, and they're fine desires, but you hold them with an open hand.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: But then something sometimes begins to happen.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: You wander away from the Lord a little, you you you stop having your quiet time, you stop thinking of him, and and and for some reason with one or another of these things, your fingers begin to close a little.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they close around that nice car, and you realize you love that car so much that that's that's a non-negotiable.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Or the house, that nice house has become a non-negotiable.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Or the bank account, or your job, which provides all of these things.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: That that's a non-negotiable.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: That that I need to keep.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: That's something I really can't keep an open hand about.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: My my child's athletic ability.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Your fingers close over that, and it becomes a non-negotiable.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: My health, the safety of my family.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is, and it seems to me I'm using the word hand because it's shaped a little bit like a heart.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is you begin to close your hand over these things, and these things become non-negotiables.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden you find that what you have in your heart are idols that are shoving God out because basically you can't allow God to play with those or to take those from you.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And everything else, but these things, of course, His will be done.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: But in these things, well, I simply have to have them.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: I know what I'm talking about.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: I had a child.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: I had a little girl.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: There's something about the love between a father and his daughter, a daddy and his little girl.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: It goes both ways.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: It's almost at times an obsession.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: And I would find something weird in my prayer life when Adriel was a year old, and then two and three and four and five.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: I would find myself praying, and I'd feel this little twinge in my spirit.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: And I would realize that the health and safety of my daughter was now a non-negotiable for me.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I talked about it with God.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: I'd say, God, listen, let me bargain with you a little bit.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: I understand that maybe this has become all important to me.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: I'll give up my life.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: I would rather anything happen to me than happen to that little girl.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I could make it.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I could live if you took her from me.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: And the fact is that I realized my I realized that my fingers had closed around her, and I felt as though I could take better care of her than God could.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: And I really couldn't spare her.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't really even willing to keep my hand open when it came to her.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about?
19:46
SPEAKER_00: That it can happen to you with any any number of good things, things that are important.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: But what happens is as you close your hand around these good things, in a sense, you close your heart around them, and those things are set up in the pedestal of your heart rather than the Lord Jesus Christ.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And instead of the Lord being on the pedestal of your heart, on the throne, all of a sudden these other things, as good as they are, are on the throne of your heart.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I mean, I shared it last week.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller put it this way: in counterfeit gods, we love idols, we trust idols, we obey idols.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Anything can serve as a counterfeit God, especially the best things in life.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: And that's idolatry.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: And here's how important this is, friend.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: There's absolutely, Ezekiel 14 and other passages tell us, absolutely nothing more important to God in your friendship with him.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And absolutely nothing more important to you in your friendship with God.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: And I say that, and I don't have time to explore it thoroughly, but I say that because as you examine not only Ezekiel 14, but Psalm 50 and other passages in the Old Testament, you realize that God has his priorities.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: That the heart is his first priority, that spirituality is his first priority, that yes, morality and obedience is important.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: And so is worship.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Coming to church, taking communion, liturgy.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Liturgy is a good word, by the way.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Liturgao is a Greek word, it means to serve or to worship.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: God wants it all, but if God has priorities, these, he says, are my clear priorities.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: When I think of the Super Bowl this afternoon, and I think of priorities, I think of a, I think of an advertisement and a quarterback.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: I think of an advertisement.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: I like to look at the ads ahead of time because oftentimes it's too noisy to hear these great ads during the game, and there's an advertisement that's going to be on this afternoon.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: May get voted number one because of how you feel at the end of it.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: It's a beer advertisement.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: Beer advertisements, as you know, are general.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Geared towards self-satisfaction and personal pleasure.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: That's what beer ads are all about.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Most ads are about that.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Do for yourself.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: This will make you feel happy.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: This beer ad is different.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: This beer ad is an ad that shows this company giving water by the thousands and thousands of cans to hurricane victims last fall.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: And for some reason it they do such a good job, it's quite an emotional ad.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: But the reason you feel good is all of a sudden your priorities have been straightened out to what you know they really should be at the end of this ad, and that is that instead of beer representing personal pleasure, all of a sudden this company represents caring for others, which you and I know is far more important a priority, right, than personal pleasure, which is really the very bottom priority in life.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: I told you, I think also, not only of an advertisement, but a quarterback.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: I got a text this morning from a friend of some people on the Philadelphia team, and he said to me, I just want you to know that Nick Foles is actually a student at Liberty University right now, and his dream in life is to become a youth pastor as soon as he finishes his football career.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, you know, when heaven looks down in this game, I may care who wins go Philly, but I it may matter to me, but you know what heaven really cares about is go filly.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: No, is Nick is they care far more about high schoolers coming to Jesus Christ than they care about who wins this game.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: Priorities, there are priorities in the spiritual world.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: And in the spiritual world, in the world of the Bible, God's number one priority is spirituality.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: That's why he talks in Ezekiel 14 about idols in your hearts.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: This is the first and greatest command.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: It's what we call the first table of the Ten Commandments, the first commandments, the most important ones, or you shall have no other gods before me.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: You shall not have any graven images.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Priority number two, so important to God, and that is your obedience.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Make disciples of all nations, teach them, obey everything I've commanded you.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: And even in the context of Ezekiel 14, just ten verses before, God says, I'm so mad at you.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: How come you're asking favors from me when you're so violent, when you take advantage of the poor, when you lie and cheat and steal?
24:26
SPEAKER_00: That's behavior, that's morality.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: That's what theologians call the second table of the Ten Commandments.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: But God also cares about liturgy.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: He also cares about worship.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: He also cares about you coming here.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: God is spirit.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: They who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: He wants your acts of worship.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to sing out in church.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to take communion here in just a moment.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a church, however, that focused on the sort of visible, on the external idols.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: There was sort of a filthy five or a sordid seven or a nasty nine, depending on the preacher.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: And most of those things were visible things, things you could touch and see, cigarettes, alcohol, movie theaters, sex outside of marriage.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Things like that.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is then I go away to college, I'm thinking all about priority two, because these are all behavioral things, aren't they?
25:25
SPEAKER_00: These are all behavioral things.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: And then I go away to college and I'm given a book by C.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: S.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Lewis called Mere Christianity, whose last sentences in his book about morality go like this: a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't get myself to underline that sentence until I'd read it a dozen more times.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: That was so shocking to me, but isn't that what Ezekiel 14 is saying?
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that this priority?
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Because what's most important is spirituality.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: And so we come to Ezekiel 14, and the word of the Lord says, you know what?
26:05
SPEAKER_00: These guys have set up idols.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: That has to do with the heart.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Should I allow them to inquire of me?
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Wow, hold it just a second, God.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: You condemned King Saul because he never inquired of you.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: You've told everybody in the Old Testament, all the leaders are supposed to go inquire of you and go to the prophets.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: That's the religious thing to do.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of act of worship you're looking for.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: But it's clear it's a distant second in this passage.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: And he says it again.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: He says, well, they set up idols in their heart, and then they go to a prophet.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Heart first, religion second.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And he says it a third time.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: And God's point in the Old Testament, I'll go through this quickly, is listen, I want, but I don't need your sacrifice.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't need your acts of worship.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not up here hoping against hope you'll take communion.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And then he says also in Psalm 50, I want your obedience.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: That's priority two.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: Before your acts of worship, that's priority three.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And without your heart, priority one.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't even enjoy your worship.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Priority three.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Because worship without spirituality, priority three without priority one, is just formalism, just playing games.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: P3 without P2, worship without obedience, you and I all know.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: We all know that's hypocrisy.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Someone who comes here, pretends like they're a good Christian and everything, and you know they're cheating, lying, and so forth outside of church.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: You ever been stop sign behind someone who has a bumper sticker, visualize world peace?
27:37
SPEAKER_00: I like the bumper sticker that says, forget world peace, visualize using your turn signals.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: And sort of what God would, God would say, listen, listen, what I'm looking for is some practical obedience before you give me the hocus pocus, all the religious, all the all the smoke and mirrors.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: But most important, anything like morality, obedience without spirituality, that's moralism because my priorities are spirituality first.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: I want your heart.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: First things first.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: You put first things first, and the other things will come easily.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: But you put anything else first, and you're gonna lose both the first and the other things.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: That's why this is so important.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing more important to God and nothing more important to you in your relationship with Him.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Augustine said it in 400 AD to fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances, to seek him the greatest of all adventures, to find him the greatest achievement.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: And you know, the great saints of the Bible, the heroes, they all understood this.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: They don't talk the way we talk, they sound a little more soft and mushy.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: David saying things like, Oh, God, I think about you all night long.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Lord, as thirsty as a dying deer is, that thirsty am I for your face.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: Anything to be close to you, anything to be close to you, nothing else really matters.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: We'll get to the prophet Habakkuk.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Habakkuk ends his book by saying, you know, whether I'm rich, whether I'm poor, whether I'm high, whether I'm low, even if the fig trees don't blossom, there's nothing in the fields, it doesn't matter.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: As long as I have God, I'm cool.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Flip over to the New Testament, the apostle saw.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, one thing, just one thing, that's all.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: One thing I want more than anything else, that is that I know him.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: And I know him better and better every day.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: I'd sacrifice everything else for that.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: It's the way we don't talk much that way.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: We're so it's the rights and the wrongs and doing things correctly that becomes so important.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: Am I right in the Christian world?
29:59
SPEAKER_00: And God's back there saying, yeah, yeah, that matters to me, but you know, compared with your heart, it doesn't even matter.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't even register on the Richter scale.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Will you give me your heart?
30:12
SPEAKER_00: I think it was G.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Campbell Morgan.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Somebody told the story of he had a daughter that he absolutely loved, and they spent so much time together every week, and then one day he asked her to spend time with him.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: They're going out, and she said, I can't I can't, Daddy, I can't.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: She went in her room, she closed the door.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: And that happened again the next day, and it happened for the whole week, and two weeks, and three weeks, and a month, and it lasted two months, and he was just desperate in three months.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: It was his birthday.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: It was his birthday.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: There was a cake, and they were bringing out the gifts.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: And then his daughter came out of her room and she presented him with such pride with a package, and he opened it up, and he was astounded.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: His little girl had learned how to knit, and she had actually made him a pair of slippers.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: She said, Daddy, that's what I've been doing for the last three months.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, he said.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: And he began to cry, and he and he hugged her to himself and he said, But listen, I would so much rather you bought the slippers and gave me yourself for the last three months.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: And God would say to you and to me, yeah, I love all of these things.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: I I love the fact that you you celebrate me and you come and you worship me and you do these things for me, but I'm telling you what I want most of all is I I want you.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: I want you.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: I want your heart.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: We have an opportunity at communion this morning because this is maybe the primax of what we call priority three, liturgy of worship.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: But when you come to God with a bread and with a cup today, make sure you're not coming to God with the bread and the cup, thinking that somehow taking communion is the most important thing to God.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Not coming to him even with priority two, that this is a duty, I'm obeying the fact that you told me I do this.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Come to God this morning, holding the bread and the cup, seeing how much he loved you by sending his son to die for you, the bread, the cup, the body, the blood, and then return to him what he wants the most.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Return to him your heart, your heart of love.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, for this opportunity.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: We're so grateful.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: A chance to tell you we love you at the same time that we obey you.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your son Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Amen.