A Heart Examination

Introductory Considerations

1. Today we get right into the heart of the matter of what being a Christian is all about. We have witnessed the baptism of Chance, Griffen and Gary. We have heard three people make confession of faith. And now we are each asked to examine ourselves.

2. We rejoice that Chance was able to come and be baptized. For those who are visiting you may look at chance and wonder what our concern is. For he looks and seems to be just like any healthy baby - just like Griffen. And yet Chance has a heart problem. His heart is not right. Unless he receives a new heart or unless God recreates the heart He has, we know that his tiny heart will not be able to sustain his life.

3. The heart is the centre of the body. It sends life-giving blood to all the other parts. Without a heart we cannot live.

4. Chance is not the only one here who has or has had a heart problem - for so does Griffen, Gary, Shari, Jeff, Sara, so do I.

5. In fact each one of us have or had a heart problem. Unless something either has been done or will be done, the problem with each of our hearts will cause us to die.

6. We may look healthy and fine on the outside, but inside we may have a fatal heart disease that will surely kill us. Unless we receive a new heart we have no hope.

Teaching

1, The heart I am talking about is not the organ of the heart, but the heart or centre of our being. While this may not seem as important as the heart organ, it is. For a sick heart organ may lead to a temporary physical death while our inner being heart leads to eternal physical and spiritual suffering and death.

2. Today we go to the doctor together and we have our hearts examined.

3. The Bible talks about our hearts - our innermost being. The heart is that which is the centre of our thinking, our feelings and our will. It is the centre of our spiritual and moral life. It is the heart that determines who we are.

4. It is the condition of one’s heart that determines one’s relationship with God.

5. People of Israel had been chosen by God to be His people. He loved them and had rescued them and given them the promised land. They were blessed so very much.

6. Yet they had turned away from Him. They rebelled and their hearts were divided. God demands that we love Him with ALL our hearts - that our thinking, feeling, and will are all focused and dedicated to Him.

7. Our hearts so easily turn away from God and become evil (Gen 6:5). The natural inclination of our heart is to turn away from God. (Jer 17:9)

8. Ww are not talking about sins we commit, but about a disease that is part of the human condition. That is why we said that our children are sinful by nature - no one has a healthy heart by nature.

9. Problem with this - Pss 24:3-4.

10. The Lord looks at our hearts. (1Sam 16:7). If God were to search your heart your heart what would he find a pure heart? He would not if He searched mine.

11. This means that I cannot come before God, that the sentence of death given to Adam is the sentence that is give to you and to me.

12. There is only one way out of this dilemma - we need a new heart. In Ezekiel, God says He will gather His people together and remove their hearts of stone.

13. Do we have any hearts of stone this morning? Hearts that are hardened to the conviction of the Holy Spirit that we are sinners, that we are lost, that we cannot live forever in our own strength.

14. God wants to remove the hearts of stone of His people and give them hearts of flesh, hearts softened to the work of the HS who seeks to renew our hearts. No matter how hard we try we cannot fix our own hearts. Chance cannot and we cannot, - only God can.

15. A new heart trusts in God alone - it has faith in God. The Heidelberg Catechism says that this faith is produced by HS by preaching and use of sacraments.

16. Is your heart touched today? Does any of this affect you? To see how God cleanses our hearts from sin and changes lives.

17. If it does not - it means that perhaps you have never truly been given a new heart by God. May seem a Christian on outside but your heart is not - means you are really not.