A Heart Transplant

A HEART TRANSPLANT

A pure heart for the harvest

Psalm 51:10

S: Missions

Th: A Heart for the Harvest

Pr: WE NEED THE HEART THAT GOD HAS.

?: What? What keeps us from having that?

KW: Problems

TS: We will find in our study of Scripture, three problems that keep us from having the heart God desires for us.

The _____ problem is…

I. GENETICS

II. LIFESTYLE

III. WEAKNESS

Version: ESV

RMBC 20 October 02 AM

INTRODUCTION:

1. Have you ever felt that you just didn’t have the heart for something?

ILL Notebook: Motivation (Hopeless Resignation)

Late one night, a man had gone to a party and had too much to drink, so he decided it would be best to walk home. He found a shortcut through a poorly lit cemetery and, in the darkness, stumbled into an open grave. He tried to climb out but the walls were too slippery. Again and again he fell back into the grave. Finally, in exhaustion, he settled in a corner to wait for sunlight.

A few minutes later, another man in the same condition was cutting through the cemetery and fell victim to the same grave. He, too, tried desperately to climb and claw his way out, and he was equally unsuccessful.

As he was about to give up in hopeless resignation, he heard a voice from the darkness of his pit: "You may as well give up. You’ll never get out of here."

But he did!

Well…

2. Sometimes a little motivation will go a long ways!

One moment you have none, and then something unexpected comes along, and you are thrust forward.

Well, this month, it has been our desire to develop a motivation for the harvest.

In Luke 10:2, we find Jesus saying:

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

3. Our theme for this month has been “A Heart for the Harvest.”

We have had some exciting events for the first two weeks of this month…

…Concert of Prayer with area churches

…challenge from Jon Graf

…presentation of the flags

…report from our ambassadors to Quebec, Clarence and Pearl Shelly.

And as we have had these, I have been wondering…

4. What keeps us from having a heart for the harvest?

When Jesus considered the lost condition of people and how they lacked a relationship with God, He longed that they would know and love God.

For this is why He came—to seek and to save what was lost.

So I wonder, how come we don’t feel the same way?

What keeps us from having a heart that longs for the harvest as God does?

OUR STUDY:

Well, I think…

I. The first problem is GENETICS.

No offense intended, but…

We are all born with rotten hearts.

David testifies to this in Psalm 14 (2-3) when he says:

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.

We have a genetic problem.

Like it or not, we possess bad hearts that can be deceitfully wicked as the prophet Jeremiah tells us.

Until we recognize this, we will never have a heart for the harvest.

II. The second problem is LIFESTYLE.

Our physicians will tell us that if we live the wrong way and eat the wrong things, we hurt our heart.

If we smoke and excessively drink, we are going to hurt our body.

If we fill ourselves with junk food, we are going to clog up the arteries.

The truth we need to recognize is that…

We get our hearts dirty.

This is why David, when he committed some very terrible sins and got his heart real dirty, came before the Lord and said (Psalm 51:2):

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!

We need to get cleaned up.

We need to live differently.

But we can only do it when we acknowledge and confess what we are and what we have done.

We can only do it when we admit that the way we are living (our lifestyles) is full of poor and even wicked choices.

When we can admit this, it is then that we are on the way to have a heart for the harvest.

III. The third problem is WEAKNESS.

If we are lazy, sit around and do not exercise, our heart is going to get weak.

So…

We need to take care of our heart.

This is what Solomon tells us in Proverbs 4:23:

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.