“Overcoming The Enemy: The Battle For The Heart”
2/14/2010 Proverbs 4:13-23 I John 2:13-17
We have been looking at ways the enemy attempts to destroy our lives, Today is Valentine’s Day and it is filled with talk of love. Some of you will be celebrating the gift of love found in your marriages and rightfully so. You have a reason to celebrate. Unfortunately, the love that accompanies Valentine’s Day will end up as a victory for Satan and defeat, for some of our lives. For our desire for romance will cause and has caused some of us to already , open the door for the enemy into our lives. That little red fellow with the bow and arrow has probably done in just as many people at the little red fellow with the pitchfork on Vatentine’s Day and weekend.
How many of you know that love will make you lose your mind? Love will cause you to see things that just are not there? Love will take even a bright intelligent person and cause them to make some of the dumbest decisions you ever seen anyone make. How many of you know it’s not necessarily a good thing when someone tells you, “you are just too in love.”
I want you to know that love is one of the tactics that Satan uses to destroy our lives. For Satan knows that if he can get our hearts attached to the wrong thing, he does not have to worry about us growing in our relationship to God. Satan does not mind us loving God, as long as we love something else just a little bit more.
The real battle ground for our spiritual well being takes place in the heart. Proverbs 4:22 says, “above all else, guard you heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Notice it did not say, here’s one more think to consider. It says, above all else, guard your heart.” I have seen people in the church try to get serious about serving God, and Satan sends a nice person, his or her way, and because they did not take this verse seriously, their hearts led them right out of the church. When our hearts latch on to someone or something, it is not easy to let it go.
In the Old Testament people worshipped idols. Idols were things people looked to get an edge in life. People felt, if I give myself to this, in the long run its going to help me get ahead, or get to something in life I really want. It was almost like having a little god in your back pocket that you could pull out to use against others. Idols steal our hearts, and we grow dependent upon them and start thinking we can’t do without them. We come to think of them as just being a normal part of our everyday living.
God sees an idol for what it truly is. An idol is anything that causes our hearts to push God back to number 2, 3, 4, 10 or whatever spot in our lives. That is why the first commandment of the 10 is the one broken most often which says, “you shall have no other gods before me.” An idol has a greater claim on our hearts. affection than does God. We may not be aware of it, but idol worship is something we all struggle with as believers. There is always something trying to attract our hearts. Idolatry is when I take anything that isn’t God, and put it in the place where God belongs. We even make idols of our selves. “I don’t care what anybody says or thinks, I’m going to do what I want to do.”
God created us to love and to worship. Everybody in here loves something and everybody here worships something. Satan comes along and uses that natural desire to love and to worship and turn it into something that can destroy us with, by getting us to love and to worship the wrong things. The human heart has the ability to create all kinds of competition for God in our lives.
Think of how many different kinds of things people are willing to risk their lives for, just to be able to say they did it. I can’t see risking my life to climb Mt. Everest, when there is a picture available to me to show me what I would see if I climbed it myself. Yet the person climbing the mountain is considered a hero, and I am considered a fool for giving my life for the cause of Christ.
There are at least seven idols that keep coming up in our American culture that were identified by John Ortberg. They challenge our hearts on a rotating basis. The first is money. Money is a good thing and it’s a good thing to have more than what you need. There comes a point though, when if we do not know contentment and discipline in our hearts, greed steps in. The desire for money changes into the goddess of Money. Once we offer her our love and devotion, she takes over and the love of her is at the heart of all kinds of evil. We simply can’t get enough of it. Some people will do anything to have more of it. Love for God and love for people are lost, and life becomes all about what I can get for me.
The second idol is success. Who does not want to be successful? But when I love and worship success to the point where I will back stab, lie and cheat to get my position and to keep my position, then I am worshipping the goddess of success. I will destroy others to advance myself.
The third idol is intelligence. Every hear people brag about how smart their children are or how many degrees they have. Ever hear them boast of which schools they not only attended but which ones they turned down. You have to make sure you call them by the proper title according to their degrees. At college graduations, they even put stuff in Latin, we cannot read to impress us even more with who we now are.
The fourth idol is attractiveness or beauty. Everyone should want to look nice, but there is something wrong, when we just have to look perfect. When we’re spending a lot money and going through physical pain to make it happen through all kinds of surgeries we should ask, when is enough, enough We are all going to get older. The best way to look good when you’re older, is to live right when you’re younger. As much as you may love and worship beauty, it is going to fade away.
The fifth idol is a relationship. It is very easy to give another person a place in your life, that belongs to God. The approval or the acceptance of that other person means more to you than being in right relationship with God. That person or that relationship has become an idol. You actually are loving it and worshiping it because God is not in control of your life.
The sixth idol is pleasure. God created us with the ability to enjoy the sensations of pleasure. But an unguarded heart and undisciplined heart will seek pleasure from both legitimate and illegitimate sources. Just because it feels good, does not mean its good for you. We can lift pleasure to such a degree that life becomes all about us and how we feel. We neglect all other responsibilities so that we can have that feeling one more time. Or we plan our whole lives around a retirement, so that all we have to do is travel and play golf. What if God has other plans for your final years of life such as being involved in full time ministry? Are you open to saying yes to God.
The seventh idol is work. God created us to work. God did not create us for work to consume our lives. Trying to get ahead in the company or in life, causes us to turn work into an idol. We love and worship it, with hopes that in return it will offer me a certain life-style. Our love and worship of it, causes us to miss opportunities to have an impact in the lives of those closest to us. The work that we love, will not be there to comfort us on the other end, when we realize we were work rich and relationship poor.
Look over these seven idols and see which one is Satan most likely to use in your life in the battle for your heart. Which of the seven gets most of your thought time? Which one do you feel you just have to have, and without it, you would not be a complete person, or life would not be worth living? Which one do you want to be known for? Which one gets your greatest effort? Which one makes you feel like you’re somebody? Which one will others say is my idol? If you are honest, you can see what God’s greatest competition is in your life.
We pursue these idols because we think they are going to give us life. But its Jesus who tells us in John 10:10 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. These seven idols are Satan’s tools in the battle for our hearts. They all end up with the same consequence which is to steal, kill, and destroy our lives.
What are the costs of not guarding our hearts and yielding to idols. The first is they cost us God’s purpose for our lives. We all only get one life to live. We are either living it with God in charge or living it with God in the back seat or out of the car altogether. God had a plan in mind for each of our lives when God created us. Jesus tells us it’s a plan that will bring us true life.
But each of these seven idols will rob us of the opportunity to live our lives with God’s purpose being first and foremost. They demand our foremost attention. Even the slightest compromise can cause us to end up way off course as the distance traveled gets farther away. As big as the moon is, if you are a an inch off in your projectory here on earth, by the time you get the moon it will not be where you thought it was going to be no matter how hard you work to get there.
The second cost of not guarding our hearts from idols is that they idols exhaust us as we strive to get more. How will you know when you have enough? You will never reach perfection. Idols demand that your perform again and again to stay on top of your game. Time and your body is going to work against you. The world watched as the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Coats. The Saints, may have won, but already they have to now prove themselves all over again. Some of those players will be cut from the team this year. Will it make them any less of a person? It will if playing on the team is their idol?
Those who do return to the team, will exhaust themselves trying to get back to the superbowl again. They will hear comments, like they may have made it to the superbowl, “but they’re not one of the great teams like the Steelers or the 49’ers who came back year after year.” No matter what top you climb up to, it’s only temporary and you will be back on your way down. Don’t give your life to making it to the top. Sometimes the top is not worth it. People have short memories.
The third cost of not guarding our hearts is that idols will cost us what we need. When our hearts have a love and devotion for an idol it will cause is to do crazy and insane things. I remember having a guy tell me, when my marriage is keeping me from reaching goals at work, then it’s time to let the marriage go. He let the marriage go. He got married again, and let that marriage go too. He died of a massive heart attack before his 55th birthday.
Idols have the power of making you throw away your life to serve them. Idols cause people to face the final years of their lives with a series of regrets. You know if only I had of known then what I know now. If only I had not been so short sighted. If only I had taken the time.
Idols leave us with a lot of if only’s and a lot of regrets. Those best time to stop a regret from happening is to change a behavior today. Today is the time to start guarding your heart to keep from putting God out of the driver’s seat in your life. As I told you in the beginning Satan Wants to use love to turn your heart away from God.
Today is Valentine’s day. I think women become more open to Satan’s lies and suggestions this day, because everybody is supposed to be romantic. Satan uses some of us to trigger his emotions in others. Why does someone say to a single woman, “what you don’t have any children, don’t you know time is passing you by.” Life is not about what age you had children. There are plenty women who have had children long before your age, who wish they were in your position to be free to make choices.
“Why say to someone, you’re not married yet.” Again Satan uses that statement to cause them to consider a person, that God never intended to be a part of their lives. There are so many married people who regret who they married, but did so out of a feeling that time is running out.
Romantic Love can be a wonderful thing, but it can ruin you if you choose to operate in it by making it an idol in your life. Marriage can be good, and it can be fun, but it takes two people who are committed to giving up their selfishness so that the love of Christ can flow through to each of them. Selfishness doesn’t get better in marriage. It only gets worse.
It was romantic love that caused Samson’s life to end in destruction. He just found it easy to fall in love. As a result, it was easy for Satan to trap him with the wrong person who cared nothing about him.
The Love we have for our children can be another tool that Satan uses in the battle for our hearts. We can give our children so much, that they think they are entitled to have anything they want to have. Instead of standing up to them as adults, we keep giving in to them because we want their approval. Eli was a priest who had not disciplined his sons. When he got old, his sons became priests who extorted money from people who came to worship. They were committing adultery with the young women who worked at the temple. But Eli, refused to remove them from office because they were his sons. 1 Samuel 2:29 (Today’s New International Version)29 Why do you [a] scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?’ Eli started to participate in the wrong they were doing by receiving some of the illegally gotten gains.
That love we have for our children, could just as easily be a love we have for any family member . The problem comes in which we refuse to be obedient to God out of fear of harming the relationship with the family member.
The Love that we have for the approval of others is yet another tool Satan uses in the battle for our hearts. The Apostle Peter had been with Jesus since Jesus first called the disciples. Peter had come from a Jewish background. God revealed to Peter that God wanted to do something in the lives of people who were not Jews called, Gentiles lives as well. Peter followed God’s commands, and was eating and chilling out with the Gentiles who had become Christians.
But then when some big name Jews came down to see him, he quit eating and chilling with the Gentiles. You ever have people ask, why are you hanging around with them, and you feel the pressure to stop being true to what God has told you to do in relating to people. When we do not guard our hearts, we become more concerned with the approval of others than we become with the approval of God.
If we want to stop Satan in his tracks, the key is found in the greatest commandment in which Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul and all your mind.” This is really the only way for us to guard our hearts. Because if we do not love God, we will love something because we were created to love and to be loved. God solves both of those needs in our lives.
We are told in 1 John 2:15 5 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If you love the world, love for the Father [a] is not in you. 16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful people, the lust of their eyes and their boasting about what they have and do—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
Jesus is till inviting people to give up their idols and come follow him. Jesus alone is worthy of my whole devotion.—He already gave His life for me. Jesus alone has the authority to forgive all of my sins. He does not demand that I keep performing a life of perfection to be accepted. Jesus alone has the wisdom to guide my whole life. He already knows what tomorrow is going to bring and I do do not. Jesus alone has the power to defeat suffering and death. His rising from the dead is proof that death cannot keep him down.
Jesus knows the absolute truth about me, and he still says come to me, that I might love you and that I might give you rest. That’s a love and a grace I cannot earn and did not deserve. Jesus can gives us the victory in the “Battle for our Heart.” If we surrender to him.
Sermon Outline Pastor Rick
“Overcoming The Enemy: The Battle For The Heart”
2/14/2010 Proverbs 4:13-23 I John 2:13-17
A. The Enemy Wants You In Love
1. The Battle For The Heart
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23
1 And God spoke all these words: 2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 "You shall have no other gods before [a] me. Exodus 20:1-2
2. Satan’s Tactic Of Love
3. Idol Worship Is A Problem
4. We Were Made To Love
B. The American Idol
1. Money
2. Success
3. Intelligence
4. Attractiveness
5. Relationship
6. Pleasure
7. Work
What Gets My Thoughts
Which One Must I have
What Do I Want To Be Known For
Which Gets My Efforts
C. Three Costs Of An Unguarded Heart
1. It Cost You God’s Purpose
2. It Will Exhaust You
3. It Will Cost What You Need
D Satan Wants You To Love
1. Romance---Battle
a. Samson—Judges 14-16
2. Love Of Children
a. Eli—I Samuel 2:29
3. Love Of Approval
a. Peter Galatians 2:1-11
E. God Has A Better Plan
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: " ’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ [a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’ [b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
1. The Value Of A Guarded Heart
2. The Reward Of God’s Favor
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
1 John 2:15-17
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If you love the world, love for the Father [a] is not in you. 16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful people, the lust of their eyes and their boasting about what they have and do—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
