Do You Have An Undivided Heart

Pastor Allan Kircher

Shell Point Baptist Church Feb. 25,2013

The Undivided Heart – Psalm 86:11

“Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name”Ps. 86:11.

Translators/divided/how/translate/phrase.

• The NASB says, "Unite my heart to fear your name."

• CEB, "Make my heart focused only on honoring your name.”

I like that because it sounds like the way I often pray: “Put me together, Lord, because right now my life is scattered in a thousand directions.”

• Most days my heart doesn’t seem “undivided,”

• it needs some kind of “uniting."

Because our hearts/often divided, we need/Lord/unite it somehow so we worship him/nothing held back.

That is the situation many of us face right now.

Our hearts/fragmented because we/pulled/many directions/once.

In order to get some practical help in this area, let’s start with a

very basic question.

What are the marks of a divided heart?

1. Perpetual Ambivalence

It has been said that a narcissist is a person who is unable to commit to anything outside of himself.

He flies from one relationship to another

• one job to another

• one friendship to another

• one church to another

• one promise to another

• never staying in one place long enough to make anything stick.

He’s here today and gone tomorrow.

• He promises and then makes excuses.

• “I’ll call you tomorrow, “then forgets and apologizes later.

• Or maybe he never remembers at all.

He’s here today and gone tomorrow.

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Pondered/situation, a verse came to mind from 1 Chronicles 12,

• Lists the soldiers/came/David’s aid when/Ziklag/Hebron.

• Soldiers/various tribes/Israel

They realized/David was not king over Israel yet

• God’s hand/upon him/he/bound/replace Saul sooner/later.

• List of men/Benjamin/Gad, Manasseh, and so on.

Perhaps/most famous/men/Issachar 1 Chronicles 12:32 who “understood the times and knew what Israel should do.”

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Next verse we find/note about the warriors/tribe of Zebulon.

They are described as

• Experienced soldiers prepared for battle

• every type of weapon/help David

• undivided loyalty-50,000 (v. 33).

A great host of trained soldiers who came to David ready to fight.

• They showed up in full battle gear

• shield and spears and bows

• Ready to go to battle at a moment’s notice.

• But that is not their finest quality.

• Something even better to be said about them.

• They were men of “undivided loyalty.”

Original Hebrew text emphasizes/unusual way when it uses the word for “not” and the word “heart” repeated twice.

• Not heart and heart.

• Not “double-hearted.

• Not partly for Saul and partly for David.

• But having made their choice

• It was one heart all the time, nothing held back.

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These men said, “David, we are all in.

• Where you lead, we will follow.

• Say the word and we will go into battle.

• We serve at your command-and only at your command.”

Three thousand years after/men/Zebulon came to David, we remember them not for their military prowess (which must have been great) but for their hearts.

• They were not “heart and heart.”

• They were not “double-hearted.”

• They were in all the way.

• People with a divided heart can’t talk that way.

• They are in and out at the same time.

There is a second characteristic of a divided heart . . .

2. Divided Priorities

In Matthew 13 Jesus told a parable about a man who went out to sow seed.

• Some fell on the path, some/stony ground

• Some among/thorns, some/good ground.

Jesus explained/parable, he said/four soils represented four responses/message/kingdom.

Let’s focus on the seed sown among the thorns. Here is that part of the parable:

“Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants” (Matthew 13:7).

And this is the explanation:

“The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22)

• If you have ever planted a garden

• You understand what Jesus is saying.

• No matter how good the soil may appear from above

• Weeds lurk just below the surface.

• If you do not pull them up

• They will choke out the seed you have planted.

Weeds lurk just below the surface.

Jesus said that some people are like that.

• They are fence-straddlers.

• They say “Yes but . . .” when they hear the Word.

• Maybe they mean business, but they never pull the weeds out of their life.

parable Jesus mentions two particular kinds of weeds.

First, the worries of this life.

Any consuming concern in your life that catches all your attention.

It could be

• something that in itself is not bad