Knowing Me, Knowing You

12, September 2004

Dakota Community Church

Knowing Me, Knowing you

Finding and Living From Our True Hearts

This sermon is developed from one by Elmer Towns entitled:

“Three of the Greatest Emotions in Life” Which is posted on Sermon Central.

Introduction:

Back to school has me reminiscing about those years of life. The promise, the hope, the fears, and the questions that had to be asked:

- Who am I?

- Why am I here?

- What is my purpose in life?

How many of us are living the lives we dreamed of when we were 18?

What has happened to that passion?

John Eldridge in “Wild at Heart” makes the assertion, and I agree, that:

“The way a man’s life unfolds nowadays tends to drive his heart into remote regions of the soul.”

- Endless hours at a computer screen

- Time at the mall

- Meetings, memos, phone calls

- The church, religious duty

Our true heart gets lost in the shuffle of important and mundane things.

We need to find it again and live from it.

We need more than houses and cars and retirement plans.

We need the passion that comes from the God factor.

Not the Church factor, the God factor.

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.

Ask yourself what makes you come alive,

And go do that,

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

- Gil Bailie

Psalm 137: 1-6

1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. 2 There on the poplars we hung our harps, 3 for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land? 5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. 6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

Three Questions we need to ask to start the journey.

1. What makes you cry? (Past)

Psalm 137: 1

1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.

a.) We weep over the harvest.

They wept because of the past and what was lost to them.

They wept because they could not undo what they had done to themselves.

Sometimes even though repentance brings restoration and forgiveness to our fellowship with God – which is the most important thing in life, - it does not undo the harvest of our actions.

- A repentant teenage girl is still pregnant.

- Esau cannot regain his birthright.

Hebrews 12: 16-17

16Watch out for the Esau syndrome: trading away God’s lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite. 17You well know how Esau later regretted that impulsive act and wanted God’s blessing--but by then it was too late, tears or no tears.

b.) We weep over the oppressions of hell.

Job 35: 9

9 "Men cry out under a load of oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.

Exodus 3: 7

7 The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.

Do not weep over what the enemy does - do battle – we are not in the old covenant.

James 4: 7

7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

c.) We weep over failed relationships.

Even when a really bad relationship ends, unhealthy ones that we realize were mistakes in the first place, there is much weeping. More than anything else this shows how important relationships are.

2Samuel 18: 31-33

31 Then the Cushite arrived and said, "My lord the king, hear the good news! The LORD has delivered you today from all who rose up against you."

32 The king asked the Cushite, "Is the young man Absalom safe?"

The Cushite replied, "May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up to harm you be like that young man."

33 The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: "O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you-O Absalom, my son, my son!"

d.) We weep over the death of those we love.

Not long after arriving in New Hebrides as a pioneer missionary, John G. Patton and his wife rejoiced in the coming of a baby son to gladden their home. But the joy was short-lived. Soon death took both his wife and child, and Dr. Patton had to dig their graves and bury his loved ones with his own hands. In writing of this experience, he testified, "If it had not been for Jesus and the fellowship and grace He afforded me, I am certain I would have gone mad or died of grief beside their lonely graves." Marvelously strengthened from above, the bereaved servant of God found that the promises of the Word were able to sustain him through the heartache and sorrow of his tragic loss.