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We're all searching for peace in our heart.

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We're searching for happiness and joy in our life.

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And so the Bible talks a lot about the heart.

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So we could argue that 70%, 70% of the Bible is about the heart.

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One of the themes that has come up over the last 10 years

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in my ministry of working with men especially has been the issues of the heart.

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And the heart of the issue of the heart is kind of my thesis today

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because the Bible says more about the heart than anything else.

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So one might think that the Bible is about salvation

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and that's part of the aspect of the Bible that would be considered

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one of the themes of the Bible for sure.

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We could say that in the ministry of Jesus, the kingdom of God was his theme.

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We could say that the law is one of the themes of the Old Testament in the scriptures.

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But what ties it all together is the heart and God's view of the heart,

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how the heart is the perspective in which God reveals himself.

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He reveals himself primarily in the heart.

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So even though God reveals himself partly through creation,

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he's really speaking to the heart of men and women.

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So when I've talked to men, the tendency especially with men

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is to focus on the exterior, the outward aspects of manhood or masculinity,

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marriage, family, vocation, calling.

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All those things are important.

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They really are important.

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But where I like to go with men especially is the heart

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because if you don't get a man's heart, then it doesn't really matter the external stuff.

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And it's true with women too.

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And I've had the privilege of speaking to women about femininity, about relationships,

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about their own unique struggles in the ways of women relationally.

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I find with women that marriage and children are a big part of their journey.

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Their relationships are really important to them.

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And a lot of women feel like that they're not enough in their outward beauty,

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that they're not enough in their relationships.

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I know lots of moms that struggle with being not enough as a wife and as a mother.

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And man, I totally get that as much as a guy can get that.

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And I know with men, it's that feeling of not being strong enough,

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not being, not making enough money.

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But all those things are outward.

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Those are all the outward manifestations.

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And what I want to do in this series is talk about the importance of the heart

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and that the heart is really the issue.

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And I'm going to be talking about the idols of the heart too

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and how we set up idols to satisfy this longing within all of us

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to find joy, happiness, peace, grace.

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We're all looking for that.

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I don't care whether you're a Hindu in India or Pakistan,

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whether you're a Muslim in Egypt

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or whether you're a Christian in Europe and America,

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we're all searching for peace in our heart.

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We're searching for happiness and joy in our life.

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And so the Bible talks a lot about the heart.

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So we could argue that 70%, 70% of the Bible is about the heart.

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We look at the passages of scripture in the Old Testament with the prophets.

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They were going after the heart and they were talking about the heart

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and they were talking about idols.

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Jesus in the New Testament being challenged by the Pharisees and the scribes

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at one point, which is depicted in Mark 12 and in Matthew 22,

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a scribe says to Jesus, what is the greatest commandment?

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And the context of that text, of that pericope

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is looking for some kind of an answer about outward behavior.

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And Jesus throws a wrench in the whole argument by saying this.

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He says, look, all of the law and all of the prophets,

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everything that you're looking for is summed up this way.

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Love the Lord your God with all of your heart,

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with all of your soul, with all of your mind and with all of your strength.

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If you do this, then you will love your neighbor as yourself.

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These two commandments sum it all up.

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Jesus went straight to the heart.

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And we're going to look at that in this series.

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Even in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7,

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where Jesus says,

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Jesus throws the whole sacrificial system,

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the legal system on its head by saying

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that it's not these outward things

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that are the most important.

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It's actually the attitude of your heart.

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It's actually the direction of your heart.

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The heart of the issue is the heart.

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And my thesis is this,

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is that the heart of the issue is the heart,

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but get your heart lined up with God.

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If you get your heart lined up with God,

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God will line up the rest of your life.

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If you line up your heart with God,

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God will then come and line up your life with him.

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One of the most important doctrines

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that many have talked about over the years

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has been creation,

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and creation doctrine is really important.

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Another great doctrine is the doctrine of salvation.

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Salvation is very important.

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Many have talked about the doctrine

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of the sovereignty of God.

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And so I took systematic theology in graduate school,

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and I have a thick book by Wayne Grudem, about that thick.

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And then I have another one by Burkoff,

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and then I have another one by another author,

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three books on systematic theology.

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Beautiful, man, I just love reading those books.

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But here's what's interesting.

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I think, and I think many theologians would agree with this,

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that the most important doctrine

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actually is not the existence of God.

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It's not the importance of the Bible.

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It's not creation.

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It's actually the doctrine of sin.

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The doctrine of sin is huge.

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It's probably the one doctrine that is the easiest to prove.

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All you have to do is look around,

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face the earth, and everybody's pretty darn sinful,

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and gone their own way.

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So this doctrine of sin, as a central doctrine,

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is probably the most important doctrine of all,

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because you don't really have any need

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for a doctrine of creation.

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Why would God create the heavens and the earth?

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You don't need a doctrine of the Bible,

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because why do we need the Bible?

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Because of sin.

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I mean, sin's the most important part

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of why we have the doctrine of creation, the Bible.

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The existence of man.

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We came to this earth, and we rebelled against God.

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And so the cross, and the life, death,

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and resurrection of Christ,

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all centers around this idea of our heart,

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and the fact that we have a sinful heart,

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and that we've all rebelled against God.

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And that's the big struggle.

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Today, I wanna talk about this idea

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of the idols of the heart,

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and the battle for the idols in our life

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that we struggle with.

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And so I wanna ask this question.

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What is the one thing that, if you lost it,

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would cause you to lose the will to live?

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Or if you lost it, it would almost,

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if not completely, drain you

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of all your desire to live life?

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That's a big question.

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That's the question, I think, of the idols of our heart.

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And I wanna propose that all of us have something.

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Nobody's perfect in this arena,

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but all of us have something

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that is a little bit misplaced in our heart

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that we think about, that we focus on,

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and in the order of importance,

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it becomes an idol in our heart.

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And it's not a bad thing.

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I'm not talking about a bad thing.

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I'm talking about actually good things,

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good things in our life that become within us

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kind of an idol of our heart.

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I wanna encourage you to read a book

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called The Confessions by St. Augustine.

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I brought the book with me, and I'm reading this right now.

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I'm reading The Confessions of St. Patrick,

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and I'm also reading The Confessions of St. Augustine.

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Both of them focus in on the heart

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and the importance of the heart in our lives.

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In this series, I'm gonna talk about this idol of the heart

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and why that's so vital and dynamic in our life

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in knowing God, in loving God with all of our heart.

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In the next few sessions,

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I'm gonna be talking about idols,

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what kind of idols get raised up in our life,

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and with those idols comes with it a distance from God

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that gets our life a little bit out of order.

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So in the next talk,

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I wanna talk about the idols of the heart.

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♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

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♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪