Psalm 115:1-8 | Idolatry in Marriage

Preacher: Chris Ritter

Text: Psalm 115:1-8

Big Idea: Root out idolatry in your heart before it wreaks havoc on your marriage

An idol is anything you look to in order to gain significance, security, or satisfaction instead of the living God

Developing a biblical understanding of heart idolatry

The presence of heart idolatry for the Christian

5 common types of idols in marriage (please have each of these come up one at a time, progressing so first Control shows up, then Control and Certainty show up together, etc.)

1. Control idols

2. Certainty idols

3. Comfort idols

4. Comparison idols

5. Commendation idols

What idolatry feels like (same as the note above)

- Chaos & confusion define the relationship

- Bitterness reigns despite repentance

- Ingratitude defines your attitude

- Fear freezes you

How to break free form idols (same as the note above)

- Always start with the Gospel

- Identify & Repent

- Remember: Christ alone gives eternal significance

- Remember: Christ alone gives true security

- Remember: Christ alone satisfies the soul

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Church, let's pray together to this glorious God and Savior coming out of Psalm 135 says this praise the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Give praise, O servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing praise to his name, for it is pleasant. And God, we with our whole heart say, Amen to that. You are good. You are a God who is faithful, the God who is uh, in fact, another translation says, You are beautiful, Lord. You are the beautiful one, the one exalted, the one high and above. And it is good to sing praises to your name, good for our uh our hearts, God, our our souls, our very being to come week in and week out to gather with the saints in your house on your day to praise your name. For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. It is you, God, who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightning for the rain, and brings forth the wind from the storehouses. You are our provider, God, of every physical good that we have. In creation, all things that come to us for our sustenance of life, you give to us, and you do whatever you please in heaven and on earth. You are the sovereign one. You are the one providentially leading this world in human history according to your eternal will and decree. Things are not random. Things are not just according to the whims of those in political power any given moment, but things are according to your will. And so we we celebrate that. Lord, your sovereignty even over our nation, your providence over this nation that you have brought into being and have sustained now for 250 and truly even more than that. Looking back on American history, you are faithful. And yet, Lord, we see in this psalm that the idols of the nations are silver and gold, and we recognize we have been the nations, God. The nations lost in darkness, in our sin, in our rebellion against you. The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but don't speak, eyes but don't see, they have ears but don't hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who become, those who make them become like them, God, and we confess we have been those lost in idolatry, Lord, enslaved, in fact, to the power of idols, false worship, false gods. Yet, Lord, you and your kindness have come for us, sending your eternal Son, Jesus Christ, into the world for our salvation. All by your grace. The power is yours alone to save. God, the mercy is yours, and you have given us mercy upon mercy, grace upon grace in Jesus Christ. And so we come grateful that while we have been those who have worshiped falsely, Lord, for all who name the name of Christ, all that you have given eternal life to, we now worship the one true God in spirit and in truth. And we say, Yes and amen. You are the sovereign one. You are the one who does all that you please. And we want to please you now, Lord, as we turn to your word. Would you give, would you give our uh help us give our full attention today? We have many things competing, Lord, for our attention. May we give our full attention to you and what you would have for us today in your word and in this sermon. May it not be me bringing this word, but you, God, bringing this word to those who are here, to those who will ever hear this word. May it be for their edification, for their comfort, uh, leading to repentance. God, we pray for those who are lost here in this room who do not know Jesus, they do not know of what we sing, that they would become they would come to know you, the living God. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Church, I want to encourage you to stay standing if you were able this morning as we turn to God's word. We're going to read from Psalm 115. The words will be on the screen. Psalm 115, verses 1 through 8. Hear the word of the Lord for this morning. I hear the pages. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Why should the nations say, Where is their God? Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak, eyes but do not see, they have ears but do not hear, noses but do not smell, they have hands but do not feel, feet but do not walk, and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. Loved ones, this is the word of the Lord for this morning. May God write these eternal truths on our hearts, and with that, you may be seated. Well, good morning, church family. Good morning, one and all. Good to be together on the Lord's Day under His Word as we sing his praises. My name is Chris. If we haven't gotten the pleasure to meet yet, I would love to be able to do that. I will be out by the new uh visitor's desk area. Would love to have you come and say hi and see how we might be able to help you get connected. By the way, one I don't know if Billy knew that an actual Jim was going to be on stage. So listen, be like hypothetical Jim. Get involved and serve. Be like actual Jim. Get in the waters of baptism. Amen? If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, we want to see you get in the waters of baptism. We want to celebrate that with you. What a joy it is month in and month out to be seeing uh more and more people come to saving faith in Christ. It could have been a very recent experience for you, or it could have actually been a number of years, even decades. Don't feel any shame in that. Just obey at your next opportunity. Okay, we love giving opportunity to see you be baptized, and so you can come to the visitor's desk, you can come to the connect room, be like hypothetical Jim, and serve an actual Jim. Get baptized. Well, I trust you had a good Independence Day yesterday. There's so much to celebrate, truly, God's goodness to these United States of ours. How many of you were like me yesterday, last night, and you were trying to sleep at around 10 p.m.? How many of you? Many of you probably here because you're 8:30 Urs, right? So you were uh now, how many of you, like so many of my neighbors, apparently, were trying to not let that happen? Anybody want to own up to the fact you're that neighbor? Uh man, we had a uh a party going on in my neighborhood. We were not surprised. Listen, we live in Lincoln. All right, it's exceptional out there. They are exceptional out there. And so we had a great time with friends yesterday. Hope you did as well. Hey, brief word, brief word before we get started, uh, about last week's announcement from Pastor Tony uh regarding Pastor Ralph and Pastor Tyler as two new executive pastors and now elders at our church. Um I've had the joy of serving as a pastor here, of going on 12 years next month, hard to believe. And I've said many times. Well, thank you. That was not the point of that, but thank you. Really the point was to say, listen, I've seen it all. I've been here for it all. I was I was here for 10 months before pastor, so very, very close to the beginning of the church. And um it has been a joy, and I've said it many times, it's one of the greatest honors of my life to be a pastor here at Doxa. And I want you to know that seeing men like Pastor Ralph and Tyler be raised up into the positions that they now are, even in the ones they have been in for some time, is of such a joy to me and should be a great encouragement to you, church. I can remember when these men came five to six years ago respectively, and remember getting to know them, right? Just meeting them and seeing them jump in to serve, seeing them want to know how they could help, seeing want to know where they would fit in, seeing Ralph as one of our first interns and tathered with all of his experience. But just listen, these men can't coming in humble. No pretense, no demands, no, hey, congratulations, I am here. God's gift to your church. And that sounds like an exaggeration, and it is, but every joke has some truth in it. Okay? It's happened more than I would like to admit in various conversations we've been in. What I want you to know is these are men who God has raised up and praise God for that. Year in and year out, we see his faithfulness and developing leaders, and so young men in particular, but men of any age who might aspire to leadership in ministry in this church, this is the way. Okay? It's humility, it's rolling the sleeves up and serving, it's seeing where God would place you and being fruitful and excellent in what you do. And so just want to praise God for that, for the work of God in these men, and we are blessed to see leaders continue to rise up from uh within our church. And so that is a great joy to me. Well, we are in week six of the grammar of marriage. We're one-third of the way through this 15-week series, uh, been a rich series already. I trust you would agree, wanting to understand God's framework and his design for this wonderful gift of grace that is marriage. And uh, we are gonna jump in today to the title of the message, which is idolatry in marriage. Idolatry in marriage. Now, often we think of idols. I even read from both my prayer uh chapter, Psalm 135 and Psalm 115, referencing idols uh as the work of human hands and silver and gold, and all of that is true. But do you know that that's not the only way idols are spoken of in the scriptures? Before they manifest uh in that way physically, there is a heart orientation to idols. And so we're going to look at that. Idolatry is broader, and I'm gonna say even uh deeper. It's it's it's sneakier than just kind of Eastern religions with their obvious idolatry, bowing down to statues, and God's word is clear on this. And you're gonna see as we break this sermon up into different parts that so much of this can apply to all of your life, though the application will be about marriage, rightly so, given this series, you are going to be able to broadly see its application, I trust, in your life. And so, big idea is this for the morning. Root out idolatry in your heart before it wreaks havoc on your marriage. And truly you could fill in that last word with any number of things. Root out idolatry in your heart before it wreaks havoc in your friendships, before it wreaks havoc, really, just in your life, because it does. Now, as we talk about what an idol is, I want to give you a definition, and that's gonna stay up on the screen as the definition comes up. See, love you, care about you. I know some of you are writing so fast, this will be up for a little while. What is an idol? When we talk about what an idol is, besides just the physical objects, it's this it's anything that you look to in order to gain significance, security, or satisfaction instead of the living God. Anything you look to to gain significance, security, and satisfaction instead of the living God. You'll see other good definitions out there. There's quite a variety of good working definitions from biblical writings or commentaries and all that, but they'll all focus on looking to something other than God, for what only He can provide to you or who only He is. They're all gonna have that. Some form of a switch, some form of a looking to anything or anyone other than the living God, for what only God can give to you, or only who God is. Now, disclaimer briefly here regarding marriage, as we talk about this and walk through it, idolatry is not, it is not the only reason marriages struggle. I want to be clear about this, because there's there's two errors that I think happen as people maybe don't have much of a framework for this, and hopefully today helps give you a framework for uh idols and heart idols in particular, as you'll see. There's there's two errors we can fall into. One would be, boy, I get so into this, and it becomes a framework that it becomes the only framework. And so if there's ever an issue, if there's ever a struggle, it's gotta be idolatry. And we're like hunting idols in ways that can actually end up unhelpful if we hyperfocus on this, because there are other things that make uh marriages struggle. But but I'd say that's actually the less common of the ditches or the errors to fall into. The more common one would be not understanding idolatry biblically and therefore not giving any attention to it. So the first one is a possibility, but my greater concern will be that so many believers do not understand how to process their struggles, could be relational struggles or even their trials through a framework of understanding uh idolatry. See, again, other reasons why marriages struggle, when we consider Genesis 3 and on, east of Eden, as it were, because of humanity's fall into sin and the curse of sin and the reality of death and weakness and suffering, our marriages struggle for many reasons. We are, after all, finite creatures. Or am I by myself in saying that? Finite, we feel that, our finitude. We have finite knowledge, we don't know everything, we can't actually read our spouses' minds even after so many years. We are finite in energy. We cannot just go, go, go, and marriages struggle for cause of our finitude. We are also weak in so many ways. We are dependent on so many factors in life, and when they are off kilter, or when suffering comes or when tragedy strikes, and not just the death of a spouse, but it could be the death of a child. It could be the death of your own parents or your in-laws, it could be uh uh being sinned against gravely, like by a by a dear friend, a betrayal. All of these are reasons marriages end up strained and struggling. But hear me when I say that all of these types of difficulties, though not necessarily caused by idolatry, if you when you have idols of the heart that are unknown, unaddressed, not repented of, all of those other issues are exacerbated. When you react to the trials of your life in certain ways, those are often the signs of what is the idols of the heart in your life. And so again, an idol is anything that you look to to gain significance, security, or satisfaction instead of the living God. So here's what I want to do first. I want to develop a biblical understanding of heart idolatry. We're going to develop together a biblical understanding of heart idolatry. I want to take you to a passage in just a moment that is, I think, lesser known, but very, very important to see. This is not a modern term, heart idolatry. This is a biblical concept. Now, when we talk about um heart, what do we mean when we say heart? Okay, not to actually not be sarcastic at all, but just so we're all clear, we're not talking about the human organ. Okay? We're not talking about what's in our chest, like the beating heart that we have. Not that, but biblically, what is the heart? Really, it's the inner man, broadly. You could say it's the inner man or inner person. The heart is the center or the seat of your thoughts, desires, passions, motives. Jesus says that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So the how you speak is indicative of what is in the inner man in your heart. We worship from our heart, whatever or whoever we worship comes out of the heart biblically. The heart is where wisdom resides or where its counterpart, folly, resides. So it's the inner man, the seat of thoughts, desires, motives, passions. It's where we speak from, the habits of our speech. We worship from our heart. That's what we mean when we say heart. And if we go all the way back to a place like Deuteronomy chapter 6, the famous Shema, which is a Hebrew word meaning hear or listen, uh, we see this right away in this passage. And I want to uh recite it, uh not recite it, but share it with you in just a moment. But in in Deuteronomy, Moses is an old man. He's actually about to die. The new generation of Israelites are about to go into the promised land, and Moses is giving a second giving of the law, Deuteronom, second law, not a different law, but the second giving of God's law. In Deuteronomy 5, he gives the Ten Commandments a second time. And in Deuteronomy 6, he says this to the house of Israel Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Now Jesus echoes this when he's asked about the greatest commandment. He didn't make it up. He points right back to the scriptures Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, which is in Leviticus. So he quotes Deuteronomy in Leviticus. This is where the whole law is summarized. Love God with all your heart, your inner man, everything in you, you love the Lord God. And the Psalms are filled with verses about the heart. I'm going to reference six of them for you, but there are dozens to choose from that get at what the heart is to do in its orientation to God. Chapter 9, verse 1, I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart. 13, verse 5, My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. Psalm 27, verse 8, you have said, Seek my face. My heart says to you, your face, O Lord, do I seek. Psalm 51, verse 10, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 86, 11 says, Teach me your way, O Lord, unite my heart to fear your name. And then 119 verse 2, Blessed are those who keep the Lord's testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart. So the heart, when we talk about this heart idolatry, the heart is the inner man, the center of your motives and your loves and your passions and your desires, where you worship from, you speak from your heart as well. Now, how about the heart idolatry? Go to Ezekiel chapter 14 with me. Ezekiel chapter 14. This is that passage I wanted to direct our attention to for a time here. It's a lesser-known passage, but it teaches something so pivotal of how the Lord sees and knows our hearts as it relates to idolatry. In Ezekiel 14, you have the elders of Israel, they're the spiritual leaders of Israel. They come to the prophet Ezekiel and they're asking him to seek the Lord. They want to seek God for something, for some kind of help. And God basically is going to say in verses 1 through 5, not like that. Not with what I know about your hearts. Read along with me, verse 1 through 5, Ezekiel 14. Then certain of the elders of Israel came to me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them? Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God, any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols, that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me. Through their idols. This passage is like a mic drop from Yahweh. Right? They come thinking that if they can, if they come and just do the thing, they come and seek the prophet, they come and make a sacrifice, they come and worship in some way, then they're going to basically, let's just say, fool God with what is actually going on in their hearts, but it shows God's perfect knowledge of every heart, because he starts with the elders, but then he says it's actually the whole house of Israel who have taken idols into their heart. Now, when we hear that phrase, taking idols into their heart, I would summarize that as this is not just performative religion regarding false worship in the Old Testament, where they all they make a sacrifice and they do something to show honor to some false God, but they don't really believe it. When an idol is taken into the heart, this is trusting in a false God. This is believing, being devoted to, and believing that this false deity, this false God idol, is going to fulfill something for you, fulfill something in you or give you something, taking the idol into the heart. And heart idols, it says right in verse 5, create an estrangement from us and God. The house of Israel being estranged, not being in functional relationship with Yahweh. They were in covenant in the old covenant, they were in covenant with Yahweh, and the believer can be in the new covenant with the living God through Jesus Christ. And yet we can experience an estrangement from God when we come to the house of worship here, when we read our Bibles and we pray and we expect those things to maybe do something for us, but our hearts are invested in and trusting in things other than the living God. Now, one more place to turn to for now is in Romans chapter 1. I want you to see in Romans chapter 1, there is so much I wanted to do in Romans 1 today. I'm gonna limit myself. If you don't know Romans 1, homework assignment, I know it's summertime, homework assignment. Read Romans 1, read it well, read it deeply, because it is, in my opinion, the most important single chapter in all the Bible to be able to answer the question, what is wrong with the world? And you will actually find what manifests in Romans 1 is that the sexual perversion of our day is completely understandable once you understand Romans 1. And what we are experiencing in our culture is not actually unique in human history because it's 2,000 years ago, and it's just as relevant today. So get to know Romans 1. But for the purpose of this morning, I'm only going to look at verses 21 through 23. The setup is right before verse 21. Paul has written basically that humanity, we suppress the truth in unrighteousness in our sin. Universally, this is true. Even though God's eternal power and divine nature are plainly perceived by creation, we deny it. And then verse 21 says this for although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Here is the point for this morning. You see the worship language and the idolatry language and the heart language in just these verses as an expression of what's wrong with human, with what's wrong with humanity in our sin. Worship language. Although they knew God, they did not honor him or give him thanks. That's worship language, refusing to worship the living God. But they became futile, that means vain, empty, even useless. That's that word futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. So we no longer have the light. We cannot see the light of the truth of God in creation through general revelation. We cannot accurately see it, and we cannot see it in special revelation unless God brings his light to us, and praise God, he does. But this is the explanation of in our sin, our foolish hearts are darkened, claiming to be wise, they became fools. That's easy enough to understand. And here's again the idolatry language: exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. A few verses later, another exchange is described that we exchange the glory of the Creator for creation, basically. And we exchange the truth of God for a lie. These great exchanges explain human sin in terms of heart idolatry. Our hearts being invested in that which is false and bringing worship and entrusting our lives to that which is false. So universal sin tied up in these exchanges. And the great irony, the great irony of heart idolatry in our sin is that the very significance and security and satisfaction that we look to instead of God, those idols rob the very things we're looking for. Promising the world delivering on nothing. And we end up in our sin in an enslaving and vicious cycle of idolatry, very much like addiction. In fact, you'll find writings around addiction and its relationship to worship and idolatry. Because the very thing that doesn't deliver what it promised to you or what you believed it would bring, you believe the answer is do it harder. The only solution is to go further into the addiction, to go further into the enslavement of sin. Rather than look for a way out, you look to go deeper, believing that if you just do it harder. This is for free, by the way. They think that about communism too these days. We haven't actually tried it the right way. We just need a communist harder. Okay, that was for free. Anyways, um, I digress. Where'd that come from? If you know me, you don't have to ask that question. So, anyways, okay, we just gotta go harder, do it more. That thing that doesn't fulfill, it'll it'll fulfill if I just invest my life more fully. The great irony of hard idolatry in our enslavement is that we keep going harder, we keep going further, and it just keeps failing. Now, what about the Christian life? What about in the Christian life? Is there a solution to this? And of course we know the answer is yes, that through Christ, the enslaving power of idolatry is broken. That through his life and death and resurrection, his death in our place for our sins, his resurrection for our eternal life, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the power of idolatry is broken over the life of the Christian. The enslaving power is broken objectively. The penalty and the guilt of our willful participation in our idolatry and in our sin has been paid in full through Christ. By grace through faith, all who trust in Christ receive the promised new heart. To actually love God, to actually worship Him truly, though not perfectly, but truly. We truly love Him. We truly want to honor Him. We have a new power to obey and to grow in Christ's likeness. In fact, you could think of sanctification as the lifelong process by which we grow to understand our significance and security and satisfaction is found in Christ alone. But we live, don't we, in a world still filled with idolatry at every turn, and not just in the Eastern world and its religions, but in the West as well. We still are swimming in idolatry of people, famous people, or of money, or of our appearance, or in certain relationships. We wrestle with the presence of idolatry still in the Christian life. We have the power broken and the penalty paid for, but the presence of idolatry exists in our lives. And so this is what I want to explore for a moment next. The presence of heart idolatry for the Christian. Go to James chapter 4 with me. And then we're moving quickly through several passages. I want to just show you some of this in the scripture, James chapter 4. You find it right after the book of Hebrews, nearing the end of the Bible. James chapter 4, we're just gonna look at one verse. James is written broadly to Christians in the first century. Okay? It's not written to just one church, it's written by a man named James, the half brother of Jesus, who came to understand and believe that his half-brother was indeed the risen and reigning Lord. That's James writing to the Christian community in the first century. And he asks this question in verse one what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Don't go any further. Just for a sec. Look up here. This is written to the Christian community. This is not like, why do people of all kinds argue and fight? No. Christians, y'all still have quarrels. Y'all still have fights. And this isn't about marriage specifically, but this is to the Christian community, and a marriage is a microcosm of Christian community, so this is applicable. Christians, what why? What causes your fights? Is it not this? By the way, that's a rhetorical question. It is this. Let me explain this to you. It is this that your passions are at war within you. Again, to the Christian community, to you and to me. What causes fights and quarrels among us? Our passions are at war within you. And within you lies what? Your heart. In the inner man, Galatians chapter 5 is another place to go to show there is a constant friction and a tension between the presence of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Spirit, the new man within you, and yet the flesh wants what it wants. The desires we covet and desire, and the list goes on from there. We're not going to cover it, but we desire and we covet, and when we don't get what we desire, we don't get what we covet, all manner of sin breaks loose. This reality of passions at war within us, desiring and demanding from within, from our heart, explains so much of why our relationships struggle with strife and with quarrels and with fights. And so with our remaining time left, I want to cover this common types of idols in marriage. And then I want to explain some of what it feels like in your marriage. What does it feel like when idols are wreaking havoc in your marriage? And then lastly, how to defeat idolatry in general in our lives and in our marriage in particular. Marriages in particular. So, five common types of idols in marriage. And again, easy to imagine translating this if you are not married to other relationships as well. First one will be control idols. For each of these, I'll give a definition, I'll give some examples, and what I'm gonna call a diagnostic. A question to ask yourself. Think, could this be me? Relevant for me? Because actually, let me say this too. Start with yourself. Right? Got it? Start with yourself. If you need to have a word with your beloved, okay, start with yourself. What is there to own? What is there to explore? Maybe even a question to your spouse, invite that, okay? Control idols. What is that? Well, any way that you seek control over your circumstances or people in your life instead of trusting the Lord. That's a control idol. You want to control circumstances or people instead of trusting the Lord. So some examples. Well, money would be an easy one, of course. Control over your money that you're constantly thinking about it. You're basically constantly worried about it. You're prone to argue immediately over unimportant financial decisions. You talk about it ad nauseum. Every uh budgetary decision gets scrupulously looked at. You need to control all the financial decisions. And by the way, yes, again, more free advice. One person predominantly controlling the budget does make sense in your marriage, right? If both of you are doing it, probably neither of you are doing it, let's be honest, okay? But but in that, like one person who's more oriented toward a stewardship in that way, right? Maybe uh for whatever reason that would make sense, but but the control over the decisions and what you talk about and how you spend. Another one would be your future, controlling future planning. So this could be around kids, uh, when to have kids, how many kids to have, how spread apart they're going to be, as far as number of years, all of that, right? You wanna you wanna control it. You want what you want in that. It could be anything, though, that you hope for, that you want to go do, that you want to see happen in your future. And rather than an open-handed request to God, it becomes much more like this: the closed fist of I must go make it happen. I need to control our future planning. Another example would be manipulation in its various forms, seeking to control others' emotions, control their decisions. You might be prone to guilt tripping the other. You might be betrone uh betrone. Uh um, what was I going to say? I don't even know what words I just mixed up. Um you might be prone towards a good pity party now and again, though. Right? Just that that pouting, that manipulation, you're seeking control. Now, a diagnostic. Could this be me? Well, when things don't go your way, when someone doesn't do what you expect, you are overcome with anxiety and or anger. Now, anger may come out in a couple different ways. Some of you, it could be a wrathful type of anger. It's a fly off, it's kind of a fly off, the litigus falls off, all the vial and the words. For some of you, that might be your sin proclivity. For others of you, it could be that that um right underneath the surface of what people see is this just hot lava of anger that doesn't actually burst out, but oh baby, do they know it's there? People that know you, right? For some of you, it's the wrathful explosion. For others of you, it's there, and it's actually sometimes more destructive because it's just always beneath the surface. And that could be an indication of a control idol, that hot lava right underneath the surface. Secondly, certainty idols, certainty idols. We're seeking safety and predictability of outcome for everything in our lives, and so some of the ways this manifests would be risk avoidance. You won't step out in faith, or you don't want to have that conversation with your spouse about uh him stepping away from his job, which is safe, to go start a business. Because you don't know for sure, for sure, what finances are gonna look like a year from now. What if he fails? What if it doesn't go the way he says it's going to go? What if something goes wrong? Risk avoidance is one, constant financial fears is another, even related to not making a change because you don't know what that's going to do to your uh to your way of life financially. And so, by the way, so often the certainty idol, when you are uh well versed in this and you know how to hide it well, of course, you speak in. I just want to be responsible, honey. I just want to make sure we know, we know that we can do this. I know you feel led, I know you're praying about this, but I, you hear me, you hear that, right? It's cloaked in responsibility language because that sounds spiritual, but the truth is you have a certainty idol and you don't want to let it go. And oftentimes it may manifest in resisting the leadership of your husband, particularly four wives who might have this uh maybe predominantly. I don't want to speak in over-generalizations, but resisting a leadership decision of a godly husband who does believe this is God's calling. And so I just want to be certain, honey. I want to be responsible. So, how might I think about this being me? Well, when you don't know what to expect, you will assume the worst. If you don't know that you know how the future is looking, you fear the worst. There's a cynicism about the future. Thirdly, would be this comfort idols. Comfort idols, seeking to keep the status quo instead of pursuing godliness. So this might be seen in a number of ways. One would be distraction via screens and technology. You are absorbed in your phone or games on various platforms. You are absorbed in social media, doom scrolling, or whatever to avoid the hard conversation you need to have in your life to move forward. Another would be saying peace, peace when there is no peace in your marriage. You come here, you've got your small group of your friends, and it's an absolute sham what you say to them about your marriage. Treating it like everything's fine, everything's normal, but it's more like head in the sand refusing to see what needs to be addressed. Another would be escapism. Could be through technology, could also be through excessive spending to distract yourself because you want shiny new things, and so you escape in that way. It could be drugs or alcohol. Yes, Christian, it could be that, including the prescribed kind from the people in the white coat that are all too happy to give you drugs that have profound effects on your mood and on your mind, or it could be illicit drugs as well, or overconsumption of alcohol to escape and to numb the pain in your life because you don't want to address what needs to be. Another one would be no-go zones. Don't bring that up. You bring that up even in grace and humility. That topic is a no-go zone. And you just flip a lid if your wife or husband, you want to bring that up. No go zones. We keep things status quo, we don't address what's difficult. A diagnostic, could this be me? Well, do you seek somehow to numb the pain or to escape or to avoid making hard sacrifices for the growth of your marriage? How are we doing? We good? Seem a little quiet in here. Number four would be comparison idols. Comparison idols, measuring your marriage against another. This could take numerous forms. One would be unreasonable expectations. Husband, you have unreasonable expectations stated or not toward your wife and how she should be or what she should be doing. And you are impatient with her growth. You want it yesterday, not a year from now. You don't want the slow process of cultivating her joy and godliness and fruitfulness in her life, but you are unreasonable in your expectations. Another would be mythical standards, right? Totally given in to Disney. Totally given in to name your favorite rom-com, okay? Like the happily ever end uh happily ever after. Sure, they had a problem in the middle, but of course it ends happily ever after with no arguments and no problems and all the wealth they dreamed of, mythical standards of marriage. What about the glory days? Comparing your marriage now to what you believe it used to be like, whether true or not. The longer you go, right? Those of you in your 50s or 60s, don't the, I don't know, when you were 25, didn't it now it just seems so good? You compare to the glory days of what you used to have and you feel like you don't. Another could be scorekeeping. Comparing data points of who apologizes first most often, who initiated intimacy last time, who uh comes to the table to talk, who does more chores around the house, we're scorekeeping with one. Another and comparing ourselves to the other. So a diagnostic, could this be me? Well, when you envy that which you don't have and are bitter towards your spouse about it, that could be you. Lastly, commendation idols. Commendation idols. You define your value in the praise that you do or don't receive from your spouse. So you are demanding approval and praise. You do something genuinely kind. Great job. But then you don't get what you expected. You don't get what you think you deserve. You really did something sacrificial and loving for your uh spouse, and yet you don't get the praise that you think you deserved. Or it's opposite, you are crushed by criticism. It doesn't just sting, because criticism can sting, but even if it's said well and said in love and with grace and all the right things, you get crushed by criticism. Or just general sense of insecurity. When you are not constantly praised, you end up interpreting anything as mean-spirited criticism. So a diagnostic will be when criticism does not just sting but devastates, do you feel worthless? That could be a commendation idol in your life. Now, what about what idolatry feels like? I want to give four categories here. This is like the emotional temperature in your marriage. If these things, any one of them, are regular patterns in your marriage, you need to be thinking together what I what idols of our hearts may be causing this. So one would be chaos and confusion define the relationship. When chaos and confusion reign, you can't put your finger on it. It's not just one thing. It's not like, well, she did that and now I'm like this, or he did this, and now I. It's more just constant, just a sense of chaos. I can't grab onto what it is, but it's there's confusion. We're so sensitive to one another. We we we trip all over uh uh each other's emotions all the time, and we just can't put our finger on it. There are idols lurking under the surface. Secondly, bitterness reigns despite repentance. Bitterness reigite repentance. She really did sin against you. But she really did repent, husband. She has owned it without excuse, she has said she wants to change, a season has gone by, and in the power of the Spirit, she's growing and changing. And even though you said the words, I forgive you, under the surface is a seething bitterness despite your spouse's real repentance. Thirdly, would be ingratitude defines your attitude. Nothing is ever enough. There is never enough money, they never give you enough of their time. Their attempts at affection and love and all this are never what you need. There is a cynicism just running through your marriage. Rather than being grateful for who God has given you, warts and all, problems and all, this is, he is mine, she is mine, God has given her to me. Ingratitude defines your attitude. Fourthly, fear freezes you. When fear freezes you, you are always afraid of the next blow up, saying one wrong word, or may so walking on eggshells, or maybe you're the one forcing the other to walk on eggshells, always so sensitive. You're afraid of what they're gonna do, you're afraid of what they're gonna say. When fear freezes you from having that hard word, from going into that conversation, there are idols, when these are any of these are patterns in your marriage. Think and pray. What are the idols of our hearts that need to be addressed? And lastly, how to break free from idols. How to break free from idols. I want to give you a book recommendation at this point. It's called Gospel Treason by Brad Bigney. Gospel treason. Various themes of today's message are found in that book, but it is a it's gonna be right here for you. It's gonna be right here between the eyes. Okay? I told you so. All right, don't come back mad at me when it's a really hard book to read. You said I should read it. It's so hard. It's awesomely hard. It is an excellent treatment of heart idolatry from a biblical counselor and a pastor named Brad Bigny. Gospel treason. Okay, I'm not just gonna leave you with a book and then pray. So, how to break free? Read the book. I don't know. It's not what I was about to do for the record. Okay. So, how do we break free from idols? Well, first of all, always start with the gospel. Always start with the gospel. Preach the gospel to yourself, the truth about the living God, the eternally triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, the Son of God being sent into the world, the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life in your place. He alone perfectly obeyed God's law, every last part of it, without a single fail, zero sin, perfect obedience. That perfect obedience gets credited to your account. How? Because not only did he obey the law, he also went to the cross and he became the punish, he became the penalty, took on the punishment. He is the Lamb of God, he is our sacrificial substitutionary atonement. He died in the place of sinners so that our sin gets exchanged to him, his righteousness gets exchanged and given to us, imputed to us through his work on the cross and his resurrection. He died, he rose on the third day, conquering sin and death and hell forever, so that we do not have to experience what we deserve, but we get in him eternal life. We are given his Holy Spirit, who now lives in us, Christ having ascended to the right hand of the Father, from where he reigns and from where he will return, having given us the Holy Spirit to live in the newness of life, to walk with a new power, new affections, a new heart, new motives and desires and worship from a true position as Christians. But you don't only listen, you don't only preach the narrative of the gospel, preach the effects of the gospel to yourself. I am forgiven of every single one of my sins by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. I am free from the power and the penalty of idolatry and all my sins. I have been adopted as a child of God through Jesus Christ. I am justified legally before God, righteous. You start with the gospel. Where there are heart idols, somewhere, the gospel is not penetrating like it needs to in your life. Preach the narrative and the effects of the gospel to yourself. Secondly, identify and repent. Okay, I call this name it and claim it, but in the humble kind of way. Not the prosperity gospel. You name it. That's me, God. That's my heart idol, or those, let's be honest, plural, okay? Those are my heart idols. That's what I look to for significance, security, and satisfaction besides you, and repent of it. Cast down the idols in prayer before God. I cast these down, Lord. That person doesn't define me, that event doesn't define me. I don't need to know my future. I can break free from the power of heart idolatry. By your spirit, you identify and repent. You turn from the idols, cast them down. Thirdly, remember, we're gonna remember three things. Christ alone gives eternal significance, Christ alone gives true security, and Christ alone satisfies the soul. Wrapping up our big idea, coming right back to it, he gives eternal significance, not the other. Whoever that person is, he gives true security. All of your eternal belongings cannot be robbed through anything in this life. They are all safe and secure for eternity through Christ. And he alone satisfies the soul. When all else fails and it will, he satisfies the soul. Can I tell you that the glorious irony of your significance, your security, and satisfaction being found in Christ actually leads you to work harder in your marriage because it's now in its right place. It is not an idol that you are worshiping and serving, it is in its right place under the Lordship of Jesus, and so you do address the issues. You don't hide from Him anymore, because what do you have to fear? Everything that we've just gone through in Christ is yours. And so you work harder on what needs to be worked on. You forgive freer, you let go of that bitterness. That's this is the irony. When Christ is your significance, security and satisfaction, you enjoy your marriage more, not less, more, as a gift from God. Even the parts that are to work on. So may it be so in our lives that we would see Christ supremely satisfying. Get to work in our marriage, looking to Him in the power of the Spirit. Let's pray. Father, we love you, we praise you, we ask that these words would penetrate our hearts, Lord, according to your will and by your spirit, and we pray that you would transform us into the image of Jesus. God, heal what is broken here, and continue, Lord, to work, we pray, trusting in your power to do so in Jesus' name. Amen.