Alex (00:03.916)
Well, welcome back to season eight where we're talking about the sacred struggle with sin, responsibility, and the journey to transformation. And today we're gonna talk about the heart, the capture of the heart, which is often a hard thing to capture. So we're gonna make our stab at this. Last week we talked about the three functions of the heart and we introduced the idea that we're transformed by what we behold.
Brenda (00:18.414)
You're right.
Alex (00:31.819)
And so today we're gonna talk a little bit more, kind of flesh out that beholding and talking about what we worship. And we're gonna kind of expand the idea of what is the thing in our lives that we would say, I have to see that or I need to see that. I don't wanna miss this, but that's what worship sounds like.
Brenda (00:55.503)
Yeah, I really like that idea of.
tying this idea of beholding to the idea of worship. And when I think, Alex, about what do I need to see? What do I have to see? What is it that I don't want to miss out on? Like, what is it that I want to behold? The first things that come to my mind are my children and my grandchildren. Like, I never get enough of them, right? Well, you know, okay, maybe. Maybe there are some days and some times, yeah. But let me just say, when it comes to my
Alex (01:17.323)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Okay, you're making me feel better.
Brenda (01:28.481)
grandchildren, that's true, maybe not so much with the children. But I think in this episode what we're gonna see is that God has given us many, many beautiful things to behold. First of all, we behold him, but we behold him in his word and in his work. So he's given us a lot in his creation to be able to get a glimpse of his glory. But what happens is, is that rather just than beholding created things in a way that's honorable to the
Alex (01:30.602)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (01:58.336)
the Lord, we elevate them and we begin to worship them. And really all of creation is meant to point us back to God and to lead us to worship. They're not to become the things that we worship. And when I think about the universe, all of God's Word, all that He's made in the whole universe, I think this is God's way of saying...
Alex (02:23.466)
It did this last week.
Brenda (02:26.063)
All right, let's have some worship.
Alex (02:31.179)
I literally thought this last week, if this says this in the middle of a podcast, it's gonna be hilarious. It just, it's our speaker system and it'll just...
Brenda (02:41.742)
Ehh
Alex (02:44.906)
Music will just come on.
Brenda (02:45.518)
This is...
Alex (02:48.459)
Sorry. I literally thought that it scared me to death last week. I'm home by myself. Everything's perfectly quiet. I think I was getting ready for a virtual appointment and it scared me to death. Anyway, I just turned it off. I don't know what makes it do it. The app's not open. Like you'd think maybe if the app was open on your, the app is closed. It's crazy.
Brenda (03:15.663)
Well, let's not forget there's a spiritual war going on.
Alex (03:23.883)
So maybe you should make that point again.
Brenda (03:27.824)
Yeah, I can start with my little point.
Brenda (03:37.616)
Yeah, so Alex, in this episode, we really are going to see how God has given us.
His Word and many beautiful things in creation to lead us to worship Him. But what ends up happening is when we begin to behold the creation more than the Creator, then we begin to worship created things more than God. And I would just say, you know, as we look around, God is using everything in His universe to scream to us, don't miss this. Be sure to look at this. See this. See what I'm doing. See who I am. See what I've made. Because it's all
Alex (04:07.883)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (04:13.922)
about me. And that's where we want to take people today is to say like, what does it really practically look like to behold the Lord and to worship Him and to enjoy creation and not worship it?
Alex (04:15.563)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (04:25.94)
So we're going to talk about the biblical heart and worship. I'll probably say this through this whole season, so I'm just going to go ahead and say it now and again many times. So much of this is so complex and we're trying to take these really complex ideas, abstract ideas and put them into something that is understandable.
So I always worry that we're, you know, we're gonna oversimplify something, but I do think we have to talk about it in a way that we can begin to understand it and begin to grasp what the heart is, what worship is. And that's why we've always really liked this Jeremy Peer teaching about the biblical heart being made up of three parts. It just helps us be able to think of this a little bit more concretely.
that we have the cognition, which is our thinking, affection, which is our wanting, and volition, which is our choosing, and that that's our command center, like that's the core of who we are. And the Bible tells us time and time again how important the heart is, refers to the heart very often. I always think of that verse, you know, guard your heart very carefully because out of it flows all of life, or it's the wellspring of life, or out of it you live your life. And so we just recognize that.
that life is centered around the heart. And so Jesus said, also said we're supposed to love God with our whole heart. And so he was saying with our thinking and choosing and wanting that it should reflect how we're devoted to him, that it should reflect our worship of him. And so we tried to put this into just some phrases like our affections would say, when I want what God wants, I love him. When I think what God thinks, I trust him.
And when I choose what God chooses, I obey Him.
Brenda (06:18.0)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, and I love how those functions of the heart really do align with what worship looks like. To love, trust, and obey as a part of our affection, cognition, and volition. But you were talking about oversimplifying. I mean, I think part of my concern is to overcomplicate. Right? Alex, you know, I am the overcomplicator in this relationship.
Alex (06:24.747)
Mm.
Alex (06:35.691)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (06:41.487)
And oftentimes I put down a thousand words and then you can go through and get the hundred that are really important in that. But I also think there can be a tendency to oversimplify the idea of worship in this way. Oftentimes we think about worship as what we do when we go sing corporately. Like I'm going to worship God, I'm going to a worship service. Or I'm worshiping God when I'm engaged in spiritual activities like when I'm reading my Bible and when I'm praying. But that's something different than how
Alex (07:00.075)
Yeah.
Brenda (07:11.393)
I actually live my life and what we want to say is if we look at the heart as being the command center and the core and all the behaviors coming from the heart and Really? It's whatever we love trust and obey indicates what we worship Then worship is way way way bigger than going to sing or just in that spiritual realm It's actually what we value what we treasure what we cherish and so it's gonna extend way beyond the church walls and even our pride
Alex (07:32.108)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (07:36.139)
Yeah.
Brenda (07:41.249)
spiritual disciplines to every single part of our lives. That God wants to be first over everything in our lives. I love what John Piper says. I think we quote, do we quote maybe John Piper and Tim Keller the most in our? I think we've been pretty influenced by them, haven't we? But who hasn't been? I love when he says, the inner essence of worship is to know God truly and then respond from the heart to that knowledge by valuing God, treasuring God,
Alex (07:55.243)
Probably.
Brenda (08:11.105)
Rising God, enjoying God, being satisfied with God above all earthly things. I love that.
Alex (08:18.059)
Mm -hmm, mm -hmm. Yeah, I like that too. And it reminds me that worship is about worth. I think even sometimes people talk about weight, like what weight and value we put on something, what worth we put on people or things. And so worship masters our hearts, so we become like what we worship, which is a really scary thing to think about. And it also shapes us because as we...
Brenda (08:32.846)
Hmm.
Brenda (08:41.903)
Mm.
Alex (08:46.507)
as we bow to things, as we conform to things, and we build our lives around things that we worship, as the things we place worth and value on become what our lives look like and then become what we look like. And so that's why God alone should only get our worship. He's the only one who is trustworthy enough to shape and transform our lives into His image. So today we're gonna try to break down what it means to
look at our longings and our desires and begin to shape them towards Him.
Brenda (09:20.943)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, I think that, you know, we've established that worship involves our whole heart. But I think most of the time, what I find a lot of times with people that I talk to, and even in my own life, is we tend to focus on our thinking and our behavior. Like those are the functions of the heart that are maybe we're more aware of because I think desires can be harder, can be more deceitful. I can look at my thinking and evaluate it more easily. I can look at my behavior and certainly I can evaluate that.
Alex (09:37.451)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (09:46.763)
Mm.
Brenda (09:52.865)
But what we really want to consider the rest of the time in this podcast is that aspect of the heart that influences us perhaps the most. And that is our affection or wanting center. and here's a quote by Paul Tripp because he's the other person we like to quote the most.
Alex (10:04.075)
Mm.
yeah, that's right.
Brenda (10:09.295)
And Paul Tripp says we do what we do because we want what we want and maybe in a previous podcast I can't remember certainly in teachings I've done He's got this great video online where he does this whole little thing about what he wants and he's telling the story about what he wants and he goes I want I want I want I want
Alex (10:27.181)
No.
Brenda (10:27.855)
Taiwan and he goes on with I want for like I don't know two or three ridiculous minutes until you're feeling so uncomfortable right but it is true like our want her is really broken has really been defected by the fall and we can see that in the garden because really it was that desire you know that led Eve into to sin so
Alex (10:34.028)
huh.
Alex (10:39.445)
you
Alex (10:48.654)
And you know what, when I talk to people a lot of times what they'll say is like, well, I'm just gonna kill my desires. I'm just gonna stop desiring. And I kinda laugh and be like, good luck with that, because we were made to desire. That's why Paul Tripp keeps saying I want, I want, I want. We're not going to get away from desire. We're going to have to begin to examine our desires.
Brenda (10:57.422)
Mmm. Bad strategy.
Alex (11:16.686)
and understand them even though often what you said deceitful and I was thinking entangled like our desires often become so entangled because sometimes they're even conflicting and this is the other thing that complicates it. Again, we're going to Tim Keller. He says, sin is not just doing bad things, it's making good things ultimate things. So sometimes it's not even that the desire itself is bad, but it's the weight that we put on the desire.
Brenda (11:23.981)
Yeah? Yep.
Yes.
Brenda (11:45.388)
Yep.
Alex (11:45.549)
that makes it become something that we would say is idolatrous. And it's that it moves from I want to, I have to have, you know, it moves from desire into demand.
Brenda (11:57.037)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, boy, and once our heart starts demanding things, it's just a downhill spiral from there. Right now, I'm studying the seven churches of revelations because Paul and I are going to Turkey, and I'm really excited about that trip. And one of the first church that he commends and also rebukes is the church in Ephesus. And I think it's really interesting because when I was studying it, I was just thinking, wow, here's an example of how it's possible to think and do right.
Alex (12:05.293)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (12:30.399)
things without the right heart. And that's what Jesus says. He actually commends them for their wonderful works and their sound beliefs. But then he points out they had forsaken their first love. They had lost their affection for Christ. They were going through the motions. Some of them were good motions, but they were emotions void of treasuring or valuing Christ. And you know, that's at the end of the day what God really wants. He really wants us to value and treasure Christ. And for
Alex (12:32.237)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (12:39.597)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (13:00.255)
for that to be our motivation.
Alex (13:01.768)
So today we're going to talk about where some of these corrupted desires come from. And so I always give this disclaimer before I teach this of like, this comes from a teaching from Tim Keller where he taught on the four main categories of idols. And after years and years of teaching that, I like, this is Tim Keller, like put weight on this, they're talking about weight.
This is Alex Kucker of Creation Longings or something that I just began to realize that as we taught the grand narrative, which we talked about last season, we were talking about the arc of being made in the image of God and the things that God made us with these longings, good desires that we have because we were made in God's image, they became twisted in the fall. And I realized that twisting corresponded to Tim Keller's for...
main idol categories. And so I kind of went back in the story, so to speak, and thought about what were the things that God put in us that got twisted in order for them to become idolatry. And so each of these things, these idolatrous desires show a beautiful creation longing that God placed in us as we were made in His image. And so,
We're going to break those four down and we're going to kind of do a little back and forth to talk about what we see. And you know, these some of these words, you might, you might have a better word for it. We feel like most longings fit in these categories and most of that altruist desires fit in these categories, but you may feel a little bit more comfortable with other words. These are, these are the words we've chosen. The first thing that we see in Genesis that we were made for is,
We were made for rest and we were made for beauty. That even in the rhythm of the seven days of creation, God worked, God worked, God worked, and then He rested. And He rested in order for us to see that we need rest, that made in His image, we need rest. I don't think God needed rest, but He's showing us a pattern. And then we see that God...
Alex (15:16.268)
is saying all in the creation account, it's good, it's good, it's good, that God placed Adam in this garden that was beautiful so he could experience beauty all around him. And so we are made with this deep longing for rest and a deep longing for beauty. And I put those together because they feel connected to me. Like when we rest, we're enjoying beauty. And when we're enjoying beauty, it's restful. So they feel really connected.
Brenda (15:37.132)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (15:45.197)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, and...
The way that gets twisted often is that our desire for rest and beauty becomes kind of an ultimate desire for comfort. And what happens is that we begin to either look for comfort in the wrong places or we use things that are actually good for us that may even include rest like leisure or things we enjoy, but we use them too much. And that becomes maybe our way of escaping. And so sometimes the thing
Alex (16:09.1)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Alex (16:15.084)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (16:17.632)
that you know when we're in that...
that realm of idolatrous desires, we might see that our greatest nightmare is discomfort or pain, right? And I know for me, comfort is one of my major idolatrous desires. Like I will go through great lengths. I mean, I still get laughing gas to get my teeth cleaned. I get a free cleaning and I pay $40 extra, so I have no discomfort or pain. Now that's not sinful, but it just goes to show my husband's like, honey, we got a free
Alex (16:31.052)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (16:42.604)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (16:52.448)
free cleaning and I got a $40 bill and I was like, right, because I don't want to even feel the water hitting my teeth. It's so uncomfortable and so distressful for me. But, you know, if we if we move kind of a little bit further into maybe what would be a way to escape a way to avoid or just that inordinate desire for comfort, I think we can just see a lot of places. So, you know, even even the church I go to, we have a really robust addictions ministry. And I see this a lot. I see that people.
Alex (17:21.709)
Hmm.
Brenda (17:22.304)
move toward drugs or alcohol to avoid pain of their past or broken relationships and they begin to look for comfort in something other than Christ, a bottle, a pill, something along those lines.
Alex (17:34.701)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (17:39.565)
Okay, so the next thing we want to look at is just as God has made us for purpose you know and our purpose is to glorify him and
enjoy Him. And so it is in fact as we really enjoy Him the way that He's designed for us to enjoy Him, we will be able to enjoy the creation rightly and then God is going to get the glory because we're going to be pointing back to Him being ultimate and not things being ultimate. You know, He expanded that purpose in the creation mandate when He told us to be fruitful and multiply, to tend the earth and keep it. And we like to say to beautify and multiply, right? That there's this idea of just how God has made us like we know inside of us.
Alex (18:05.869)
Mm.
Alex (18:14.381)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (18:18.912)
us that we want to have purpose. I was talking to somebody recently who is involved with someone else who has no purpose in life and they were just talking about like how much boredom and lack of purpose and unhappiness rules this person's life. If you don't have purpose then you are really going to see that you might just tank. But God has given us desire for purpose and it's really really important that you know in the in the all the other
Alex (18:36.589)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (18:48.767)
I'm going to say lower level purposes we have that that ultimate purpose in all of those is like this is for God's glory and enjoyment of Him.
Alex (18:55.149)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, and then what we see is we take that longing for purpose that God put in us and we turn that into an idolatry of achievement where we have to have success, we have to have influence, we have to have status. We don't want, we fear, you know, in any way being humiliated and we look to many things to give us a sense of achievement or a sense of status and so.
We may look to the perfect home, the perfect marriage. We can even look to good gifts that God has given us, but we look to it for the purpose, not of glorifying Him, but of making ourselves look good and making ourselves feel like we have done something. So I think it's achievement, you know, kind of resonates with me because it goes along with my perfectionism, idolatry.
Brenda (19:35.021)
Hmm.
Brenda (19:45.901)
Hehehehehe
Alex (19:48.621)
And also I think it just resonates with us in American culture. We're so productivity oriented. We have to always be doing, doing, doing.
Brenda (19:54.22)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right, we base our worth on our accomplishments. Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Alex (20:00.046)
Mm -hmm, mm -hmm. And then we, this one is closely tied to achievement. We look at, we've been given agency, and that's a word we don't use a lot, but I think it is really important in understanding our design. We see that God gave Adam and Eve the ability to make choices in the garden. And...
And that agency is our ability to act on our environment and create change, that ability to make choices and create change. And so agency is just such an important way that we reflect the creator. He didn't put us here to be puppets or robots. He put us here to make choices and to act on our world, to create influence, to create change in our world.
Brenda (20:49.94)
Yeah, but unfortunately what happens in this good creation longing of agency so often is it becomes control. And so now we want to power over others. We think self -discipline. If I'm just self -disciplined enough, I can create the change in me and force change on others. We want certainty. So we got to control everything around us. And a lot of times when agency gets, you know,
Alex (21:00.685)
Mm.
Alex (21:11.469)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (21:19.404)
gets out of whack, so to speak, then there's just a lot of self -righteous standards and legalism that comes to play. And for people who, you know, are control freaks, so to speak, you know, then they're going to be really, really uncomfortable with uncertainty. And so again, there's just going to be like, this isn't just my responsibility. Now all of my concerns have become my responsibility. Everything is my responsibility. Or maybe nothing is my responsibility. That might be the other side of this.
Alex (21:35.053)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (21:42.861)
Mm -hmm. Right.
Alex (21:49.229)
Right?
Brenda (21:49.31)
too, you know, to look at it that way. And so, you know, I just think there's a lot of times that we will do things to either keep life in control or respond in certain ways if life seems out of control, rather than being good stewards, being responsible, making the wise choices that God has called us to make.
Alex (22:04.718)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (22:12.366)
Mm hmm. Yeah, I think that Idle of control is such a easy one to slip into and we don't even realize it because it we because we are created to act and so it can the lines get blurred really quickly between when we slip into acting in order to make ourselves feel better in order to maybe even keep us from anxiety and so.
All of these, all of these are hard. Like all of these are like, where does, where did that become idolatrous? Where did I go from something really beautiful to something really destructive that quickly?
Brenda (22:42.283)
Yeah, and.
Brenda (22:50.22)
Yeah, and I think it's interesting when we talk about control being on either side, you know, overly responsible or even or no control or no responsibility. It is interesting to me because I do not consider myself a control person.
Alex (23:05.262)
Right. huh.
Brenda (23:06.124)
at all until something's out of my control and I begin to worry and have fear and then I begin to see that I step in and I want to rescue, right, where God hasn't called me to rescue and those sort of things. So, yeah.
Alex (23:16.43)
Yeah.
Yeah. And then the last one we talk about is belonging. That when we read this creation account, we see a change in the rhythm of how God is telling us He created things. And all of a sudden He says, let us make man in our image, something different than He's ever said about anything else that He created. And so we see that...
that he's beginning to talk about himself as corporate as the Trinity and then he is talking about man and women as corporate and then we see it again when he says it's not good for man to be alone. The first time in the creation account that something is not good is Adam on his own. Even Adam in perfect relationship with God is not good because he does not have someone who corresponds to him who is like him. And so,
We see that we were made for community, we were made for a sense of belonging, for a sense of connectedness.
Brenda (24:21.196)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, but I know this one really well, and because here's where I've struggled most of my life, is when that desire for belonging and connectedness becomes an inordinate desire for approval, like wanting affirmation.
Alex (24:33.677)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (24:36.14)
feeling like you need love from others to be able to move forward or such a longing for relationships, like people can get involved with what we would say codependent relating. And a lot of times, kind of the other side of the coin, we have this intense desire for approval, but the other side of that coin is this intense fear of rejection, right, for the person who craves approval. And so, I mean, I can just think about a time
Alex (24:49.357)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (24:59.553)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (25:06.046)
when I wanted my, and I've talked about this on our Fear of Man podcast, wanted Paul to think I was the perfect wife.
Alex (25:11.95)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (25:12.588)
and I just longed and lived for his ultimate approval. And we talk again about worship. So what happens? I have to bow to him. I have to conform my life to him. I have to shape to him. And you know, as a married couple, two becoming one, in some aspects that's good. But when I begin to do that in ways that are unhealthy or ungodly, then I'm going from worshiping God and worshiping the created thing because I have to have his approval.
Alex (25:15.886)
Mm.
Alex (25:25.518)
Hmm.
Alex (25:29.326)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (25:33.934)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (25:36.813)
So one thing about just this teaching between idols and diadolatris desires, I think it's been really helpful for me because some years ago I was at a biblical counseling conference where there was a speaker that was trying to make this differentiation, Alex, but I didn't ever feel like he quite made the connection because the idol is the creative thing that you kind of latch onto that fulfills that idolatris desire, right? So the desires, these four desires are there and then we find something in
Alex (25:52.43)
Mm.
Alex (26:01.55)
Hmm.
Brenda (26:06.719)
creation that actually fills that idolatrous desire. And so that thing becomes the idol. And I just want to say and show how one idol could be used to satisfy different longings. And so, for instance, you know, there's again, there's nothing wrong with designing a successful career. Like that would be part of our agency, right? But when I want to have that career because I want to be admired for my achievements or I want to be
Alex (26:08.046)
Yeah.
Alex (26:21.389)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (26:29.133)
Right?
Brenda (26:36.575)
achievement or I want to prove to myself I can be number one. Now I've used this career, this gift God has given me, this calling for myself or what if I want the successful career and the way I operate is I begin to break the law or do things that are unethical because I fear the approval of people or their disapproval. And now again, that same, that same idol, if you will, the career now becomes the idol to get my approval desires met.
Alex (26:55.725)
Right? Mm -hmm.
Brenda (27:06.431)
And, you know, ruling over others. What if I want to seek my career and my real heart desires? I just want to control people. I want to be the boss. I want to be the boss because I want to have some people to control and tell what to do. And that makes me feel powerful. Then again, that same thing, the idea of the career becomes a different avenue for an idolatrous desire to find its expression.
Alex (27:06.573)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (27:14.829)
Hmm. Hmm hmm. Hmm hmm.
Alex (27:30.796)
Yeah.
Brenda (27:31.405)
I think I may have gone over all of them, but you get the idea. And that's what I think kind of makes this messy, is it's not always, like I think we tend to look to the idol. You're making an idol out of your career. You're making an idol out of motherhood. You're making an idol out of your house. But I think we have to look back from that. There's the sin underneath the sin. There is something underneath that house. There's something that house gives to you. What does it give to me?
If I've just enjoying my house and I'm stewarding it well, it's beautiful. It's fulfilling all these beautiful desires. But if I begin to close my fist and I say, this house belongs to me, it's mine, it gives me status, it makes me look good with people, I can rule these people in my home, whatever it looks like, then my desires have become twisted, they become entrenched, they become entangled, and now that created thing begins to fulfill something in a real way.
Alex (28:02.7)
Hmm.
Brenda (28:26.543)
in a way that God did not intend it to. Did that make sense?
Alex (28:28.94)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, it does make sense. Again, it makes sense as much as it can make sense because this is so hard to tease out when we're actually operating in our daily lives because it's hard to know when a longing has been corrupted. It's hard to see it. Like, where's the point that we cross over? It's hard to see it when it's happening. Oftentimes, I think when we see it is when we look back and we recognize...
Brenda (28:45.004)
Yeah.
Alex (28:57.165)
situation where we responded poorly. We recognize where we send to get somebody and it's really clear. So we do want to give a couple of diagnostic questions that will help with that and hopefully as you as you apply these diagnostic questions and look back on situations you begin to anticipate it in the future. You begin to catch yourself before you get there. That's what we're hoping. So here's how we know if these...
if our hearts been hijacked, so to speak. First we ask the question, what am I willing to sin to get or sin because I can't have? And again, when I sit here today and I think about wanting my house cleaned up, I think that's a great desire that reflects God's design for beauty and purpose. But when I am yelling at my family and I am angry with everyone in the house and don't want to speak to them over Easter because they will not get, because they're no joke.
Brenda (29:31.758)
Yeah.
Brenda (29:45.102)
Hehehehehe
Alex (29:52.557)
Sunday morning, Easter morning, I woke up, there were seven pair of shoes in my den and I'm about to have people over for Easter lunch, right? We only four people in the house, we have seven pairs of shoes. So like, I think that's a beautiful longing that I have right now and I only see when I'm sitting in church mad at everybody that it has been corrupted, like it's actually in retrospect. So.
What am I willing to send in order to get or keep? And what we really have to do then is just follow our emotions. When I feel that inordinate anger, that harshness, I know that it's telling me, our emotions are good lights on our dashboard to signal to us what our hearts are wanting. And then what do I run to for refuge or rescue before or instead of turning to God? I think that's a really good one. And I would have told you for years that,
Brenda (30:34.765)
Yep.
Alex (30:49.133)
there really wasn't anything but I think the older I get the more I see the longing for comfort and escape more than the longing for beauty and rest. Like I just that idea of can I just numb out and so what am I seeking refuge or rescue in? And then the third question is what is my sin reveal about my corrupted desire? Which of the four creation longings am I?
realizing have been distorted. And I think this is a really important one, particularly when we really want to start to think about change, because often I want to, just like many of my clients say, how do I just get rid of these desires? And I want to do that in myself. And so I need to, when I see something that's been corrupted in me, then I just want to eradicate it completely.
But oftentimes what I think we have to do is we have to go back to what that desire is that's been corrupted. I want approval and I'm willing to do anything to get your approval. I'm even willing to maybe say things that aren't quite true just so that you don't get mad at me, right? But then I think I really need to look at, there's a beautiful longing under this. And maybe one of the ways that I need to check my own heart,
Brenda (31:44.172)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (32:13.356)
is that I need to recognize, have I cut myself off from community in good ways? That causes me then to seek approval, which is kind of the cheapness, the cheap idol, right? And so the reason I love this teaching on creation longing is because it's to me like a don't throw the baby out with the bath water thing. We wanna make sure that we don't just think we have to kill all desire. I think I really did believe that. Let's just kill all desire.
Brenda (32:24.364)
Yeah, yeah.
Alex (32:43.819)
and just function perfectly, right? But really what we need to do is we really need to examine how God created us and make sure that we're experiencing the richness of that, of our personal creation and what He's created around us and really deeply enjoy that and that that's a way to guard against the desires being corrupted.
Brenda (32:45.995)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brenda (33:05.836)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah.
No, I think that's really good. And I like what you said, we can just sell out for the counterfeit, you know, and the opposite is not just to throw out the desire, but I think to cultivate the right desire, to redirect the right desire, to achieve the desire in the ways that God has given us through him, looking to him and then looking to his creation in good and godly ways. So we want to talk about, you know, we want to end this with a little bit more about how do we
Alex (33:15.402)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (33:34.795)
Mm.
Brenda (33:40.158)
we correct our desires. And it really begins, first of all, we talked about awareness, you know, we have to be aware. And so in this whole idea of this entire podcast of looking at repentance, looking at having a repentance plan, we just keep coming back to this idea like it takes time and it takes purposefulness. And so to your point, we're not always aware in the moment, but usually after, you know, after we've sinned, we can, we can then go back. And,
Alex (34:00.138)
Hmm.
Brenda (34:10.014)
begin to evaluate what went wrong with my desires. And then we have to move beyond following our hearts to leading them. And I really love this because I think if we're not intentional, then we just follow our heart wherever it goes, right? And instead of being very intentional to say, now where do I need to lead my heart? Where does God want to lead my heart?
Alex (34:17.514)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Alex (34:24.809)
Yeah.
Alex (34:32.906)
And so we think about what we call that treasure principle that Jesus talks about in Matthew 6 that where our treasure is there our heart will be. So we have to develop an awareness that our treasures are going to reveal where our heart is and where we are going to spend our treasures of time and money, energy, emotions. They show us what's really important to us.
Brenda (34:55.724)
Yep.
Yeah, and this is the second part I love about this treasure principle that we don't often hear is that is that our treasure not only reveals our hearts, but it instructs our hearts. And so where we spend our time, money, energy, emotions, affections, all of those direct our hearts to love that person or thing. And I remember one time my sister said this to me. She said, whatever we serve, we grow to love.
Alex (35:06.121)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (35:17.353)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (35:26.09)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (35:26.859)
And it's just such a, it's such a great treasure principle. I was having a conversation with my daughter the other day and it was so sweet. She had put her little boy who's now 16 months into the church nursery and he had started crying, which then made her cry. And she said, you know, mom, she said, it's so interesting to me. She said, I remember when he was six weeks old and my in -laws came to babysit and they wanted to know, like, would you like us to babysit so you could go out with your husband? And I was like, yes, get me out of here. You know?
Alex (35:40.681)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (35:56.765)
I'm exhausted, I'm tired, and this little alien has come into my life and I'm just trying to figure this out as my first child. But the reality is, you know...
Alex (35:59.976)
Yes.
Brenda (36:06.059)
every day as she has been with him, as she has thought about him continuously, as she has served him, the more she has grown to love him. And her treasure reveals her heart, but her heart has also been instructed by the hours and hours of thought, not just effort, but thought and effort she's put into this little guy. And I think it's so sweet too, because the affection has actually grown on both sides.
Alex (36:25.896)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (36:33.449)
Mm -hmm.
Brenda (36:34.219)
Right? Like she came to pick him up yesterday and he just couldn't wait to see her running to her arms open wide. And so I just think of this whole idea of affection and cultivating our affection that we're going to have to think the thoughts that God wants us to think. We're going to have to do the things that God wants us to do. And we're going to have to pray in that that Christ will transform our affections. But I think the one beautiful thing we have to remember is that He loved us first.
Alex (36:57.897)
Hmm.
Brenda (37:04.125)
And so the affection begins with his affection toward us and then our hearts are stirred by the Holy Spirit to respond with affection back to him and And so yeah, we surrender our desires to his desires we focus on his affection for us and It is a it is supernatural and how then the Lord does begin to through awareness and through instructing our hearts and through dependence on him Begin to move our desires
Alex (37:04.553)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (37:08.52)
Mm -hmm.
Alex (37:15.433)
Hmm.
Brenda (37:34.028)
toward the things he desires.
Alex (37:36.292)
So, it's hard to wrap all of what we said up today except to say that our hearts are messy and transformation of our hearts and our worship is messy. And we hope that we've brought a little bit of clarity and terminology and talking about heart longings and corrupted desires and then thinking about the idolatry that's under the idol. And,
I hope that it gives people a little bit of a sense of ways that they can begin to understand themselves when they hit that Rem in seven place of, I don't understand why I do what I do and I don't understand why I don't do what I want to do. So I don't know we're ever going to completely understand that. Yeah. That's it.
Brenda (38:16.618)
That's right. I won, I won.
Brenda (38:26.219)
Yeah.
Yep, well Alex, I think our next podcast we're gonna be talking about, yeah, we're gonna be starting the Gospel Waltz and so I'm really excited about what does a plan of repentance look like. So we're gonna delve more into our messy hearts, our messy thinking, our messy choosing and see what beauty Jesus can make out of these messes.
Alex (38:37.734)
Mm -hmm.