Is your sports team killing you?

Steven Clary and his friends were ecstatic at halftime of the 2017 Super Bowl: his Atlanta Falcons were up 28-3 over New England. By the time the Patriots came back to defeat his team, he was in the hospital with chest pain.

A study published last year suggests that the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat can substantially affect the cardiovascular system. Heart rates peak most often during scoring opportunities and overtime.

September and October are the only months when you can watch baseball, basketball, hockey, and football. But our fixation with athletics is not confined to this season of the year: Americans spend $100 billion on sports each year.

According to a Barna study, 64 percent of Americans think pro athletes have more influence in society than pastors. We commonly refer to “idolizing” sports figures and other celebrities. Perhaps we’re more right than we know.

The sin at the heart of all sins

I have a wooden idol on one of the shelves in my library. I purchased it nearly forty years ago when I was a missionary in East Malaysia. It is a hand-carved image of a bird with a large beak. I was told that some of the natives viewed it as a nature god.

The wooden bird is not an idol to me–it is merely a souvenir. However, I have other idols in my life that are less visible but much more dangerous. You have yours as well.

We think of idols as man-made objects of worship: images of Baal, Venus, and other deities known to history. But our idols don’t have to be religious to be deadly.

Idolatry is glorifying anyone or anything more than we glorify God. It is valuing anyone or anything more than we value our Lord. And it’s finding our primary source of hope in anything other than our heavenly Father.

We commit this sin when we choose to impress people in a way that dishonors our Lord. When we make a moral decision that brings immediate reward but violates God’s word and will. When we choose what we want over what our Father…