Let's go ahead and go to the word Hosea chapter
13. We're gonna kinda wind down this series.
This is the, next week will be the final installment
from Hosea. Me and my wife are heading out to
Uganda on Thursday. Like heading out to Uganda
like it's down the street or something, right?
Yeah. We are excited about that. And at the end,
once we're all wrapped up and closed, we'll be
up here at the front and just ask anyone who's
interested or who's moved to come pray for us
because we're going on behalf of Village. We're
bringing the love of the community to the people
of Uganda and to see if this opportunity is.
a right for us to support and pour our heart
and resources into. And so we definitely appreciate
the prayers of sending from Village. But let's
move forward. Hosea chapter 13, Nick will be
preaching next week. Hosea 14 to wrap it all
up. We will miss two Sundays. Our hearts will
be with you even as we're away. But Nick will
be preaching next week. And so excited for him
to kind of close up the series. Hosea chapter
13, beginning in verse one. When Ephraim spoke,
there was trembling. He was exalted in Israel,
but he incurred guilt through Baal and died.
Now they continue to sin and make themselves
a cast image, idols skillfully made from their
silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. People
say about them. Let the men who sacrifice kiss
the calves Therefore they will be like the morning
mist like the early dew that vanishes like chaff
blown from a threshing floor or like smoke from
a window I Have been the Lord your God ever since
the land of Egypt You know no God, but me and
no Savior exists beside me I knew you in the
wilderness, in the land of drought. When they
had pasture, they became satisfied and they were
satisfied and their hearts became proud and therefore
they forgot me. So I will be like a lion to them.
I will lurk like a leopard on the path. I will
attack them like a bear robbed of her cubs and
tear open the rib cage over their hearts. I will
devour them like a lioness, like a wild beast
that would rip them open. This is God's word.
It's cheery, right? It's always the hardest thing
to end there and you're like, okay, I know you're
gonna talk about a lot of things before we talk
about that, but can we talk about that right
now? I kind of want to know what that meant.
We'll get there, okay? How many guys have heard
the phrase, follow your heart? Follow your heart.
I mean, whether every Disney movie you can imagine
or every self -help book that's on the shelf.
every inspirational Instagram post, they all
seem to echo the same message. Just trust your
heart and it will lead you to your truest, bestest
self. But what if that advice is terrible? What
if our hearts aren't reliable guides but are
actually broken compasses? And what do I mean
by heart, right? If I say, follow your heart,
we're obviously not talking about the physical
muscle that's hopefully kind of beating in your
chest, praise God. You might even think in the
case of Disney that we're talking about the mere
human desire or passion. But actually the heart
as it's used in the Bible describes the whole
inner person, the entire inner person, their
mind and their understanding, their will. and
intentions, their emotions and desires, and then
all of that and their orientation either toward
God or away from God, toward God or in rebellion
against God. That's the heart as it's used in
the Bible. And so what does the Bible say? Well,
in one passage in the Bible talking about the
heart, it says the heart is more deceitful than
anything else and incurable who can understand
it. The heart is more deceitful than anything
else and incurable who can understand it. The
will and mind and understanding and intentions
and emotions and desires either oriented toward
devotion toward God or in rebellion against God.
The heart is more deceitful than anything in
incurable. One version or one translation says
the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. Who can discern it? The reformer John
Calvin once said that the human heart is a perpetual
idle factory. It's a perpetual idle factory.
And that's really where we're gonna kind of sit
today. And what he meant is that our hearts are
continually churning out things to worship, things
to trust, and things to serve. If it isn't money,
then it's success. And if it's not success, then
it's relationships or romance. If it's not romance,
it's politics or approval or comfort. And what
we do is we take good things and we turn them
into ultimate things. They become objects of
worship that we expect to save us from meaninglessness,
to save us from fear or save us from dissatisfaction
or guilt or shame, but they can only disappoint.
And not only that, that passage we just, quoted,
it says that it's deceitful. The heart is deceitful.
And so we don't only make it an ultimate thing
and we do all those things, but we convince ourselves
that our desires and our thoughts and our intentions
are right, good, and even justified. Anyone tracking?
You can think of it like this. Our heart is like
a GPS with a broken satellite. Instead of leading
us home, it can send us down a dead end or into
a lake somewhere or a dangerous neighborhood
or Bakersfield. How do we get out of here quickly?
You could imagine that. It's like your heart
is like a factory with a conveyor belt, right?
And every day the human heart pumps out new shiny
idols. And there's something like this, if I
only had that job, dot, dot, dot. Or if I only
had that relationship, or if I only had that
recognition, and we bow to each new product that
comes off the conveyor belt like it's going to
save us if we just have it until the next one
rolls off the assembly line. And that's what
Hosea is confronting in chapter 13, because Israel,
The nation of Israel never stopped worshiping,
but they did trade the worship of the true, living
God for golden calves. They traded the worship
of the true, living God for political alliances
or for foreign gods. They followed their hearts,
their mind, their will, their understanding,
their desires, and their hearts led them straight
to ruin. And you know, we're not that different,
right? Our idols may not be made out of carved
wood or stone or overlaid with gold or silver,
but our idols are real and our idols are just
as destructive. Kind of as an outline, I'll give
four points over the course of the time today.
If you're taking notes, the first one is when
we trust substitutes, we self -destruct. When
Hosea opens in chapter 13, he reminds Israel
of where they once were. And he starts with,
when Ephraim spoke, and Ephraim is one of the
tribes and kind of synonymous in Hosea with Israel,
the whole nation. And so when you hear Israel
or Ephraim, they're talking about the northern
kingdom, Israel. It says, when Ephraim spoke,
there was trembling. He was exalted in Israel,
but he incurred guilt through Baal and died In
other words Israel was once strong once respected
once a blessed nation with the hand of God on
them But something changed something happened
They gave their hearts to substitutes They gave
their hearts over to substitute. And it's tragic
if you actually think about it, because the story
of Israel is a story of rescue and redemption.
Israel, who is slaves in Egypt, but the Lord
God, by his miraculous power, calls them out
of Egypt and delivers them. And not only does
he deliver them in a way that only he could do,
no human could take credit for it, but then he
takes them, he leads them out into the wilderness.
And while they're in the wilderness, provides
for them and leads them through the wilderness
journey. a fire by night, a pillar of cloud by
day, going with his people and providing. And
through all of that craziness, he brings them
to a land that he promised them, a place where
they could dwell and a place where he would dwell
among them and be their God and they would be
his people. And they would live in a covenantal
relationship. a relationship with the one true,
living, holy Creator God. But like every relationship,
there are terms and stipulations on the covenantal
relationship. And these terms and stipulations,
they explain what loyalty to the relationship
looks like. This is what loyalty looks like in
this relationship. You might think of them similar
to vows, right? To have and to hold, in sickness
and in health, till death do us part. This is
a vow. a stipulation, a term of the covenant,
what relational faithfulness requires. And so
in the 10 commandments or the 10 sayings, as
they come out of Egypt and the Lord delivers
to them his word, you have the 10 commandments
given to Israel. And Israel was given 10 commandments,
four of them. are terms of the covenant related
to relational loyalty to God. What does relational
loyalty to God in worship look like? And then
there are six terms or stipulations, commandments
that are given that concern God's requirement
on his people for faithfulness toward one another.
So God's covenant was not just about a vertical
relationship with him. but that vertical relationship
would flow out into relationship with one another.
And so he gave four commands or stipulations,
terms, for what that looked like vertically,
and then six for what that looked like in family,
in life, in marriage, in property, in truth telling,
and in contentment. I don't know why I added
a TH at the end. That was weird. And the first
two of those terms, the first two of those sayings
in the 10 commandments, Exodus chapter 20, read
like this. It says, then God spoke all these
words. I am the Lord your God who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of
slavery. And here's the first term, stipulation,
commandment. Do not have other gods beside me.
What does relational faithfulness look like?
It means you do not have other gods besides me.
In marriage, you might say you don't cheat. You
remain faithful to this marriage. That's a stipulation
of the covenant. And then in verse four of 20,
it says, do not make an idol for yourself, whether
in the shape of anything in the heavens above
or on the earth below in the waters under the
earth, do not bow in worship to them and do not
serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous
God, bringing the consequences of the father's
iniquity on the children to the third and fourth
generation of those who hate me, but showing
faithful love to a thousand generations of those
who love me and keep my commandments. What does
relational faithfulness look like in this covenant
with the God who delivered them? Have no other
gods beside me Don't make things out of created
things that substitute for me that stand in for
me And so what did a Israel do Well, they did
exactly what they're not supposed to do They
exchanged the God of the covenant the God who
saved them for images that they could see and
that they could touch images and for wicked and
evil alliances with nations that they could bargain
with And Hosea says it kind of plainly in verse
2 he says they kissed the calves They kissed
the calves. In other words, they had erected
golden statues or calves, like little trinkets,
like idols. What you would think of as an idol
is probably a physical item, right? Something
you would put up on a shelf somewhere and worship,
right? Well, Israel had done that. They had created
these golden statues, golden calves made out
of precious metals and set up worship of these
calves in two cities, in Bethel and in Dan. In
the northern kingdom and they bowed down to them,
but they not only bowed down they would kiss
these idols as They worshiped as a pledge of
their affection a pledge of their allegiance
to it When we put our trust in substitutes we
don't just dishonor God, but we destroy ourselves
as well Hosea says that Israel went from exaltation
among the nations to death They trusted their
idols for protection They went to other nations
believing that these wicked nations would provide
them protection or bring prosperity they trusted
these other things and In the end these other
things just hollowed them out and made them empty
Again John Calvin the reformer once said that
the evil in our desire typically does not lie
in what we want But that we want it too much
It's just another way of saying we make good
things ultimate things and those ultimate when
they become ultimate things they destroy us And
that was Israel's story Wanting security is not
wrong, right? I Locked my doors most nights We
live in the hills and I have a shotgun next to
my bed But I locked the doors most nights Wanting
security is not wrong but making security ultimate
Whether through idol worship or military power
or some political deal that you You made well
that that led them to ruin You imagine someone
who keeps treating cough drops like their food
You wake up in the morning. It's like I gotta
have my breakfast a couple cough drops There's
lunchtime a couple more cough drops, right? Could
you imagine what's going on in that stomach?
Don't like that's gross But those cough drops
might might kind of Curb the edge off of your
hunger and make you feel like something's happening
like you can keep going but a couple days into
your cough drop diet And you're gonna be in a
pretty bad way a Then a few days later, you're
gonna be a really bad way and pretty soon you're
gonna be dead, I assume. Someone try it and let
us know. Just kidding. They may fill your life
and fill your stomach, but you know what? Cough
drops can't sustain your life. Israel, in a sense,
was filling up with cough drops. trying to provide
for themselves when bread of life, real bread
was available to them and they kept rejecting
it. And for a while, man, it gave the appearance
of sustained energy. It gave the appearance of
prosperity, the heydays of Israel, but in the
end it destroyed them because substitutes always
self -destruct. They look powerful, but they
cannot save. They look safe, but they collapse
under the pressure. They look fulfilling, but
they leave you starving. So when we trust in
substitutes, we self -destruct. And number two,
if you're taking notes, idols then and idols
now. It's easy to read Hosea 13 and think, well,
that was Israel's problem. Too bad for them,
right? We don't bow down to golden calves anymore.
We don't put trinkets on the shelf and kiss them
on our way out the door, do we? But the Bible
says that idolatry isn't just an ancient issue,
but it is actually alive in our hearts. There's
a story that comes out of Ezekiel chapter 14.
In Ezekiel 14, a group of Israel's elders They
come to the prophet Ezekiel and it looks like
they're doing the right religious activity. They're
coming to the prophet Ezekiel and they're inquiring
of the Lord. That's why they've come. And it's
interesting because they come doing the right
thing, to inquire of the Lord by the prophet.
But the script gets flipped and God's like, no,
no, no, no, no. Instead of giving them the guidance
that they were seeking, God exposes them by saying
this. He said, these men, have set up idols in
their hearts, and they put the stumbling block
of their iniquity before their faces. You can
hear it there. Idolatry isn't just external.
It's not just an idol you put on the shelf or
even just a car, right, or a house or a physical
item that you might bow down and worship to.
But idolatry, idolatry of the heart, it's internal.
We may not kiss carved calves, but our hearts,
our factories constantly turning out new things
for us to serve. Paul picks this up in Colossians,
actually. Listen to what Paul says in Colossians
chapter three, verse five. He says, put to death
greed. You go, okay, put to death greed. And
what's the next part that he says? Put to death
greed Which is idolatry? Well, greed's not an
idol you put on yourself. It's not a physical
thing that you have out there. It's something
that starts where? Here. Greed is idolatry. And
it's an idolatry of the heart. And Paul continues
in Philippians chapter three, 19. He describes
some people as, they make their stomach their
god. And they glory in their shame. The point
is that idolatry is whenever something created
takes the Creator's place at the center of our
lives. Whenever something created takes the Creator's
place at the center of our lives. Our idols don't
sit on shelves usually, but sometimes they sit
on our schedules. Sometimes they sit in our bank
accounts. Sometimes they sit in our relationships.
And they might look like success when our career
defines our worth. Or relationships, when a relationship
becomes an ultimate comfort or security or joy
in our life. When comfort when the pleasure that
we seek or the ease that we want becomes the
thing we can't live without. Me time. Politics.
When we look to a leader or an ideology or a
party as our ultimate hope, man, we're hopeless
unless so -and -so gets in there. Or maybe it's
our image. When when likes and approval dictate
who we are. The novelist and essayist David Foster
Wallace, who wasn't a Christian, he once said,
everybody worships. The only choice we get is
what to worship. That's what I said about Israel.
Israel never stopped worshiping because no one
ever stops worshiping. We're always worshiping.
We are worshiping creatures. But the choice that
we get is, what are we worshiping or who? Whatever
you worship other than God will eventually consume
you. If you worship success, what will success
demand of you? Well, it'll demand endless hours.
Endless hours until you burn out. If you worship
at the altar of relationships, you will be crushed
when that person disappoints you and fails you,
won't you? If you worship at the altar of comfort,
comfort will make you soft and anxious and feel
empty inside. You ever binged like Netflix at
the end felt like you'd worked a job or something?
More Netflix, I guess. I'm taking a vacation
from my vacation. And certainly politics doesn't
divide us, right? Politics has never made anyone
bitter or unloving toward anyone else, right?
Ever. And approval, man, approval, the seeking
of approval will enslave you. It'll enslave you
to people who don't even know who you are. and
don't even care to know who you are. Our idols,
they don't always look like statues, do they?
But they're just as deadly, and they promise
life, but they only drain us of it. So, number
three, if you're taking notes, the third point
I'll have you write down is God's love won't
share the throne. Hosea chapter 13 and verse
four records God's reminder to his people. I
have been the Lord your God ever since the land
of Egypt. You know, no God but me and besides
me there is no savior. The Bible often describes
God as jealous. And jealous is one of those words
that when we hear it with our ears, it almost
always has kind of a negative connotation to
it. Jealousy. like insecurity or envy, right?
But when scripture calls God jealous, it means
that his love is so fierce and so committed and
so exclusive and so faithful that he refuses
to share our hearts with false gods that will
destroy us. You think of it this way, if a husband
or wife is indifferent, When their spouse gives
their heart away to someone else, that's not
love, is it? Oh, I don't care. True love says,
man, I won't share you. I will fight for you.
And that's what God is saying to Israel. His
jealousy is not about his ego. It's about our
protection. He knows that idols devour, and he
won't stand by while his people are consumed
by them. Let's see, as Lewis once said, that
idols always break the hearts of their worshipers.
You can't have a relationship with an idol and
think, maybe this one will work out. They always
break your heart. And God knows this. And his
jealousy is his way of saying, I won't let that
happen without a fight. In Hosea chapter 13 and
seven and eight, God uses these kind of that
aggressive language. Remember back at the beginning
where we landed, God says that he will be like
a lion, a leopard, a bear robbed of her cubs.
Those sound terrifying, right? Because they are
like we, where I live. we have what are called
mountain lions or big cats that aren't nice and
Anytime I have to leave Sunday morning Usually
I'm leaving before the Sun is up and anytime
I have to leave before the Sun is up or anytime
I get home When the Sun is down like I get that
flashlight out and I check as I'm walking in
or walking out to the car Because you just never
know what's around bears mountain lions like
And you wouldn't even, well, a mountain lion,
you probably wouldn't even know it's around.
Not until it's got its nice little jaw around
your neck, right? But that's a ferocious image
of a lion or a leopard or a bear who has had
her cubs ripped from her. What's she gonna do?
It's terrifying. She's coming after you. She's
going to wreak havoc, right? When God sees his
people Clinging to idols that lead to death He
will tear those idols away from them even if
it hurts Because he loves and won't let go Because
he's faithful And when God confronts our idols
it's not because he's cruel Or because he wants
to deprive us of life or joy. It's because he's
merciful His jealousy is not to deprive us, but
it's to deliver us from that which would crush
us and he won't share the throne of our hearts
with anyone because he knows he is the only one
who is worthy of it. He is the only one who is
strong enough to stand up under the expectation
and wait. He is the only one of character who
will not fail or let you down. He's the only
one that you can lean fully into and not fall.
And so the final point is that idols must be
dethroned in our lives, not managed. If idols
are destructive and God's love won't share the
throne, then what are we supposed to do? Well,
the answer is that idols can't just be managed.
They must be overthrown in our lives. You can
think of idols like weeds. We planted a garden
at our house. We have a section of our property
and and we got all gung -ho one year and we went
out and and we we went to town and got that thing
ready and got it looking pretty and we set up
the The electric fence so that none of the critters
would get in there and destroy our beautiful
garden and we planted everything and got it all
set up and then Like you realize oh this thing
takes work Like, I thought you plant, you set
it up and then, woo! Harvest time, right? No,
it takes work. You gotta be out there all the
time. You gotta be like a parent defending that
thing. Because everything on earth is coming
against it. Including weeds. Weeds just growing
up everywhere. And you know with weeds, we got
a lot of them around our property. You can pull
out the weed eater and cut them down, right?
But you know what happens? They come right back,
little stinkers. You can trim them back. You
can pour a bunch of mulch on top of them and
try to hide them under the mulch. You know what
happens? Pop up through the mulch. That's a lot
harder to weed than other things. But if you
want to get rid of weeds, You got to pull them
up from the roots. And idols are like weeds.
If you don't pull them up from the root, they
will choke out everything else in your life.
And that's why Hosea says in the next chapter
that Nick will be preaching on next week, return
to the Lord your God, take words with you and
return to the Lord. Say to him, forgive all our
sins and receive us graciously back. because
the call is not to negotiate with your idols
so they can find a nice little place in your
life to share the throne with God. But the negotiation
isn't that, it's to repent and return, to dethrone
them, to pull them up from the roots and not
let them have a place at all. And so how do you
topple idols in your life? Well, it starts with
diagnosing whether you have them or what they
are first. And so here's four questions that
you should ask yourself, even today. Number one,
what do I daydream about when my mind drifts?
What do I daydream about when my mind drifts?
Man, if I only had that. Man, if my life looked
like this. Man, if I could just achieve that,
I'd be something. What do you daydream about?
Number two like what if I lost it would make
me feel like my life Wasn't worth it anymore
What if I lost it would make me feel like my
life wasn't worth it anymore Whatever is behind
that curtain might be an idol in your heart or
What do I sacrifice most for What do I sacrifice
my time most for what do I sacrifice my money
or my energy most for that might be an idol in
your life Or what makes me the most anxious angry
or bitter when it's threatened That might be
an idol And those are four really good diagnostic
questions, but if you want to go 2 .0 on the
diagnostic questions Ask someone else who's close
to you those same questions about yourself and
let them answer them. And you probably get pretty
quickly to the idols. And those questions, what
they do is they expose our functional saviors.
It's all an idol is, a functional savior. They
name the golden calves that we kiss in our hearts.
But repentance is not just subtracting, but it's
also replacing You can't just take them out You
have to replace them with something Tim Keller
said that idols can't simply be removed They
must be replaced because you can't just tell
your heart stop loving that Can you anyone tried
that? Stop loving that You can't just tell your
heart stop loving that because your heart has
a void and it needs a greater love to displace
the false love that you had before. Your heart
needs a greater love. The cure for idols is not
sheer willpower, but deeper worship, deeper revelation
of God directing your trust and affection to
the living God who alone can save you. And that's
why Hosea 13 -4 says, besides me, there is no
savior because money won't save you. and relationships
or romance won't save you. Friends won't save
you. Comfort won't save you. Your own strength,
you can't save yourself. But who can save? Only
God in Christ, who gave his life for you, can
save you. And so the call today is not simply
to name your idols, but to topple them and to
dethrone them by enthroning Jesus Christ in your
hearts. Because the novelist I talked about earlier,
David Foster Wallace, he wasn't a Christian,
but he saw something with clarity when he said,
everyone worships. The only choice we get is
what to worship. And then he continued on to
say he wasn't a believer and he was talking about
all the kind of world religions and he was kind
of assessing them as an atheist. And he said,
an outstanding reason for choosing some sort
of God is that pretty much anything else you
worship will eat you alive. Anything else you
worship will eat you alive. And he was right.
If you worship money, you'll always feel like
you don't have enough. If you worship beauty,
that you'll never be good enough, look good enough,
young enough, thin enough, whatever it is. If
you worship power, then you will be terrified
of losing control. If you worship your intellect,
you'll always feel insecure, like you're one
step away from being exposed as a fraud. It says
that idols don't just let you down. They end
up devouring you like a lion. They consume the
people who trust in them. And that's what idols
do. They take and take and take until there's
nothing left of you. And God, he will work through
the devouring and the destruction that idols
bring into our lives. He will be at work in them
in order to loosen the grip that they have on
our hearts. He will work through that process
of losing and being destroyed and devoured. He
will work so that we might have space and room
to replace them with something that is genuine
and true, something that is solid and will save
us. And that is himself and himself alone. Idols
will demand your sacrifice to keep them alive,
but God in Christ became the sacrifice so that
you could live. Idols will condemn you when you
fail, but God in Christ forgives you when you
fail. Idols enslave you with endless demands,
but God in Christ sets you free with the finished
work of Jesus on the cross. Idols devour, but
God in Christ was devoured in his death for you
and me. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. The
good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep.
Idols will tear you apart in order to keep themselves
going. But Jesus let himself be torn apart so
that you could be made whole. And here's the
thing. No idol. has ever died for its worshipers.
But Jesus Christ has. And the choice that was
put before us from Hosea is will you keep kissing
the calves? Will you keep trusting in the counterfeits
that promise much but in the end bring ruin?
Or will you topple those idols and begin to trust
the shepherd who alone can save? Friends, I would
say don't walk out of here clutching the very
thing that will destroy you. Don't keep feeding
your soul to idols that will eat you alive. There
is a savior who loves you too much to share you
with counterfeits. And his arms are open, his
cross is more than enough, and his life is yours
if you will but turn and trust him today. Everybody
worships, but who or what will you worship? Maybe
you struggle with the idol of opinion. Your opinion
is ultimate. And when other people don't recognize
that, it kind of crushes you, throws you for
a loop, spins you out. Maybe you worship at the
altar of significance. I know that was one that
I had to put to death. When I was younger, I
thought, you're not something unless your name's
published somewhere. Unless there's a story to
be told about what you did. I was big into history.
That kinda screwed me up. I'm like, I wanna be
in some history book somewhere. And so I really
thought, unless I'm not significant if my name's
not somewhere. And so my whole plan was as I
hit teenage years and getting into young adult
was I was going to go into the Marines I was
going to go fight and hopefully someone would
throw a grenade and I could throw myself on top
of it and I could save a bunch of people and
Then maybe my name would be somewhere And I just
surrender that idol to the Lord when it became
clear that I'm not a Marine. So I switched to
saving someone from a car wreck or something,
right? Jumping in front of a train, but that
hasn't happened yet, no. No, you surrender that
idol and you say, you know what? I'm okay with
being nothing. I'm okay with being forgotten
in the dustbin of history and being nothing.
If only. I can play a small part in making your
name great, whatever that is. That idol had to
be put to death. Maybe your idol is your image.
You are scared to death that people are going
to see something about you that you've been carefully
curating away. It's an idol. You don't have to
leave clinging to it today. Surrender it to Jesus.
He's more than enough, amen.