Sunday message · The Heart Matters series
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Message Summary
In the fourth week of The Heart Matters, a series preparing hearts for Holy Week, Pastor Phillip Santillan turns to 2 Chronicles 34. He opens with Daniel Simons’ invisible gorilla test, in which many viewers counting passes miss a dancing gorilla. Watching a second version, Phil made sure to spot the gorilla, yet missed the curtains changing color and a player leaving the screen. Focusing on one thing can blind us to others, and some things in life can demand our attention and affection until they distract us from the devotion God desires.
Having learned in earlier weeks to ask God for humility and forgiveness and to own our sin, the church now learns to pray, “Lord, I give up,” surrendering the distractions and idols that keep God from being all-sufficient and sovereign over all of life.
Josiah became king at eight years old and reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. He did what was right in the Lord’s sight and did not turn aside to the right or the left (verse 2), echoing Deuteronomy 5:32–33. The command behind it is the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4–5, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength, which Jesus called the greatest commandment. For Josiah, that meant removing the idols that filled his kingdom, not out of self-righteous anger but out of humility. God tells him that because his heart was tender and he humbled himself and wept, God has heard him (verses 26–27).
If we want to love God with all our heart, Phil says, we must remove what competes for our affection. Distractions and idols share the same end, pushing God from the center of our lives, but they differ. A distraction is anything that makes us forget that our lives are not our own. It might be current events, whether the coronavirus, politics or sports. It might be anxiety about the future, though Jesus tells us not to worry but to seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6). Or good pursuits can take over: working to pay the bills becomes living for work, and being a good parent becomes living for every activity. Soon we are too busy to pray, hear God’s word or live as family on mission.
That is when distractions become idols. Phil cites Tim Keller’s Counterfeit Gods, which describes an idol as whatever we believe will give our lives meaning, value, significance and security if only we have it, a relationship best described as worship. Worry turns into an idol of control, and busyness into an idol of approval or accomplishment. Such idols promise freedom and control but end up enslaving us.
With the church separated by location, Phil closes with quiet music and a time of prayer. He invites everyone to ask God to reveal anything more important to them than God, or so central that losing it would make life feel hardly worth living, and to reorganize their lives around God’s will instead of fitting God into theirs. A final song of worship follows.