We were made to worship things. We were made to worship God, and that's where we find
our true joy and our true happiness.
We're talking about idols of the heart, and in the Confessions of Saint Augustine,
you find at the very beginning of his kind of like a diary or an autobiography—that's
really what I would call the Confessions—Augustine writes this, quote,
Greater you, O Lord, and greatly to be praised. Great is your power, and of your wisdom there
is no end. And man, being a part of your creation, desires to praise you. Man,
who bears about with him his mortality, the witness of his sin, even the witness that you
resist the proud. Yet, man, this part of your creation desires to praise you. You move us to
delight in praising you, for you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they
rest in you. And so Augustine, probably a theologian of the heart, might be what I would
call him, understood that our hearts are restless. Our hearts are seeking something. Our hearts are
have a lack of peace until they find their rest in the Lord. And then when we find that rest in
the Lord, we praise him. We were made for praise. We were made to worship things. We were made to
worship God. And that's where we find our true joy and our true happiness. It's interesting that
we have these idols of our heart that get in the way of finding our peace in Christ, in God.
It's interesting to look at what happens to athletes, especially pro athletes who have an
injury or they have to retire. A lot of studies have been done on this. They don't just need a
surgeon for their injury, but they also need a psychologist. They need counselors. Because when
that athlete realizes it's over, the career is over, they're not going to ever be able to compete
at the level that they once competed again because of this injury or because of retirement.
A lot of these guys go through major depression. They go through major despair and anxiety in their
life because you see their identity, their purpose. The reason for living was to be a pro athlete, was
to be great at their sport, and now it's all taken away. That's an example of an idol of the heart.
People who lose their spouse either through a divorce or through a sudden death. Husbands and
wives really struggle with the loss of their spouse. Again, I'm not saying this is necessarily
an idol of the heart because you're grieving. I'm talking about those who just despair.
They just can't get over it. That's an idol in their heart because it's a misplaced, as I said
in my message before this, it's a misplaced love. Maybe the best way to describe it is
taking a good thing and honoring it in our lives versus taking a good thing and making it the
ultimate thing in our life. I think that's the difference. I would say the difference between
taking a good thing and honoring it in our lives because vocation is something we should honor and
we should work hard at our vocation. Finances is really important and it's a big part of our lives
for sure. Our spouse and our marriage is very important, but it's taking a good thing and making
it the ultimate thing. That's an idol of our heart. David Foster Wallace, considered one of the great
writers of, I would say, the last 25 years. He died in 2008, so this would be in the 80s, 90s,
and into the 2000s. His posthumous novel, The Pale King, which was published in 2011,
was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2012. He committed suicide at 46 years of age.
He was asked in 2005 to do the commencement speech to the graduating class at Kenyon
College. I want to read a portion of this commencement because I think David Foster
Wallace, who considered himself an atheist or an agnostic, had this one section of the commencement
speech that's noteworthy. Listen to what he says.
The day-to-day trenches of adult life, there's actually no such thing as atheism, which by
the way, I'll just stop there and say that since this commencement speech was given way
back in 2005 and then it was reprinted on different websites and stuff, atheists really
got sideways over this.
They didn't like what he had to say, but let me read it again and then you'll understand
where I'm going with this as I read this part of his speech.
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there's actually no such thing as atheism.
There's no such thing as not worshiping something.
Everybody worships.
The only choice we get is what we worship.
And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God, he has a small g, some sort
of God or spiritual type thing to worship, be it Jesus Christ or Allah, be it Yahweh
or the Wiccan Mother Goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some inviolable set of ethical principles.
This is important.
Let's know what he says next.
Is that pretty much anything else you worship is going to eat you alive.
If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then
you will never have enough and never feel that you have enough.
Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly.
And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve
you.
You worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid and you will need ever more
power over others to numb you to your own fears.
Worship your intellect.
Being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being
found out.
But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful.
It's that they are unconscious.
They are the default settings.
Now, I don't know what was happening in David Foster Wallace's life when he gave that 2005
commencement that would lead three years later to committing suicide.
At the young age of 46, I read a little bit on him and he did struggle a lot with depression
his whole life and he was taking some medications for that.
So probably more to it than we know.
This was on to something.
And I think it makes some people very uncomfortable because what he's talking about is idols of
our heart.
He's talking about false gods in your heart that, as he says, we worship money and things,
they're going to eat you alive.
That's what he's saying.
If it's the worship of your body and beauty and sexual allure, it's going to eat you alive.
And he seems to be saying there's something greater here that you can find meaning from.
And the first name he mentions is Jesus Christ.
And it's sad that Wallace never discovered what that was and never discovered a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ.
But you can.
Do you have a vital, dynamic, growing, personal, powerful, intimate relationship with the creator
of the universe, Jesus Christ?
We put him first.
We love him with all of our heart.
We love him with all of our soul.
It's in loving God with all of our heart that we find the greatest reason for the heart
that we have.
It's the heart that gives us peace, and it's the heart where the power of God is.
And that comes through loving him.
And Augustine got it right.
Our hearts are restless.
Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Christ, in him.
I challenge you to dethrone the idols of your heart.
Not take them out of your life completely.
Not at all.
Not saying that.
If we're married, we're supposed to really love our spouse and our children.
If we are in a vocation, I hope you love your vocation, enjoy it.
We are to make money.
I think we're supposed to—the mandate of Genesis 1, 27, 28, 29 is to have dominion on
the earth.
So I believe we're supposed to have dominion.
But misplaced dominion becomes an idol in our heart.
And so I challenge you right now to surrender to Christ if you've never done that.
Surrender everything to him.
If you have gone through a life of some pretty major failures, if you're at a place in your
life where you know that, man, I can't keep living this way, it could be an addiction
to alcohol.
It could be—
be an addiction to a woman or a man,
could be an addiction to a religion,
it could be an addiction to your job.
I don't know what it is, but I know Christ wants your heart.
And you're going to be restless
and continue to be restless
until you surrender everything to Him.
So would you do that today?
Right now, would you surrender
the idols of your heart to Christ
and say, God, I don't know how to change these things,
but you do.
I don't know how to make you first in my life,
but you know how to do that.
So I invite you into my life
to become the passion of my life,
become everything that I'm living for.
Because you say that if I'll seek first the kingdom of God,
everything will be added.
Things will fall into line.
Remember the thesis that I shared with you
the last time we were together,
and it was this idea that if you line up your heart with God,
God will line up your life with Him.
And that's what you're searching for is power and peace
and joy in Christ, not in this world, but in our heart.
So wherever you are, if you're driving,
don't bow your head and close your eyes.
But wherever you are, I just ask you to pray with me
this prayer to surrender everything to Christ.
Lord Jesus, I need you.
I give you my heart.
I surrender my heart to you.
Lord, I have had these idols in my life
that have been more important to me than you are.
I surrender that to you.
And I ask you, Lord, to be number one.
I ask you, Lord, to be the most important thing in my life.
I surrender my whole life to you.
Take it, develop it, move me where you want me to be.
Give me passion for you.
In your name, I pray.
Jesus Christ, I pray.
Amen.
Go after Jesus.
All I can say is after doing this for 45 years
of following Christ, I can tell you it's completely worth it.
Nothing compares with it.
It's where our security, our significance, our purpose,
and our first love comes from.
God bless you.