How Do I Deal With Idols of the Heart - Part Two

How Do I Deal With Idols of the Heart? - Part 2

I’d like us to start this morning by turning to Ez. 14. The topic we have been considering for the past several months is idols of the heart. We have identified five basic idols: control, respect, appreciation, comfort, and success. Three weeks ago, we started drawing this study to a close by asking the question, “How do I deal with these idols?” We know what the idols are, what they look like, how they manifest themselves in everyday life, and we know how we can determine their presence. So now we need a battle plan to get rid of them. The last time we were together I gave you the first two and a half steps, so this morning we’ll finish up the third one which I believe is a key element.

Before we get into this, I want us to look at Ez. 14 again and take a minute to remind us why we are studying this particular issue. I don’t want us to forget the overall trajectory we are on. I believe we are at a critical juncture in the history of our nation. I have shared with you that I believe we have about 24 months left to pull ourselves away from the precipice, politically speaking; and the real solution is not as simple as just electing conservative, virtuous, constitutionally oriented officials. We are in a spiritual battle that has to be fought as well as won spiritually! Now where idols come into this picture is the principle that when God’s people are involved in idolatry, God has a single objective on His mind, and that is the eradication of the idol. Let’s read this passage in Ez. 14 again and see this truth.

Ezekiel says in verse one, “Then some elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me. [In chapter 12 Ezekiel had acted out several charades that illustrated the coming destruction of Israel] 2 And the word of the LORD came to me saying, 3 "Son of man, these men [the elders] have set up their idols in their hearts, and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all? [In this question, God is highlighting the absurd nature of trying to serve two masters] 4 "Therefore speak to them and tell them, 'Thus says the Lord God, "Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the LORD will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols, 5 in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols."'

So here we have the elders of Israel who wanted to know what was in store for their nation, so they inquired of God, but God didn’t want to talk to them about their nation, did He? He wanted to talk to them about their idols. As applied to us, we cry out to God to turn our nation around, and God says, “I don’t want to talk to you about your nation, I want to talk to you about your idols.” Here is a vital truth we have to understand. The fate of the United States of America is not as important in God’s eyes - as the condition of our hearts. We need to grasp this truth. We say, “God, we’re in trouble, and we need help, and the homosexual agenda is running our country, and the liberal media are blinding the eyes of the masses to the truth of what is going on. God, please have mercy on us and fix our nation!” And God says, “I don’t want to talk to you about the homosexuals, or the media, or the illegal immigrants, or anything else other than your idolatry.”

This is why we are talking about the idols of the heart. To use the language of Jesus, we need to get the planks out of our own eyes so that we can even see clearly enough to accurately identify the issues that are truly important. In addition to having clear vision, we need to deal with our idols so that we can have power with God. We want Him to hear us. We want Him to respond to us. We want Him to come to our aid. As followers of Christ, we can’t help this nation without His help – so we better start by focusing on personal holiness. That is why we need to spend some time on idols.

So as we consider how to deal with an idol, we have seen three things so far. First of all, we have to choose whom we will serve. God demands full allegiance from his followers. God demands a categorical break with our past when we put our trust in him for salvation. Secondly, we need to resolve to love God with all our heart. To the degree we are worshipping / loving idols, we are not worshipping / loving God. It is a proportionate thing. If we love God with 80% of our heart, 20% of our life will be given to idolatry. And finally, we saw that we are to appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit. According to Acts 1:8, when a person comes to Christ for salvation, something mysterious happens to him in that the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, comes to live inside him. Linked to that indwelling is power – “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” That is the promise of Jesus.

Now what does all that have to do with idols? We know from experience that we don’t have it within ourselves to simply work up the strength to deal with idols. Tearing down idols is not a matter of self discipline (though self-discipline does play a role as we are going to see in one of the next points). Conclusively dealing with idols takes Supernatural empowerment. So, how does one appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit? That is where we stopped last time we were together, so I want to take the rest of our time this morning to answer this question.

We know the Holy Spirit lives in us, we know that one of the reasons God has sent Him is to help us, and we know we struggle with idols. Have you ever wondered how all three of those propositions can be true at the same time? The reason they are all true is because the power of the Holy Spirit is not to be taken for granted, nor does it manifest itself automatically in our lives. Let me repeat that. The power of the Holy Spirit is not to be taken for granted, nor does it manifest itself automatically in our lives. Let me give you two truths about this matter of appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit.

1. Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is not a matter of “how much” of the Holy Spirit you have or don’t have. When you are “baptized with the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13) you get all the Holy Spirit you will ever get. The Holy Spirit is a person, not a force of which different people have differing amounts.

2. Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is not a matter of “unleashing” the Holy Spirit, or “harnessing” the Holy Spirit. Those are two images that are popular in explaining how the Holy Spirit works, and they are both erroneous. There is not some kind of activity we have to engage in to release the Holy Spirit (contra the Alpha program) so He can work, nor is He some force in our lives that we have to capture if we want to utilize, like we do with wind and wind turbines.

So as we think about appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit, don’t envision the wrong thing. Once we know what appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is not, let’s see if we can figure out what it is. To help us with this, let me give you two fundamental truths about the Holy Spirit as expressed by Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology.

1. The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in this world (Grudem, p. 634). The reason this is important is because we can’t see God because He is a Spirit (Jn. 4:24) and He is so holy that anyone who did see him would die (Ex. 33:20). In addition to this, we are 2000 years too late to see Jesus, God in flesh who did live on this planet. So remember that the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in this world.

2. One of the unique works of the Holy Spirit is to complete and sustain what God the Father and God the Son started (Grudem, p. 635). The Holy Spirit was active and present at creation (Gen. 1:2), He was active and present at Pentecost (Acts 1:8), and He is active and present at our salvation (Rom. 8:23). When you consider the greatest events in the history of the universe, the Holy Spirit was right there carrying out God’s plan and bringing it to completion.

Here is how this applies to appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit. God’s desire for you as His child is to live a pure and holy life (cf. Mt. 5:48 – “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”). God doesn’t want idolatrous children. God doesn’t want lukewarm followers, and when you put your trust in His Son Jesus as your Savior, God had a plan for your life and began a work in you that is designed to change you from being a self-absorbed, self-important, self-reliant idolater into a God-absorbed, God-loving follower of Christ. We have already established the fact that that is impossible, but remember what one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is – to complete and sustain what God starts. This is why Paul says in Phil. 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” The “day of Jesus Christ” is the point in history in which the work will be completed, but the agent assigned to us to get there successfully is the Holy Spirit. My point is that we each have a powerful, personal assistant committed to our success in this matter. The reality of this matter is that we aren’t in this battle alone.

Now, how else does the Holy Spirit help us in this matter of dealing with idols? We know He is personally with us, we know He is powerful, we know He is committed to our success – but is there anything else about Him that will help us in this matter of appropriating the power He has? Absolutely! Let’s go back to the point I made about the primary work of the Holy Spirit – He manifests the active presence of God in the world.

How many of you have figured out that it is relatively easy to be “good” in the presence of another person, and it’s pretty easy to be “bad” when you are all by yourself? You know how that works, right? When I’m driving through town with the family and there is a very immodestly dressed woman walking down the sidewalk, it isn’t hard at all for me to keep my eyes looking straight ahead. When the same thing happens and I’m all by myself in the car, it’s a different story – it is a battle to keep my eyes where they ought to be. When my child misbehaves at church, it isn’t hard for me to deal with it gently; but let him misbehave at home and then there is a battle in my heart because my natural inclination is to respond in anger, frustration, and severity. I’m not tempted to respond that way in the presence of other believers at church.

I have a friend who is a traveling salesman who told me a very interesting story that illustrates this principle. He and several other men would all go together on sales trips, and every time they would stop for a meal, one guy in particular always ordered a salad, or a sandwich without fries; and he always drank diet soda. My friend thought this somewhat strange because the guy weighed well over 300 lbs. One morning my friend got up early, left his hotel room and walked to the IHOP next door for breakfast, and there was his fellow salesman, eating by himself, with six plates of food on his table.

Isn’t it amazing what the presence of another person does to us? You probably see where I’m going with this, but I’m going to say it anyway – God is actively present with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I am driving down the road all by myself and I see that provocatively dressed woman. God is actively present with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I am at home and have to deal with my child again about the same issue, and all my fellow church friends aren’t there to observe me. God is actively present with me, in the person of the Holy Spirit, when I am all by myself and I want to gorge myself with food.

Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is living with a continual awareness that God is actively present with me in the person of the Holy Spirit! When we choose to worship idols in the presence of God, we are quenching the Spirit (1 Th. 5:19), grieving the Spirit (Eph. 4:30), striving with the Spirit (Gen. 6:3), rebelling against the Spirit (Ps. 106:33), dealing treacherously with the Spirit (Mal. 3:15-16), lying to and testing the Spirit (Acts 5:3), resisting the Spirit (Acts 7:51), and insulting the Spirit (Heb. 10:29). We don’t lose the presence of the Holy Spirit like Saul did in the OT, but our idolatry has effectively tied His hands and rendered Him powerless to be our “Helper.” Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is living in such a way that He is free to do what He was sent to do.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be locked into a marriage with a spouse who continually, and in your presence grieved you, and strove with you, and rebelled against you, and insulted you, and resisted you, and dealt treacherously with you? Can you imagine something like that? If that were your case, how likely would you be to fulfill your role to your spouse? Yet that is precisely what the Holy Spirit has to put up with far too often in our lives. He won’t leave us because it is a permanent indwelling, but He can be so grieved and insulted that we have effectively shut Him down in His capacity as our Helper. Appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit is living in such a way that He is free to do what He was sent to do.

Several years ago we camping out West, and as we were coming into Colorado, we had to cross the Rockies to get to Denver where I have family. We were really loaded down as well as pulling a camper, so I knew that making our way up the mountains and over the Continental Divide was going to be tricky. We were travelling on I-70 which peaks at the Eisenhower Tunnel, the highest vehicular tunnel in the world at over 11,000 feet. At our final stop in Utah, I had changed the spark plugs in the van because I thought it had been running roughly; but as we made our way across the plains and toward the mountains, the van would run fine when we were level or going downhill but really coughed and sputtered when I would accelerate. Sure enough, about ¼ of the way up the mountain we were coughing and sputtering our way up the mountain at about 10 miles per hour. Eventually we ended up with a State Police escort because we were going so slow, and it put us several hours behind schedule. When we got to Denver a mechanic showed me a spark plug wire that had gone bad, and explained that the bad wire was causing the loss of power.

Our engine had all the power it needed to get the job done. It was actually a pretty strong engine, but the reason we struggled up that mountain was because of my failure to appropriate the power that was available in that engine. All I had to do was change the spark plug wires, and then the engine could have operated in the way it was designed to operate.

That is the way the power of the Holy Spirit operates in our lives. We already have all the power we need to deal with idols. It is there in the person of the Holy Spirit. What we have to do is live in such a way as to allow Him to do His work.

I want to close this morning by sharing with you a great passage from Ezekiel 36. Turn with me to verse 24. “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. 25 "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”