Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham
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Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham
Psalm 115:1-8; A Psalm for the Restless Heart
Jason Sterling August 3, 2025 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin
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If you have a copy of God's Word, turn with me, go to the center of your Bible and go to Psalm 115. We're going to continue this morning in our summer series through various psalms, and this morning we encounter a passage that cuts right to the center of the human heart. Right to the center of the human heart. This psalm exposes what John Calvin says the idol factories of our hearts that are actually working 24-7 in every heart, cranking out new idols to bow down to. This is a strong passage. It will confront us this morning with a very uncomfortable truth, and that is that we all are, by nature, we are glory thieves. We are constantly stealing the glory that belongs to God. We steal it and direct it towards ourselves. I think you'll see what I mean as we read this passage. This is God's word. Follow along with me. Psalm 115, one through eight this morning Not to us, o Lord, not to us. 1 through 8 this morning. 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 nation say where is their God? Our God is in the heavens and he does all that he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, and he does all that he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak. They have 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 feel feet but do not walk, and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them will become like them. So do all who trust in them. This is God's word. Let me pray and let's ask for the Spirit to help us with this passage this morning. Please bow with me, spirit, to help us with this passage this morning. Please bow with me. Father. You brought us here, everyone here you have brought it's not an accident and you have this word on this first Sunday in August for us, and so my prayer is simple that, as we learn about the idols of our hearts, that it wouldn't be just information, but we want to encounter you. I pray that we would all have a powerful encounter with the Lord Jesus, his beauty and his glory, in a way that changes us, so that he becomes more beautiful and glorious than everything else around us. Only you can do that and I'm asking you to do it In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:I recently read an article. It was about social media and currently there are nearly 2,000 social media addiction lawsuits against major social media platforms. Families are taking these big tech companies to court and they're claiming that these platforms have been deliberately engineered in their algorithms to lure teens into addictive online patterns and behaviors, potentially causing great harm. And the statistics and you've probably read these before, but they're staggering the statistics behind these lawsuits. Worldwide screen addiction is measured at 210 million people worldwide have social media addictions. Usage worldwide on a single day is over seven. Get this seven billion hours. The average usage for a person is two hours a day of scrolling and engaging with golden calves.
Speaker 1:Have we not Just like the ancient Israelites Me I'm including myself in this we are bowing down to these things that promise life but deliver death. And let me be clear technology in itself is not the problem, just like every other idol and every other good thing. The problem is what our hearts do with those things. Social media, just like career and work and relationships and even good character traits all gifts from God and we take those good gifts from God. Instead of taking it as a gift. We make those things ultimate and then we create idols out of them, trusting them to provide what only God can provide. And here's what we're going to see. They're so subtle. Idols don't necessarily look like glowing screens and golden statues. Sometimes they look like virtue itself. And that's why they're so dangerous, because idols often appear righteous, ones that make us look good and make us look good in the eyes of other people. And so here's the question we're going to look at this morning how do you break free from idols and find life that your heart is really craving, life that your heart is really craving? How can you break free from our idols and find the life that our hearts are really craving?
Speaker 1:This passage Psalm 115, shows you the way. It shows you the way to freedom. But to understand the way and to get there, we must understand a few things about idolatry, and we'll see it in this passage. One, how idols are created, the creation of idols. Secondly, you must see how cruel idols really are. And then, lastly, you must know the cure. So, the creation of idols, the cruelty of idols, the cure for our idols.
Speaker 1:Let's look at our first setting, the creation of idols. Look at verse 1. You see repetition. Not to us, o Lord, not to us, but to your name, be glory. Anytime you see repetition in Scripture, it is very significant. You need to stop as you're reading and you need to ponder what is being said, because it is very intentional and very meaningful. It is another way here of saying the psalmist is this is so important that this bears repeating immediately, bears repeating immediately. The psalmist knows how naturally our human heart gravitates towards self-glory. Idols are created and begin not in workshops. They begin in hearts that are seeking glory and significance. Apart from God, every idol runs on the same fuel. Idols run on the fuel of self-glory and pride. And what does pride do in self-glory? It places you and places me at the center of our existence instead of God.
Speaker 1:Donald Miller, several years ago, wrote a book called Blue Light Jazz and he has this really powerful section in the book and he says that the most powerful addiction on the planet is the addiction to self. Listen to what he writes. He says the greatest lie any of us has to battle is that life is a story about me. He said my life felt like that once, that my life was a story about me because I was in every scene. In fact, I was the only one in every scene, and when someone would walk into my scene it would frustrate me because they were disrupting the general theme of my play, namely my comfort. And then he makes this brilliant statement. He said I discovered that my mind is like a radio that only picks up one station. Remember, his name is Donald, he goes by Don and he says that station is K-D-O-N. All Don, all the time. That's us, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Our hearts and minds tend to only pick up one station, our station, and we live in a story, oftentimes, that's only about us, and when we won't find significance and our significance in God's love for us, what we end up doing is creating these elaborate systems, and we manufacture our glory and significance for ourselves. Our hearts were made to worship God. They're supposed to cry, not to us, not to us. O Lord, to you be glory. But instead this is what sin does. Instead, our hearts tend to whisper. No to us, to us be glory. And it does that in a thousand small moments every single day. We say to us. To us, when we carefully craft the perfect caption and perfect photo that we can post in order to make our life look a little more impressive.
Speaker 1:We whisper to us when we take credit for our career success, instead of saying that it's really all a gift. Instead of saying that it's really all a gift your mental capacity, your ability to make investments and make connections and have opportunities and have income and all of those things we want to grasp and say look at what I've done and God says no, everything is a gift from my hand Relationships. Did you know that at the bottom of every broken marriage, at the bottom of every shattered family and forsaken friendship, you know what you'll find Stolen glory. Someone saying to us, to us, lord. You see the emphasis, the double emphasis here? It's a daily heart check for us.
Speaker 1:We need to pray and cry, lord, not to us, but to your name, be glory. There is only room for one glory receiver in the world, and it's not me and it's not you. It is God. It is the God whose steadfast love and faithfulness is so overwhelming that he took on flesh and gave himself to us, and gave himself to us. He gave himself for glory seekers like us. Jesus is the ultimate not-to-us person. He deserved all the glory, and remember Philippians, chapter 2? He made himself nothing, and so where do we need to repent this morning Of seeking our own glory. What station is your heart tuned to? Is it KU all you all the time? Or is your heart tuned in saying and declaring not to us, not to us, but to you? God be glory forever and ever. Listen, we are in a very exciting time in the life of our church and I cannot be more excited about the next season of ministry for us in this building. It's wonderful. I get more excited every single day, but there's a lot of opportunities for us to say to us, to us, for us to say to us, to us may it never be, may it never be in this church and in this pulpit that we ever say to us, to us, no, it's always God, not to us, but to you, be glory forever and ever. May that be the resounding thing that comes out of our church in the years and in the days ahead, amen.
Speaker 1:Secondly, the cruelty of idols. Idols are cruel and it shows us this. Look at verse 2. Israel's being mocked by pagan nations around them asking where is your God? I mean, we've got our gods of gold and silver. We can see them, we can touch them, but you claim to be worshiping this invisible God? Where is he? And that question reveals, really, too, how idols begin to form. They begin with doubt. When God seems distant, when our prayers go unanswered, when we suffer, when life doesn't turn out the way we want it to or think it should in our lives, doubt creeps in and we start to say things where is this God when I actually need him? And what it does is it drives us to create these substitutes that seem in the moment more reliable, more immediate, more controllable than the invisible God of heaven.
Speaker 1:Verse 3, and rather than explaining this away, the psalmist affirms God's control, affirms God's sovereignty and exposes the fundamental difference between God and our idols, saying our God is in heaven and he does whatever he pleases. And then the psalmist sets up one of, I think, the most devastating critique of idolatry in the entire Bible. You can probably argue with that, but this is very strong. The psalmist here says not only are idols powerless and ineffective, but they're also cruel. And one of the things we need to understand about idolatry, modern idolatry, is they don't look like golden calves.
Speaker 1:Our functional idols often are disguised, and this is important. They're disguised as virtues oftentimes, for example, people-pleasing masquerades as kindness. Achievement appears as responsibility, busyness can look like, oh, they're just being productive. Or image management can disguise itself as being a good witness, and you hear that and you think, well, what's wrong with those things? Those all sound good. Well, that is exactly how the-driven performance, and let's work that out.
Speaker 1:There is a kindness that overflows from God's love, and there's a kindness that overflows and is driven by fear of rejection, that overflows and is driven by fear of rejection. There is achievement that flows from being a faithful steward of what God has given you, and there is a drivenness and achievement that comes from fear of failure or fear of being insignificant or worthless, and there's a thousand things we could do. There's being a good steward of your body, and then there's obsessing over youth and beauty, from actual fear of aging. You see the difference. One flows from a full heart that is secure and full of God's love and wants to bless others. The other one flows from an empty heart that is trying to fill itself. And so here's a diagnostic question Are you doing what you're doing from fullness or from emptiness, from fear or security? If you're doing it and I'm doing it from fear and emptiness, there's our idol. Look no further. You have found it.
Speaker 1:And then it's devastating what he does with the idols of this world, and very powerful. Look at verse 4 through 7. They have mouths but cannot speak, and so he shows us that they never can deliver on what they promise. They have mouths but cannot speak. The busyness idol promises to prove your worth and importance, but actually keeps you from being still and creates all sorts of anxiety in your life. It never delivers. They have eyes, but cannot see the image. Reputation promises, respect and admiration, but it blinds you to how God already sees you. Ears, but cannot hear Achievement. Idols promise significance and security, but they keep you from hearing from God. You're already enough. And that pattern is always the same. Idols promise to deliver, they leave you empty and sad. They promise to silence your shame they actually amplify your shame. They promise significance, they leave you feeling insignificant and worthless. They promise peace and security, but create more anxiety. And look at the sobering truth.
Speaker 1:Verse 8, maybe the strongest verse in the passage those who make them become like them. So do all who trust in them. And you see there the spiritual law of worship, don't you? You see it in the Bible you become like what you worship. So if you worship control, you become controlling. If you worship perfection, you become harsh and cruel. If you worship approval, you become an anxious people pleaser. When you trust in those things that can't speak, feel walk, you lose your freedom and you lose your ability to live.
Speaker 1:Several years ago, in a New York magazine it was actually back early 90s Cynthia Himmel writes this article about her early 90s. Cynthia Himmel writes this article about her experience with celebrities. She got to be around them before they got famous and after they got famous. And she talks about when, before they were famous, they were working hard, they were busing tables just trying to make it in the acting world. And then she says this listen, I pity celebrities, I really do.
Speaker 1:Celebrities were once perfectly pleasant human beings, but now their wrath is awful. You see, they wanted fame, they worked, they pushed and the morning after each was made famous, they wanted to take an overdose, because that giant thing they were striving for, that thing that they thought was going to make everything okay, provided them with personal fulfillment. It happened and nothing changed. They were still themselves. They were still themselves. When the newness ran out, they became insufferable. That is psalm 115, verse 8 perfectly pleasant human beings who worshiped being big time and famous and successful. And when they finally got it, it made them hollow and miserable and successful. And when they finally got it, it made them hollow and miserable and demanding.
Speaker 1:Idolatry is dangerous and deceptive, not only because it fails us externally, but for what it does to us internally. We become like them. And so what are your idols, what are your functional idols this morning that are actually driving your life? And don't just look for the obvious things. Look for actually the virtue and the good things that you've made into idols. And then the question is okay, so I know I have idolatry in my heart, I bow down to these idols, so how do I break free? That's the last point, the cure for idolatry.
Speaker 1:Jesus, god, exposes our idols and then he gives us the cure. Right, idols have mouths but cannot speak, but Jesus speaks, doesn't he? And what does Jesus say to you? Come to me all who are worn out and burdened and full of shame, and I will give rest for your soul, those who are enslaved by busyness. Jesus doesn't say be more active, demand more activity. He invites you to rest. He speaks the words that your soul is desperately wanting to hear. And that is your worth. Doesn't come through endless activities. It comes from who God, through the person of Christ, says that you are and you are already valuable to him.
Speaker 1:Where idols have eyes but cannot see, jesus sees you. Jesus sees you all the way to the bottom, and you know what he sees, what's in here and all of these idols that we've talked about, and the good news of the gospel is he doesn't run away. He actually moves towards and he actually pursues us. Jesus sees past the mask, he sees past the carefully constructed social media post and all the ways we manage our reputation, and he says you're mine, you're my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased. Idols have ears, but can't hear. Jesus says it is finished, that you're approved of that. You're already significant Feet, but cannot walk. Jesus walks back. Idols leave you when the going gets tough. Jesus never leaves you or forsakes you, but walks with you. That doesn't mean you'll never suffer. That means, though, that you'll never face it alone if you belong to him.
Speaker 1:You see, the gospel does address the root cause of our idolatry. That creates it in the first place. Remember it begins with doubt. That creates it in the first place, remember, it begins with doubt. Where is God? You know what the gospel says. He's on a cross. He came down when we needed him the most and he entered into our suffering and he lived for us and he died for our sin and he gives us his perfect righteousness. He defeats the enemies of sin and death. Jesus does not come to shame you. He came to save you from our idolatry that we've created in our hearts. You see, the great thing about Christianity is that we have a God that doesn't take our life. That's what idols do. They take life from you. Jesus gives his life for you. That's what makes Christianity so different from the idols that we serve around us.
Speaker 1:There's a pastor in Richmond, virginia, about 150 years ago, dr Hogue, and he planted two churches, but he lived right in the heart of slavery. He hated slavery, but he married this woman and the dowry was he inherited seven slaves. Immediately when he gets married, he released these seven slaves immediately and sets them free. But what happens next really baffled him. One of the slaves left, but the other six stayed on his property and finally he's kind of frustrated and he's what are you doing? Like, go? You're free, you can go anywhere, you can do anything and no one's going to stop you. And one of the slaves looked at him and says, well, if I can go anywhere and I can be anywhere and do anything, then I would like to stay right here with you.
Speaker 1:And we hear that and we think well, that's odd. No, think about it. They have been treated cruelly their entire life as property, and now they met a man who treated them with honor and dignity and respect. And so in their freedom, they wanted to be near to this man. That is what the gospel holds out to you this morning.
Speaker 1:The gospel promises freedom, not freedom from no masters. That's impossible. You're a human being, you're going to serve someone or something. Christianity comes and offers you true freedom, a master in the Lord Jesus who is so good and so kind and loving that in your freedom you want to be near to him, because no one treats you like he does. You see, that is the key to releasing the idols and dealing with the idols that exist inside of our hearts. It is being captured by the beauty and the glory and the goodness of Jesus.
Speaker 1:You cannot just say stop looking at idols' hearts. You can't just wag your finger at your heart. That will not work. You need something more beautiful. You're going to worship. We need something more beautiful, something better that will melt our hearts and recaption the affection of our hearts and friends. Jesus is so much better and kinder and more beautiful than our idols, the idols that whisper try harder, you're not good enough. Be perfect, stay safe. No, jesus comes and says come, come on, come and find rest in me.
Speaker 1:And so this week you're going to feel it, when you feel that familiar pull towards self-glory and you start wanting to create and manufacture your own significance and glory. Remember the cruelty of idolatry at its heart and also remember that you already have a good master who loves you deeply. Stay near to him. He's the one that your heart is really looking for. Let's pray, father. Thank you for your steadfast love, thank you for your faithfulness. Forgive us for the idols we create in our hearts that we think will deliver. Thank you for not giving up on us, and may we be a place that always cries, not to us, not to us, oh lord, but to you be glory. Show us now, even as we come to this table, that you're a good master who is loving and kind. In Jesus' name, amen.