Guarding Your Heart

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Isaiah 51:1-8
• Hymn — A Wonderful Savior Is Jesus My Lord (#175)
• Westminster Shorter Catechism — Questions 47 & 48
• Hymn — None Other Lamb, None Other Name (#157)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — Hosea 10
• Sermon
• Hymn — (#681)
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Sermon Title: Guarding Your Heart

Scripture: Hosea 10

I. We Guard Our Hearts by Giving Thanks

A. Israel used God's abundance as material for idol worship (Hosea 10:1)

1. The more Israel prospered, the more altars they built — spoiled children misusing God's gifts
2. A thankless heart leads to disregard for all authority, both divine and human (Hosea 10:3)

B. Thanklessness corrodes the heart and fosters autonomy — "all I need is wonderful me"

1. The Fifth Commandment is the hinge between duties to God and duties to man; forgetting God produces a law unto oneself
2. Selfish living flows from thankless living

C. Application: Cultivate a habitual, daily pattern of thanksgiving — even in small things like meals — to keep the heart oriented toward God

II. We Guard Our Hearts by Destroying Idols

A. Israel mourned the exile of the golden calf when Assyria carried it away (Hosea 10:5)

1. The Hebrew word galah (exile/departed) is used similarly in 1 Samuel 4:22 when the ark departed — but Israel has now transferred that devotion to an idol
2. Failure to crush idols leads to a life-or-death commitment to them

B. Calvin: "Our hearts are perpetual idol factories" — every believer has idols to battle throughout the Christian life

C. John Owen: "If you are not killing sin, sin will be killing you"

1. Identifying and crushing idols daily is part of sanctification — putting off the old self and putting on the new
2. Israel serves as a warning: do not wait until the idol is torn away to discover how deeply it owns your heart

III. We Guard Our Hearts by Thinking Theologically

A. Israel made political covenants with pagan nations, invoking pagan deities alongside Yahweh (Hosea 10:4)

1. Thinking politically first made Israel terrible theologians
2. Trust in military strength and pragmatic alliances produced iniquity, injustice, and lies (Hosea 10:13)

B. Israel viewed God through the lens of politics and pragmatics rather than viewing politics through the lens of God

C. Application: Build theological muscle — read good theology, mature in the knowledge of God — so that political and pragmatic pressures do not disorder the heart's priorities

IV. We Guard Our Hearts by Considering God's Judgment

A. Hosea uses stark language to depict coming judgment (Hosea 10:14)

1. Shalmanesar destroyed Beth-arbel — a foretaste of what awaits Israel
2. Thorns and thistles on the altars echo the curse of the Fall in Genesis — only other occurrence of this pairing in the Hebrew Bible (Hosea 10:8)

B. Israel as a new Adam: Hosea 6:7 — "like Adam they transgressed the covenant"; the reconstituted covenant people meet the same fate as the first representative

1. The high places (aven = iniquity) that Israel trusted will come crashing down on them
2. This language reappears in Luke 23 and Revelation 6 pointing to final cosmic judgment

C. God's threats of judgment are a covenant benefit for his people — they sober, redirect, and sanctify

1. Jesus addresses cutting off hands, feet, and eyes to avoid hell — speaking to his disciples (Matthew 5)
2. Romans 2 warns against presuming on God's patience as license to sin
3. David in 2 Samuel 24:14 chose to fall into God's hand rather than man's — recognizing that the covenant Lord's mercy is greater than the world's hard yoke

V. We Guard Our Hearts by Remembering God's Goodness

A. Hosea 10:11-12 — an ark in the flood; God recalls Israel's early obedience as a trained calf with a spared neck (an easy yoke) and calls them to return

1. "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap steadfast love, break up your fallow ground, seek the Lord"
2. Even to adulterous Israel God extends his merciful hand: repent and he will rain righteousness down

B. Matthew 11:28-30 — "Come to me… my yoke is easy and my burden is light"

1. The yoke of vainglory, sexual pleasure, military conquest, money, and fame is hard and ultimately crushing
2. Only the yoke of the covenant Lord in the face of Jesus Christ is easy

C. Christ as the true vine — John 15

1. Israel produced fruits of unrighteousness (Hosea 10:1); union with the true vine is the only source of fruit of righteousness
2. John the Baptist prepares the way in the wilderness (symbol of judgment); Christ fulfills all righteousness and, from his throne, rains down the Spirit on fallow hearts, making them good soil for thirty-, sixty-, and a hundredfold fruit

D. Application: Think on Christ daily; remember God's goodness to you in and through Christ by the Spirit; keep your heart by contemplating him often