Better Living: Holiness is an Issue of the Heart

if you have your Bibles, you can go to Ezekiel, chapter 14. Ezekiel, chapter 14. Hold your place there.

It's going to take me a bit, little, little bit, but we are going to get there. We're going to be reading several verses from Ezekiel 14. I'm going to kind of catch us up. For those of you just kind of do a quick review, and then those of you that have not been here, maybe you can catch on. We're in a series right now.

We're going to continue that series today called Better Living. Better Living. And so this is a series that is and will continue to be dealing with the topic of holiness in our lives. And something we have said and something I cannot stress enough in this series is that I want you to understand that holiness is not a list of do's and don'ts. It's not a list of do's and don'ts.

But holiness is an understanding of the truth that makes us free. Amen. Anybody free in the house? Anybody Jesus set free? Amen.

Right? Everybody say this. Say holiness is freedom. Freedom. Jesus said this in John, chapter 8, verses 31 and 32.

This has kind of been a recurring scripture, right? It says, if you abide in My word. This is Jesus talking. If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Okay? So when we know the truth or we have knowledge of. Of the truth, it makes us free. And this is what we need to know. The truth is always and readily available to us through Jesus Christ.

He said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man come to the Father, except through me. So the truth is available through Jesus, and it's available to us through His Word. And when we connect with those things, we ourselves become free. When His Word has a place in our lives, in our hearts and in our minds, we become free.

And we said in this series over the past several weeks, if we want to see what the standard for holiness is, we need to look at Matthew, chapter 22, verses 36 through 40, where Jesus said this. All right, I'm going to read it to you again. I'LL start with verse 35, actually. Sorry. It says, then one of them alone asked him a question.

Ask Jesus a question, testing him and saying, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law. And Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is, like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the the law and the prophets.

Okay, so Jesus is saying right here that every standard, every law, every commandment can now be lumped and summed together into these two. Love the Lord your God with everything that you are, and love your neighbor as yourself. And this is what we all need to know. True holiness will actually be birthed out of that. True, true holiness will be birthed out of a heart full of love for God and a heart full of love for people.

That's where true holiness will be birthed. So holiness is not some just set of rules that's handed down from one generation to the next generation that tells us how we should dress or how we should have our hair or not have hair or how much makeup or earrings, no earrings, all these things. That is not what holiness, holiness is. But this is what holiness really is. Holiness is an issue of the heart that says, I love him so much.

I love God so much that I'll do whatever it takes. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep my relationship with him fresh and strong. Amen. It's an issue of the heart. So if I had a sub, you know, our series is called Better Living, but my subtitles today is Holiness is an issue of the heart.

Holiness is an issue of the heart. So remember, the word holy means different. It means set apart, it means consecrated. It means sanctified to God and for God. Holiness is something God desires in us and it's something he desires from us.

And we know this because he tells us us that in his word. Right? So it's a command actually, that's given to us in God's word. I'll give you this one again. It's First Peter, chapter one, verses 15 and 16.

It says, but as he who calls you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. And I'll just say it again, what does that mean? That means in the way that you live, in the way that you talk, in the way that you do things when other people watching, in the way that you treat other people in all your conduct, in the way that you live Be holy. Because it is written, be holy, for I am holy. Okay.

And I'll throw this one in there for you today as well. This is Hebrews 12:14. It says, pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. What does that mean? If you're not pursuing peace and holiness, you might have a heart issue.

Holiness is the issue of the heart. Okay? So over the past few weeks, we've been looking at the Israelites, God's chosen people, and we were looking at how God, before they were ever a great nation, before they ever became a great nation, God had called them to be separated, to be separate, right? We talked about how God consecrated them. He set them apart for a divine and a holy use, and he was getting them ready to use them for his purposes.

And we saw how God brought the descendants of Abraham, the family of Joseph, right? He brought them to Egypt during a great famine. Y' all remember talking about this past couple weeks?

One hand, two hand. Okay. All of our services are available online. We got a YouTube, YouTube channel. You can go back on Facebook and you listen to those messages.

Hopefully you can retain that next time. Who remembers talking about Joseph's family going to Egypt? Okay. All right. So God brought Joseph's family through events in Joseph's life.

He ended up being second command in all of Egypt, Pharaoh's right hand man. He brought his family to Egypt to save them from a great famine in the land. And in doing that, he saved their lives, right? But then as they were brought to Egypt and they stood before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, Pharaoh directed them, he gave them the best land, he said, in Egypt, and he directed them to go live there, the land of Goshen, right? And so what we knew and what we talked about is that Goshen was in Egypt.

It was covered by the territorial bounds of Egypt, yet Goshen was off to itself. It was off by itself. So what does that show us? What does it mean? It means that there was a separate separation between God's people and those that lived in Egypt or those.

Egypt was a type of the world. So when people looked over towards Goshen, towards where the Israelites lived, they knew, hey, those people are different than us. There was a separation. So again this morning, I want to start out and I'm going to ask you, is there a difference in your life and how you live compared to those who have not given their lives to Christ and are still in the world? Can you see a difference in that, in your life and their life?

Let me Read this. This is Exodus, chapter 8, verses 20 through 24. I haven't forgot about Ezekiel. I'm getting there. Promise.

Exodus 8. 20, 24. It says, and the Lord said to Moses, rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh as he comes out to the water. Then say to him, thus says the Lord, let my people go that they may serve me. Or else, if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies, man.

Oh, that get me. We get one in here sometimes. It's always like flying. I'm like, can you imagine? Swarms, Just swarms.

One. One's enough to get me. I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants, on your people, and into your houses. Manda would have a fit. The houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies and also the ground on which they stand.

And in that day, this is what I want you to get. And in that day, I will set apart the land of Goshen in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there. In order that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the land, I will make a difference between my people and your people. Tomorrow, this sign shall be. I love the first part of verse 24.

It says, and the Lord did so. He is who he says he is, and he'll do what he says he'll do. We had this catchphrase for all of 20, 20, 24. The Lord did it. The Lord did it.

And the Lord did so. The Lord did it, right? God said, this is what I'm going to do. And the Lord did it. So God sends Moses to declare to Pharaoh, hey, let my people go.

And I'm going to put a difference between my people and your people. And tomorrow you're going to start to see the sign. You're going to see this sign. There's going to be a difference. So as the plagues came, the Israelites were protected.

It affected Egypt's cattle, but it didn't affect the descendants of Joseph's cattle. It messed up Egypt's homes, but not for those who lived in the land of Goshen. Until eventually, after the final and the 10th plague, Pharaoh says, okay, get out of Dodge. I'm sick of this. Get out of here.

Now, this is what we know. According to the book of Exodus, you go read the book of Exodus. This is what you'll find out. Pharaoh says, go. Then after they get going down the road a little while, Pharaoh changes his mind, he says, I don't Want them to leave after all.

So he gathers his chariots and his armies, and he says, I want them back. And he begins to pursue them. And so they're in pursuit of the Israelites. And then the Israelites find themselves in a pretty dire situation, right? They've got Pharaoh's army and chariots behind them in pursuit.

Now they got the Red Sea. They come to a point where the Red Sea is in front of them, and they don't have anywhere to go, right? It seems like there's nowhere for them to go. But aren't you glad we serve a God who makes a way when there seems to be no way for his children, God uses Moses. He said, hey, tell him to stand still.

See the deliverance of the Lord. This is what I'm going to do. Raise your staff. He raises his rod. The Red Sea begins to part.

There's a strong east wind that the Bible says begins to blow. And it says, the Red Sea begins to part. And there's water walls on each side. And there's dry ground. There's a pathway made.

And the Israelites cross over on dry ground, right? Pharaoh and his army says, well, we're going to get them. So they begin to pursue through the Red Sea. And as the Israelites get to the other side, the waters come down on Pharaoh and the Egyptians, Egyptian armies, okay? Right.

And so it was just an awesome miracle of God. And so after they get to the other side of the Red Sea, they are led and they are sustained through the wilderness as God watches over, provides for, and protects them. He provides a cloud by day for guidance and shade. He provides a pillar of fire by night for guidance and for warmth. And they're out there.

They don't have anything to drink. They find a bitter water. He turns bitter water sweet. They don't have anything to eat. He provides manna bread from heaven every morning.

It says it was due and waiting for them every morning. Listen, you cannot just live on last Sunday's Word or yesterday's Word, but you got to find a time every day to get in the Word and receive some fresh manna from heaven. Pick up your Bible and read it. Pray every day. Get fresh heavenly bread.

He also provided water from a rock. He provided quail as meat for them to eat when they wanted meat. I would have been one of the meat wanters. I was talking me. Amanda went out to eat for our anniversary.

They brought me a steak and they brought me potatoes, and I'd already ate a big old bowl of vegetable soup and bread. I couldn't even. I had to make a choice between the steak and the potatoes. That steak was got, baby. All 10 ounces of that filet.

I was sopping it up. I didn't touch the potatoes. Maybe one bite. I'm a meat guy, so I would have been one of those. Give us some meat to eat, Lord, right?

He provides all these things for them in the wilderness while they're traveling. Where were they headed? They were headed to the Promised land, the land that God had promised their forefather Abraham as an inheritance for him and his people. It's a land that, that the Bible said that flowed with milk and honey. But as they were on this journey and as they got to the Promised land, they encountered some hiccups along the way.

Self inflicted hiccups. This is one of the things the Israelites did. They murmured and complained, and they did that a lot. And that slowed them down and even kept many of them from ever seeing the promised land. But on top of the murmur, I'm not.

Y' all were getting nervous. Y' all thought I was gonna talk about murmur. Preach about murmuring, complaining. I'm not gonna do that. That's another service.

I got an even harder word than that. So they murmured complain. But they had this other issue, even after they got into the promised land, that plagued them. They survived the plagues of Egypt, but they had something, a spiritual plague, and it was called idol worship. Idol worship.

So, and to put it into one word, it's called idolatry. Okay? And let me just tell you, it's hard to live a holy life before God and to God when we have idols in our hearts. So here's my first and really my only point today. But I'm going to have four sub points that under this main point, here's my main point.

Idols are in your heart. They're not just little statues.

Idols are in your heart. They're not just little statues. Now we've made it to Ezekiel 14. I told you I would make it there. Ezekiel 14.

I'm going to read 11 verses and I'm going to break those down. And hopefully we'll have a better understanding of idolatry in our heart. It says now some of the elders of Israel came to me. This is Ezekiel talking. They came to Ezekiel, who was a prophet of God.

Some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me saying, son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts. I want you to notice these were not idols. And statues that were made of wood and stone. They were idols.

Idols in their hearts. These men have set up idols in their hearts and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity. Should I let myself be inquired of at all by them. Verse 4. Therefore speak to them and say to them, thus says the Lord God, every one of the house of Israel, who sets up his idols and in his heart, and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity.

And then comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will answer him, who comes according to the multitude of his idols. Listen, you can have more than one in your heart. The multitude of his idols. That I may seize the house of Israel by their heart. He's concerned about our heart.

I may seize the house of Israel by their heart. Because they are all estranged from me by their idols. They're estranged from me by their idols. Verse 6. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, repent.

Turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations. For anyone of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell in Israel, that's with Gentiles. Who separates himself from me and sets up idols in his heart and puts before him that which causes him to stumble into iniquity. Then comes to a prophet to inquire of him concerning me. I, the Lord, will answer him by myself.

I will set my face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb. And I will cut him off from the midst of my people. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. And if the prophet is induced to speak anything, I, the Lord, have induced that prophet. And I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.

And they shall bear the iniquity. The punishment of the prophet shall be the same as the punishment of the one who inquired that the house of Israel may no longer stray from me, nor be profaned anymore with all their trembling transgressions. But that they may be my people and I may be their God, says the Lord. I hope y' all didn't come for a feel good message.

So this is the Old Testament and it's talking about idols that are set up in the hearts of God's people. And here is what I want you to know. And maybe you did not realize realize this, but God has always been concerned about our hearts. Not just in the New Testament, in the New Covenant, but in the Old Testament as well. It's always been about the issue of the heart and so God says to Ezekiel, his prophet, these men, the men of Israel, have set up idols in their hearts.

So it begs the question, what is is an idol? We're going to get to that. What is an idol? And we're going to talk a little bit about that. Okay?

The word actually means. The word idol actually means image. Image. Okay. As a matter of fact, many times in the Bible, in Hebrew, which is what the Old Testament was written in, right?

The word translated in Hebrew is translated to image. Not ideal. Okay? If I asked someone in here that knew the ten Commandments to tell me the second commandment, they might say, don't have any idols. But I want to read it to you what it actually says.

This is how it's translated. Exodus 20, verse 4. You shall not make for yourselves a carved image. Image. So an idol is an image.

Image and idolatry, not adultery, but idolatry is worshipping that image. But before you think about just idols or images of wood and stone, the Lord said, these people have set up idols in their hearts.

Okay? So think about this. I want you all to go with me on this journey. If image is the root word for imagination, y' all getting even quieter on me. In other words, let me put it this way.

If you are thinking about something more than you are thinking about God, it's very possible that you have an idol in your heart. And so I want to talk about some ways to determine, determine if we have an idol in our heart. Okay? I'm going to use the scripture we just read to get those, those, those tell tale signs that we may have an idol in our heart. Here's number one.

Presumption. Presumption. If you look back at verse three, Ezekiel 14, this is what it says, Son of man. These men who have set up their idols in their hearts and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity. So if you have an idol in your heart, you will actually in your life begin to cater to the idol.

Your life will begin to be catered to the idol. And in some cases you will actually start to make plans or provisions on how you can sin.

Romans 13:14 says, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no, no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. But here's the problem. Many times we do make a provision for it.

And as we make provision for it, then we try to explain why we're doing the things that we're doing. Because we have idols in our hearts, so we have to try to explain it away. I can tell you I've had multiple conversations with different people about different things and what they are doing and doing things they shouldn't be doing. All sorts of things, right? And they would open these things to me because I'd sit and talk with them and I would have to say, hey, you know that's a sin, right?

You know that's a sin. Not in a condemning way, not coming down on anybody, but in a loving, gracious way, hey, you know that's a sin, right? Just to make sure on my end that that individual knows, according to God's word and not my opinion, this is a sin, right? And I can tell you, those people, not all of them, but some of them have said to me, and not jokingly, well, I'll just ask God to forgive me for it. Then I'll just keep doing it and ask God to forgive me for it.

Let me tell you what that's called. That's called presumption. That's presuming on the grace of God. And I personally, this is my opinion, but my personal opinion is it might be one of the most dangerous sins out there because people are blind to it. And we got preachers preaching it.

They live a life actually giving provision to the flesh, fulfilling all of its lusts, knowing that it's unpleasing the God and what it says in his Word. And then they'll say, I'm just going to ask for forgiveness for it later. Not only is that presumption, but it's also called something called rebellion because you know, and you still do. Okay? Do you know that Satan actually tempted Jesus with a presumptuous sin?

Let me read it to you. Matthew 4, 5, 7 says, Then the devil took him up into the holy city, Jerusalem. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written. Now he used the Word, for it is written. He shall give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

And Jesus said to him, it is written again. He combated it with the Word. Listen, everything we believe and we preach, we got to back up the Word with the Word. We can't take one scripture out of context, be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is this say over here? Though he said, it is written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

So Satan said to Jesus, if you jump off the top of this building, no worries. His Word says his angels have been given charge of you. They're Gonna come save you before you hit the bottom, so go ahead and jump. He was trying to get Jesus to presume on the grace and the goodness of God. But Jesus said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not right.

It is written, you shall shall not tempt the Lord your God. And listen, Satan does the same thing for people today. Oh, it's okay. You can go ahead and do that. Look, God will forgive you for it anyway.

No worries. He's good. He will forgive you. And God is good and God is gracious, and God does forgive. But the problem is, when we are operating on presumption of God grace because we want to do something that we know is not right, we have a heart issue.

Still, there's an idol in our heart that we are putting before God and his word.

Presumptuous sin is always an indicator of an idol in the heart. And it's hard to live in the presence of God while there's idols. Idols in your heart because it's like you're trying to serve and worship two gods.

Jesus says very clearly, you cannot do that. Matthew 6:24. The words of Jesus, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve the God. And mammon.

Mammon was the God of wealth, money, right? For some people, that is an idol. For some people, it's pleasures of the flesh. For some people, it's popularity. For some people, you know, it's indulgence, whatever it is.

But you cannot serve two masters. We either serve and live for God by doing it his way or we don't. Otherwise, your heart is divine, divided, and that leads to the second sign that you might have an idol in your heart. This is the word estrangement. Estrangement.

This is a word we don't use a whole lot in our vocabulary today, but we're going to talk about it because it's in the text, Ezekiel 14:5, that I may seize the house of Israel by their heart because they are all estranged from me by their idols. They're estranged from me by their idols. So what does the word estrangement mean in the Hebrew? This is the word zur. Z U W R zur.

Okay? And if you look that up in a strong concordance, it actually refers. This is what it refers to. It refers to a woman who is married but is living with another man in an adulterous man relationship. That's what this means.

Now remember, we are the bride of Christ Jesus is our husband. Spiritually. Spiritually, we are married to him. And this is what he says. The house of Israel, God's people, because they have idols in their hearts.

They're having an affair on me.

They're married me, but they're sleeping with an Idol.

Jeremiah, chapter 3, verse 6. The Lord said also to me in the days of Josiah the King. Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree and there played the harlot. Verse 9.

So it came to pass through her casual harlotry that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. Okay, so how do you commit adultery with stones and trees? What does that mean? It's pretty simple in that context for them, right? They used stones to build altars.

They used trees for wood to burn sacrifices. And they were burning sacrifices not only to God himself, but to also other false gods and idols. Their hearts were divided. And God says, your hearts are divided. You've committed adultery by doing this.

Jeremiah 3:14, same chapter, verse 14. Return, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you. I'm married to you. Listen, I know this is a hard word, but it's a word we all need to hear for our own good. Anybody ever have to sit down and have a talk with your kids?

Or you had a talking to by your parents and you realized later in life it was for their own good. As a parent, you realize that as you're giving it to them, right? But then as a kid, you may not understand it, but as you get down the road, you're like, oh, they were looking out for my good. This is a hard word, but I promise you, it's all for our good.

Sin and idolatry is spiritual adultery.

Willful sin. I know this is strong. Willful sin is leaving God and going committing spiritual adultery and then coming back and slipping into bed with God as if nothing ever happened.

And that's what an idol will cause you to do. It will cause you to be estranged, estranged from God. Let me say something else about sin, though. Sin will not affect God's love for you, never will. He will still love you, and he will love you with an everlasting love.

So it will not affect God's love for you. But let me tell you what it will do. It will affect your love for God because your heart begins to be divided and it begins to go after other things, things more. And it becomes an idol in your heart. And that breaks the first, and the great commandment that you are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your mind.

So idols in our hearts will cause presumption, they will cause estrangement. And the third thing they'll cause is spiritual deafness. Spiritual deafness. So here in Ezekiel 14, what we just read, the elders of Israel are coming to Ezekiel, and they're asking him, hey, what's the Lord saying? Ezekiel, tell us what the Lord is saying.

Why did they come to Ezekiel to see what God was saying. It's really simple. Because they couldn't hear him.

Why couldn't they hear God? Because they had idols in their hearts. Some of them, multitudes of idols, sin and idolatry actually bring separation in our intimacy with God. Ezekiel 14:7. For anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who dwell in Israel, who separates himself from me and sets up idols in his heart and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, then comes to a prophet to inquire of him concerning me, I, the Lord, will answer him by myself.

Let me give you another scripture, Isaiah 59, 2. But your iniquities have separated you from God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear. So because the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of us, we can live in constant communion with the Holy Spirit. We have access to have constant communion with the Holy Spirit. But if you have willful sin in your life, if you have an idol in your heart, this is what we do.

It's like the radio. We will turn. The Holy Spirit will turn down the Holy Spirit that's speaking to us, to turn away. And the Holy Spirit will come and he'll say, hey, let's not do that.

Let's not head in that direction. Let's not go to. Let's not set yourself up for failure. We get this spirit, we get this spiritual nudge, like, oh, I better not. And the Holy Spirit will be saying those sort of things.

And we will say, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to hear that, and turn him down.

I want to hear how this will be more fun and more enjoyable. And we start to turn up the idol in our heart. I want to hear how this is going to be better for me, right? And we begin to listen to the idol more than we do the direction of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And we begin to separate ourselves from God.

And when we separate ourselves from God, because we don't want to hear what he's trying to say.

It's hard to hear Him. Let me put it this way. It's hard to hear your husband's voice when you're lying in bed with your lover.

Yeah. Ouch.

Let me tell you what else happens. You'll begin to think that the voice that you're listening to is God's because it gratifies your flesh. And you'll reason within yourself, even though you know it's against His Word. You're reasoning yourself, this is okay. And you'll try to convince yourself that the voice you're hearing is God's, but it's not God's.

It's the spirit behind the idol. So how do you know if it's God's voice or not? Jesus said, my sheep know my voice. So how do you know if it's God's voice or not? Does it line up with His Word?

It won't go against himself, right? Does it line up with His Word? Does it promote the things of God in your life or does it try to produce compromise in your life? This true story. I had a lady one time tell me that the Lord told her to have an affair.

Not making this up. She said this point blank to me. She literally said, the Lord told her to have the affair that she was having and that he was going to bless it. I told her right back, you are deceived. You are not listening to the Lord.

You are listening to a demonic spirit behind that that's trying to destroy your life, your marriage and your family. And let me tell you something. She didn't listen to me. She didn't like what I had to say. And a lot of people got hurt.

Family wasn't destroyed. Okay, here's the fourth thing. An idol in the heart will cause consequences.

Y' all might not come back next week. Hey, I made a commitment a long time ago. I'm gonna preach it whether you like it or not. I ain't got an answer to you.

Consequences. Ezekiel 14:10. And they shall bear their iniquity. The punishment of the prophet shall be the same as the punishment of the one who inquired. Now, I'm going to read that again, but there's something I need to tell you before I read it again.

The word punishment right here in this verse, right, is the same exact Hebrew word that is translated iniquity. It's the same exact word in the Hebrew. If you go look at it in the Hebrew, it's the same word. Punishment and iniquity are the same word. And they shall bear their iniquity, which could read they shall bear they punishment, then the punishment of the prophet could also read, the iniquity of the prophet shall be the same as the one who inquired.

So why is God saying it like this? Why is it the same word? Because if someone in sin goes to a prophet, they go to someone to seek godly wisdom and counsel. And the prophet does not call out the sin. And I'm not saying, again, I'm not saying harshly or without grace, but if he does not actually give good, godly, wise counsel and call sin sin, then there's a good possibility that that person who is trying to give the counsel has a similar idol in their heart.

And that's why they don't want to confront it.

So the word iniquity means punishment of sin. So God is saying the same thing. Punishment of sin or the same consequences in that person's life who came to the prophet will be the same consequences of the sin of the prophet. Because he's probably trying to hide it in his own heart. Why?

Because God's just and he's concerned with our hearts and all sin, whether we like to hear this, preach it or not, all sin. Look, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus took the punishment of sin and iniquity on the cross. But when we willfully choose sin, there are consequences. We teach our kids this, right? We teach our kids this.

There's consequences to disobedience, there's consequences to rebellion, right? Listen. And the real reason that God takes such a stand against sin in our hearts is because he knows the consequences and he doesn't want to see his children, whom he loves with an everlasting love, to have to deal with those consequences. He does not take a stand against sin in your life because he dislikes you or he wants your life to be boring, but he takes a stand against sin in our lives because he loves us.

Man, I'm getting ready for the caboose so you can come play.

Here's the last thing I'll say. Idols in our hearts will cause us to wear masks.

So depending on who you are around is who you will actually cater to.

Why? Because you have a heart divided. And so if I'm with this crowd, if I'm with my church crowd, I put on my holy face.

If I'm with my outside of church crowd, I put on my party face.

Lord, forgive me, I didn't mean to do all that. It just came out.

Hard. Divided. I, I think I believe this to be so interesting. But did you know that the ancient Greeks, the actors in ancient Greece, they all used to Wear masks, okay? As they would act in these plays and put on these programs, they would wear a master masks, a mask, and they would speak or portray their character from behind that mask.

And they had a word they called the actors. Let me tell you what that word was. Hypocrites. That was the. That's where that word came from.

It's actually a word for actors. It came from two Greek words, Hypo and. And Crete. Hippa means underneath. And Crete means to speak.

And so you put them together and it means one who speaks from underneath a mask, an actor.

Listen, this is a burden of my heart, but I believe that's what we all become when we have idols in our hearts. We become actors.

And I'm going to tell you what I believe the first step to idolatry in your heart is.

It's inconvenience.

Inconvenience. It's inconvenient to get up early and go to church on Sunday, but we'll get up early and go hunting and fishing and shooting, shopping and work.

It's inconvenient to go to church on Wednesdays or Sunday evenings. I got too much going on. But we make time for ball games and different things. And when ball season isn't in, we find another excuse. Listen, I'm not saying you can't miss service.

I've missed Sunday nights and Wednesdays and I got things. My boys are involved in sports. I get all that. But what about the times we miss? No reason.

It's just more convenient to sit at home. It's inconvenient to take time to read my Bible and pray every day. Why? Because it gets in the way of our television time, our favorite TV shows, our sports games, football season around the corner. Well, we'll give four hours to the football game, despite what's going on.

We'll mark it off on the calendar. But we can't set aside 15 minutes a day to spend time with the guy that saved our lives.

When the things necessary for our spiritual growth and maturity in Christ become inconvenient, we might need to do a heart check. It's inconvenient, Pastor Andrew, to take time each day. But I guarantee if I go to your phone log and I look at how much. How many hours that day you spent on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or how many streaks you had going on Snapchat throughout the day. Was that not inconvenient?

No one can serve two masters for either. He will hate the one and love the other, else he'll be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God. God in Mammon.

So the question begs to be asked and answered. What is an idol? An idol is anything that you put before or ahead of God in your heart.

Yes. Idolatry includes worshiping little or big graven images. False God. Yes. But in reality, anything can become an idol in your life.

That's why Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. And I can tell you what I'm harping on. I might as well tell you. I can tell you what has become the biggest idol of our world today.

It is. And I'm just as guilty as anybody else. So I'm not. I'm not up here preaching at you. I'm preaching to myself, this and social media platforms.

It's got to where it almost makes me sick to my stomach because many of us have spent more time scrolling, reading, posting the past couple years than we've ever read our Bibles in our entire life. Think about that.

We've spent more time on these things than we've ever spent in the past couple years than we've spent our entire life in His Word.

For some people it not be that. As I said earlier, for some people it may be money. For some people it may be fame. For some people it may be the way you look. Your own body can become an idol, but an idol is anything you desire more than or put ahead of God and give it precedent over His Word.

I want everybody just stand to your feet if you don't mind. Just bow your heads, close your eyes.

The indicators of idols in our heart. Presumption, presumptuous sin, Estrangement, Spiritually hard hearing, different consequences. I want you to just take a moment. Psalmist said, search me and know me, O God, and see if there's any wicked way in me. I want you to take a moment.

Actually I would love if everybody just repeated this simple prayer after me. Say Holy Spirit, search me, know Me and reveal to Me if there are any idols in my heart. Now give Him a moment and I want you to marinate on the Word and be sincere and say, lord, is there something there? Let him speak to youo. That's a prayer we just prayed.

And if you really mean it, he'll do it. He'll begin to show you things. He'll begin to reveal things to you.

Reveal it. What's been taking precedence in my heart over God and His Word? What's been taking Precedence of my time over God and his word.

Do I have an idol? Is there an idol in my heart that's causing me to stumble? I'm stumbling through life. I'm stumb. I feel like I'm just stumbling.

Everywhere I go, I'm stumbling through life. What? Is there an idol there that's causing us to stumble?

I just want you to keep your heads bowed.

If it's you. If there's something there, if the Lord's revealing something. I just want you to come to. To the altar. Just come to the altar.

You and him. He's concerned with your heart. If the Lord is speaking to you about something in your heart, maybe there's a little bit of division there. I want you to come to the altar. Let him minister to you.

Don't be estranged from him anymore.

Are there idols?

Just come. Just keep playing. I know this is different. I promise. I'm not trying to embarrass anybody.

I want you to keep your eyes closed as I tell you. I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to tell you a story. Is there idols in your heart? There are some really good things that aren't necessarily sinful that can become idols. Fishing was an idol in my heart at one time.

I loved fishing. It was a hobby of mine. But I wanted to do it way more than I needed to.

And the Lord spoke to me at one moment in my life and said I had a boat. He wanted me to give up the boat, had a lot of fishing rods. He told me to give away my fishing rods. I. I gave my fishing rods. Right?

I cleared my whole thing out because I said, I don't want a heart to fight it. It was so bad. I would go fish tournaments early on Sunday mornings and get back to the boat ramp at 10 o' clock and head to church. Get there by 11. I was just obsessed with it and I was more concentrated on that.

Does that mean that fishing sensible? No. But it did have a hold in my heart to where I actually did want to do that more than I did want to go to church. I'm just being open and honest before you. So anything can become an idol.

People can become an idol. We actually have a show in our culture that's called American Idol where we idolize people. We idolize people, pain, we idolize all these things. Ask the Holy Spirit, is there an idol in my heart? Is there something I don't want to lay down that you're telling me I need to lay down?

Would you lay it before him today? Would you give it to him? They're going to sing.

This altar is open. I'm going to pray for those that are in the altar. Is he number one? Is he number one?