("Jesus Freak" – D.C. Talk Music Video)
Okay, so it’s not a real Christmassy song, not to mention rather dated. . .but, what’s your answer? What would people think if they knew that you were a Jesus Freak? Or maybe the first question to be asked is, are you a Jesus freak? Hold that answer in your mind, and bounce back to it from time to time as we look at God’s word this morning.
Now, this may come as somewhat of a shock to many of you, but I’m a fairly opinionated individual. I tend to be one of those people that almost always falls on one end of the teeter-totter. There are not too many thing you could ask me about, ask me if I like or don’t like, that I’m going to say, “Eh. Can take it or leave it.”
Contrast of my extreme likes and dislikes:
- Love Deserts/Hate Vegetables
- Love Yankees/Hate Red Sox
- Love "The Amazing Race"/Hate "Dancing with the Stars"
- Love Food Network/Hate The SciFi Channel
Other people are more middle of the road in their likes, loves and passions. Not quite as defined. Can pretty much take or leave just about anything.
But regardless of your general personality make-up, there is one area where almost all of us struggle with a passionate, black and white, wholeness of heart, sold out kind of love - our relationship with God. Living as a Jesus freak.
Introvert or extrovert. Opinionated or reserved. Gregarious or melancholy. As we look at ourselves, and most of the other Christians around us, I think most of us would agree that when it comes to our walk with Christ, we often feel like our devotion, our allegiance, our love is less than it could be. Is lacking something. We have given Jesus our heart, but have held back a piece that keeps it from being whole.
And the result is that many of us want to shy away from teachings of Jesus such as, “Whoever is not with me, is against me.” (Matthew 12:30) It makes everything to cut and dry. Too black and white. We find ourselves saying, “Yea, I love Jesus, but I’m not some kind of fanatic. I don’t have to talk to others about it, wear a scripture verse on my t-shirt, or have bumper stickers all over my car to be a Christian.”
So we argue against the extreme, when truth be told, we struggle to even live up to the moderate. Maybe we don’t have to lift our hands when we sing, but shouldn’t we at least be aware of the words we are singing? Maybe we don’t have to give $5 to every homeless person we pass, but shouldn’t we at least touch the lives of the poor in our community in some way? Maybe we don’t have to memorize the totality of the Scripture, but shouldn’t we at least read God’s word on a regular basis?
There is a psychiatric diagnosis known as Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is a personality condition where a single individual evidences two or more distinct identities or personalities, each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment around the person. It is not the direct result of substance abuse or another medical condition. It is a personality disorder, originally called Multiple Personality Disorder.
It is different than schizophrenia in that is not a fracture of the normal functioning of the brain, but a fracture of the actual elements that make up a person’s personality.
And to some degree, spiritually, it is a condition that almost all of us struggle with. We desire our identity to be found in Christ, but we find it in the world. We desire for our joy to come from the Lord, but it comes from things of the flesh. We desire to be wholehearted in our devotion to God, but truth be told, our Christian personality is often dissociated from our day to day life.
There is room for a little personal exercise there on your outline. Throw out sleep. Of the hours left in your week, list out the top 5 things that consume your time during the week. The 5 biggest time hogs. Now, reflecting on those. . .put a G (for God) or an F (for flesh) next to each one indicating which of the two personalities it most feeds.
Here’s how it looks for the average person. About 15 minutes a day on phone calls and emails. About 15 minutes a day caring for family members. About 25 minutes a day on some kind of educational activity. 45 minutes a day on some form of shopping. An hour and 20 minutes a day on meals. Roughly 3 hours a day on television or on-line activities. 20 minutes a day of exercising our physical selves. And on average, less than 8 minutes a day volunteering or participating in some form of a religious activity.
We want to be fully devoted to God. To give Him our best and our all. But day after day goes by, the clock keeps ticking, and truth be told, we are functioning with a pretty split personality: our church or Christian personality, and our daily life personality.
You see, if we are honest with ourselves, we can find ourselves in the midst of the quagmire described by the quote that is there on your outline. “Half-heartedness with God is a horrible way to live. Half-hearted followers have too much of God to enjoy sin and too much sin to enjoy God. They are left somewhere in the between with a serious spiritual dichotomy, and are usually quite miserable. While giving verbal assent to the superiority of the things of God, they give themselves much more fully to things that feed their flesh. Until we come to a place of wholeheartedness before God, we will never be effective or satisfied.”
It is a pretty easy test to take to find out if this half-heartedness is a part of my life. First I ask myself, when I sin, do I enjoy it? Not so much at the moment of sin, but in the moments that follow. When the guilt, shame, and discouragement set in. Do I find myself saying, “Man, I blew it again.” That’s having too much of God to enjoy sin. That’s half the equation.
And the other half can be tested as well. Is there sin in my life that keeps me from fully enjoying God? For instance, does work keep me from my relationship with Him? You say, “But work isn’t sin.” You shall have no other God’s before me. Man can not serve both God and money. If work keeps you from your relationship with God, it is sin. And it is enough sin to keep you from fully enjoying God. And you know what, even pastor’s can struggle with work as sin (elaborate on this past week).
There are a few major problems caused by this condition of half-heartedness with God.
1. GOD IS A JEALOUS GOD
And that’s a problem. He declared it Himself in Exodus 20:5, “I the LORD your God am a jealous God.”
So if we are not living in whole hearted relationship with the Father, we incite His feelings of jealousy for His children. Another pretty major problem that half-heartedness causes is that...
2. WHOLEHEARTEDNESS IS HIS COMMAND FOR US, NOT AN OPTION.
We give a lot of focus to a lot of commands in the church. Commandments against homosexuality. Commandments against addiction and abuse. Commandments against murder and lying. But Jesus himself said those commandments are all hinged on the greatest commandment. The commandment to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
He doesn’t say this is an optional way to live as a Christian. “You decide how high on the love of God scale you want to walk with me.” No, that isn’t how it works. He says, “Here’s the greatest commandment. Love God with everything. All of you.”
Imagine if the world got wise to this, and every time we confronted them out there with the commands from God’s Word, what if they looked at us and said, “Well, the greatest commandment. The one that is above all the others. To love God with all of your being. Are you doing that?” Pretty dangerous question we better hope the world doesn’t grab hold of.
Remember the prophecy that goes out in the book of Revelation to the church at Laodicea, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
Wholeheartedness is not an option. It’s God’s command of how we are to live. This is a significant part of the reason that a half-hearted love of God can cause us so much angst. It isn’t how we were meant to exist. So. . .
3. LIVING WITH A SPIRITUAL DISSOCIATIVE DISEASE MAKES US MISERABLE.
It is not how we were created. It does not please the Father. It leaves us with a gapping hole in our heart that is continually being invaded by the things of this world. And we once again find ourselves in a disocciative state of loving God, but still being connected to the wants and desires of our flesh.
So what do we do to try and fill this hole in our heart? To try and eliminate this other personality of our lives? To attempt to be wholehearted? The following aren’t a formula, but some thoughts of what it might take to fill the hole so that we can be whole hearted in our devotion to God. And it may not start where you expect.
A. WE NEED TO RECOGNIZE THE TOTALITY OF OUR REDEMPTION
For some of you that may have been a bit of a jump. From a practical evaluation of our time, and a psychiatric look at our life styles to a theological term like redemption. So stay with me here.
During the reformation, an exciting and radical transformation took place. An essential truth of God’s word was revived: we are justified by faith alone through grace alone. Salvation was restored as this glorious exchange where Christ takes our sin and guilt, and we take His righteousness. People have even used a courtroom drama illustration to describe this. God is the judge, and we are cleared of all wrong doing, and declared legally innocent.
Unfortunately, for some people, that is all that a relationship with God has boiled down to. A legal standing. A stamp on our passport indicating we can enter into heaven.
And that is an important part of the story, but it is not all of the story of our redemption.
Because God’s word tells us that He is not just some cold judge behind the bench. But that He has a heart that is ravished with delight for His people. That He longs for a relationship of intimacy with His children. That we can now love Him, not because He has cleared us of the charges, but because He first loved us.
My kids love me, but they need me. I provide them with food and shelter. I protect them, and train them. It’s a great love that they have for me, but it would be hard at this age to separate from their need for me. But that is a missing element in our redemption: God, who has no need of us, abounds in His love for us.
I have been talking about this on and off for about the last six months, and I find that the more I talk about it, the more frustrated I tend to become. Because as I encounter Christian after Christian, I can see in their eyes, I can hear in their voice, I can read it in their countenance. . .they don’t know that part of being saved is being loved. They know John 3:16, but they don’t know John 3:16.
Our redemption means we are no longer called servants, but friends. We are now the Bride of Christ. And a bride and groom relationship is an intimate relationship of love. Not just, “You my wife. You live in my house. You cook me food.” Like God is some kind of gargantuan cave man. He loves us.
Which brings us to another practical step we can take towards filling that hole, and being whole hearted.
B. LIVE FROM A FOUNDATION OF LOVE
It’s a simple truth of life that people who are in love give up a lot less frequently. How does Debbie put up with me? I know many of you have asked that more than once! I’ll tell you how. She loves me. If she didn’t, she would have quit a long time ago. But when you are in love, you fight harder.
We have a friend who recently lost her mother to cancer. People die every day of cancer. Most of us have probably known people who died from cancer. Emily probably had known others who have died from cancer. But this was her mom. So she flew back and forth to Arizona. Crossing the country over and over again. Not giving up, until there was nothing left to fight for. Why? Because she loved her. And people who are in love give up a lot less frequently.
(example of watching the UK versus Tennessee football game)
What does this have to do with being whole hearted? If you will foster an atmosphere and spirit of love in your relationship with God, it will be that much harder to give it up in the face of temptation and sin.
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, “For the love of Christ compels us.” That’s our motivation. That’s our drive. That’s what keeps us going, and building a heart that is fully dedicated and committed to Christ. Our love of Christ.
Don’t be driven by fear of God. Be driven by an affection for God. Don’t focus on beating that sin habit so you can be with God. Focus on enjoying God and He will help you overcome that sin habit.
Think about how crazy we can be. What if I told you I had a great new plan for growing deeper in my love for Debbie? Here it is. I’m not going to talk to any other women. That’s it.
I’m going to completely avoid conversations with other women, and my love for Debbie will flourish. That’s nuts! I grow in my love for Debbie, by being with Debbie. Fact of the matter is, the more conversations I have with other women the more I love Debbie.
Make your daily decisions. Act out your daily plan. Live your daily life from the foundation of love for God. And watch the hole in your heart get smaller and smaller as your intimacy with Him grows.
Practically, how do we do that? Well. . .one way we can do that is that we can. . .
C. SEEK MORE OF THE SPIRIT THROUGH SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE
I think I have said it before. Please hear it today, and be prepared to address it if you find yourself one-on-one with me. The majority of the people that come for counseling, or to deal with a frustration, or to express displeasure with the church or God, the majority of them are almost completely disconnected from the spiritual disciplines. They aren’t studying the Bible regularly. Their life lacks a commitment to prayer. The closest they come to fasting is fast food. They haven’t had a 30 minute period of silence and solitude in their life in 20 years. They are never truly there, because their life is completely void of spiritual discipline. So they are miserable, and they take it out on a spouse, a church member, or the pastor.
And usually, it is a life pattern. It’s the husband who wants his marriage to be better, but is never home. It’s the mother who longs to be closer to her children, but spends less than 30 minutes a day with them. It’s the church attendee that is tired of being lonely, but is last in and first out Sunday after Sunday.
Just like any other area of life, being whole hearted with God requires an investment of all that I am. That is why Jesus said I was to love him with all my heart, but also with all my soul. . .my emotions, and with all my mind. . .my intellect. Any part of that which is sacrificed to a thing of this world, leaves a hole in my relationship with God. And violates the greatest commandment to live wholehearted.
There is another personal exercise there on your outline. A list of some spiritual disciplines. Next to each one, write one of three letters. A “Y” to indicate you have done that some time during 2007. A “M” to indicate you have done that some time in the past month. A “W” to indicate you have participated in that discipline sometime in the past week. If not activity this year. Just leave it blank.
How are we doing? Are we giving ourselves a chance to be whole hearted by loving the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind? Are we engaging in growing through spiritually disciplining our lives?
One more. And this one is probably going to make some of us uncomfortable. Especially the men. But I’ll keep using words like Bride of Christ, and intimacy with God until we learn to be more comfortable with them.
D. EMBRACE THE LORD WITH A HOLY EMBRACE
Turn with me to the Song of Solomon. The children are in children’s church. I’m sorry parents of teenagers if you didn’t want your kids to know this book was in the Bible. But it is. Song of Solomon 3.
Now, if you believe that this book is allegorical to Christ and the church, which I do. Doesn’t mean it can’t also be literal for Solomon, and be a true love letter type of book also. But I do believe it carries meaning for the relationship between Christ and the church. Within that frame of mind, look at chapter 3 (read through verse 4).
That’s a holy embrace. “I held him, and would not let him go.”
I’m currently ministering to 165 students at the Indiana Wesleyan University campus located in Hamburg. Of the 165 students who indicate that they have some involvement in a church, 55% of them list that involvement as occasionally. And we know that the other group that says they are regular, all studies show that a good portion of those probably are not.
But 55% of them have a loose embrace of the Lord. Can take Him or leave Him. Might engage in going to His house to worship Him, might not. They are living half-hearted. And when I talk with them, and read their prayer requests, I can see the toll it is taking on their life. Because half-hearted Christianity is no way to live.
The whole hearted way to live is to embrace the Lord with a holy love, and not let go. Hold Him tight.
(analogy of finding a lost child)
Debbie and Jamie have a very similar personality. Allie and I, pretty much the same. We’ll give you are clear cut opinion well before you ask for it. But Debbie and Jamie, not so much. Ask them where they want to go for dinner, they will probably answer, “I don’t care.” Not Allie. She knows where she wants to go.
And there are times when it drives me crazy. When I’ll say, “Just have an opinion. Make a choice. Choose a side.”
And I wonder if God ever looks down upon my life, and feels the same way. “Man, Chip. Make up your mind. Do I get your whole life or not? Is your heart completely mine or not?”
(Tie to this past week)
I want to fill the hole in my heart with God, so that I can live wholehearted. What about you?
