Introduction:
A. The story is told of a mechanic who was working on a car motor when he spotted a world-famous heart surgeon enter his shop.
1. The heart surgeon stood at the counter waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his car.
2. The mechanic shouted across the garage, “Hello Doctor, could you please come on over here for a minute.”
3. The famous surgeon, was a bit surprised, but walked over to the mechanic.
4. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, “So doctor, look at this here. I also open hearts, take valves out and put in new parts. When I finish, this will work just like a new one. So how come you get the really big money, when you and I are doing basically the same work?"
5. The doctor smiled and said to the mechanic, “Try doing it with the engine running!”
6. No doubt, what mechanics do with car engines is fantastic, and what doctors do with physical hearts is incredible, but what God does with the spiritual heart is miraculous.
B. Last week, we began a new sermon series called “Wholly Devoted – Serving God with All We Are and Have.”
1. The Scriptural launching point for the series is Jesus’ statement that the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30)
2. To be pleasing to God we must learn to be devoted to God with all we are and have.
3. So, we began the series last week by exploring what it means to be wholly devoted to God with our minds.
a. We talked about the importance of having a wholly devoted mind and suggested that it is so important because what we think is basically what we are and what we become.
b. We talked about the fact that the spiritual war we are in basically takes place in the mind.
c. The second thing we addressed was the process of having a wholly devoted mind and we explored the fact that it begins with a decision and commitment and then continues with the ongoing renewing of our minds.
d. The key to the renewing of the mind is the Holy Spirit working in us and through the Word of God.
C. Today, we want to build on last week by addressing the subject of a wholly devoted heart.
1. In all honesty, I struggle to decipher the difference between the mind and the heart.
2. Often times in Scripture they are used interchangeably or they are used side by side.
3. Last week I included a passage from Deuteronomy where God gave this command to the Israelites: Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.” (Dt. 11:18)
D. So what is the difference between the heart and the mind?
1. We know what the difference is between the physical heart and mind, that’s easy, but what about the spiritual heart and spiritual mind? What is the difference between them?
2. As you know, the Bible talks about the importance of the spiritual mind, but for the sake of comparison, it is interesting to note that the mind is discussed less than one hundred times.
3. The heart, on the other hand, is talked about over eight hundred times in the Bible.
4. If we have to make a distinction between the heart and mind, then I would say that the mind is the part of us that learns and knows, and the heart is the part of us that feels and wills.
5. As you know, each of our brains have a right and left hemisphere.
a. Scientists have observed that the left side of the brain focuses on logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy.
b. In contrast, the right side of the brain focuses on aesthetics, feeling, and creativity.
6. To be a balanced person, we need to use both sides of the brain. If we use only the left side, then we are Spock-like – logical and unemotional, if we use only the right side, then we are Captain Kirk-like, passionate and creative.
7. So perhaps the mind and heart are two ways of talking about the two sides of the brain.
8. The left side of the brain is the spiritual mind and has to do with learning and knowing, and the right side of the brain is the spiritual heart and has to do with feelings, intuition, motivation and will.
9. What we do know for sure is that the words “heart” and “mind” are metaphors for aspects of a single individual – they are meant to emphasize the whole person.
10. The use of “mind” and “heart” can help to better explain the various ways we learn, think and behave, but the point is that all that we are needs to be dedicated to the Lord.
I. The Importance of a Wholly Devoted Heart
A. Over and over again in Scripture, God tells us that the heart is so very important.
1. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”
a. The issues of life spring from the heart, and therefore, above all else, it must be protected.
b. We will have more to say about that later in this lesson.
2. Look with me at Matthew 12:33-35, Jesus said: “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.
3. It’s not hard to understand what Jesus taught here: If we make our hearts good and fill them with what is good, then the attitudes, words and actions that spring from the heart will be good.
4. But the opposite is also true. If the attitudes, words and actions that come forth are evil, then we must conclude that our hearts are evil and filled with evil.
5. So it is important to have a wholly devoted heart, because like the mind, the heart is involved in directing the course of our lives.
B. Another reason that having a wholly devoted heart is critical is that God knows and judges the heart.
1. Jeremiah 17:9-10 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”
2. In Luke 16:15, Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts…”
3. Most of us are familiar with the powerful statement God made to Samuel when David was being chosen as the next king: But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7)
4. God is able to see and know our hearts – that can be both a scary and comforting thought depending on the condition of our hearts, right?
C. Let me mention one more reason why it’s important to have a wholly devoted heart – God lives in our hearts.
1. The Bible tells us that Christ dwells in the hearts of true believers – Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:17)
2. The Bible also tells us that the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts – He has “set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Cor. 1:22)
3. Because the Spirit of God lives in us, we will want to have hearts that are pure and wholly devoted to God, so that God’s Spirit will feel right at home in our hearts and won’t be grieved or quenched. Scripture commands that we not grieve the Spirit (Eph. 4:30) or quench the Spirit or put out the Spirit’s fire (1 Thess. 5:19).
4. So the spiritual heart is very important – It directs the course of our lives, God knows and judges our hearts, and God lives in our hearts.
II. Types of Spiritual Heart Disease
A. Just as the physical heart can be harmed by many kinds of heart disease, so can the spiritual heart.
1. I wish we had time to talk about all the kinds of spiritual heart disease that exist, but let me point our attention to two of the most common and harmful types.
B. The first is what we might call the hard heart or the calloused heart.
1. This kind of heart is one that used to be soft and sensitive to spiritual things, but over time has grown harder and harder, and more and more calloused.
2. We all have experienced this kind of thing if we work with our hands.
a. The first day we work hard at a job, like digging holes for fence posts, our hands are sore and may blister – even if we wear a good pair of gloves.
b. But over the next days or weeks, the soreness disappears and hard, thick callouses appear.
c. We can work all day, day after day and have no problems with our hands, because our hands have become hard and calloused.
3. That is a wonderful thing for our hands, but not a good thing for our hearts.
a. When our hearts are soft and sensitive and we disobey God or disregard His Word, we feel pain in our hearts – our conscience hurts – we feel guilt and godly sorrow.
b. But if we keep exposing ourselves to that kind of spiritual heart pain, day after day and year after year – hard, thick callouses build up on our spiritual heart so that we feel no pain any longer.
4. I heard a story about a guy who found a great, inexpensive apartment – he couldn’t understand why it was so reasonably priced.
a. The first night he stayed there, a train came through blasting its horn in the middle of the night on the tracks right next to the apartment.
b. It didn’t just wake him up, it nearly gave him a heart attack!
c. This happened night after night.
d. At first the man thought about changing apartments, but then he started getting used to the nightly awakenings.
e. He would wake up for a few seconds, and then go right back to sleep.
f. Eventually, he got to where the train horn didn’t even wake him up.
5. The same kind of hardening process takes place when God speaks to our hearts and we don’t respond.
6. Eventually, we don’t even notice that God is trying to get out attention.
7. Hebrews 4:7 says, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”
C. The second common and harmful type of spiritual heart disease is a divided heart.
1. It is no accident that the first commandment of the 10 commandments is “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Ex. 20:3)
2. It is so hard to be singularly focused and to not have a divided allegiance.
3. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Mt. 6:24)
4. We cannot successfully serve two masters – whether those masters are: God and money, God and self, God and pleasure, God and work, God and friends, God and mate, or even God and children.
5. Trying to serve two masters whole-heartedly is like trying to simultaneously serve two husbands or two wives – you cannot give yourself completely to both of them.
6. The Bible often tells us that God is a jealous God – and His jealousy for us is a righteous, and holy jealousy, not a self-centered, evil jealousy.
7. When God pledges Himself to us and we to Him, then He has a holy jealousy for our wholly devoted selves.
8. Unfortunately, many times we have a divided heart, and rather than loving God with our whole heart, exclusively and completely, we only love God partially and or we love both Him and other things equally.
9. Jesus tried to illustrate how complete and exclusive our love for God must be by making this extreme statement: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:26).
10. Wow! That statement gets our attention, but that is what an undivided heart should look like.
11. Matthew’s rendition of Jesus’ teaching is a little more palatable: “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt. 10:37).
12. A person whose heart is wholly devoted to God is one who loves the Lord with all their heart – they love God with an undivided love and commitment.
13. That is a challenging goal, but that is God’s first and greatest command.
III. Developing a Wholly Devoted Heart
A. Let me begin this point by saying that our hearts are not something that we can change and control on our own, but God can work with us, and in us, to create a new and wholly devoted heart.
1. The process begins with the kind of prayer that King David prayed: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Ps. 51:10)
2. Do you regularly ask God to work in your heart that way?
3. Did you know that there are promises found in God’s Word about our hearts that we need to claim?
4. Ezekiel 36:26-27 is one of them. God says: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
5. Isn’t that a wonderful promise?
a. Do you want a new heart and a new spirit?
b. Do you want your heart of stone removed and replaced?
c. Do you want God’s Spirit in you moving you to obey God’s commands?
6. Thank God that we don’t have to try to develop a wholly devoted heart all by ourselves.
7. God promises to help us if we will ask and if we will cooperate with Him.
8. So, the process of developing a wholly devoted heart begins with asking God for help and trusting in His promise to work in us and give us a new, pure heart.
B. The process of developing a wholly devoted heart continue with some regular attention and action.
1. The illustration that is helpful at this point is for us to liken our hearts to a garden.
2. Gardens require a lot of attention and action.
3. Three important gardening activities include: plowing, planting and protecting.
a. Plowing involves keeping the soil soft and aerated.
b. Planting involves choosing and sowing the right kinds of seed – “what we plant we reap.”
c. Protecting involves removing weeds and pests, proper watering and fertilizing.
4. Just like the physical garden, the garden of our hearts needs to be plowed, planted and protected.
5. These kinds of activities will help to keep our hearts healthy and help to overcome the hard heart and the divided heart that we discussed earlier.
C. The kinds of regular attention and action needed for a wholly devoted heart include these things:
1. The first action needed is: we must EXAMINE our hearts.
a. We need to regularly inspect our hearts.
b. We need to search them and invite God to search them.
c. Psalm 139:23 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart.”
d. When we examine our own hearts, we want to be able to see what God sees, even if it disturbs us or makes us uncomfortable.
e. Until we see our own hearts like God sees them, then we won’t be able to do anything about our heart condition.
f. But when we cooperate with God in the examination process, and we find some things that do not belong, then we can move to the next needed action.
2. The second action needed for a wholly devoted heart is: we must REMOVE what doesn’t belong.
a. Just like the weeds in the garden need to be pulled, whatever doesn’t belong in our hearts needs to be removed.
b. This includes all kinds of things, like: the hatred of others and self, pride, selfishness, fear and anxiety and revenge – just to name a few.
c. This is an ongoing process. The weeds can be pulled one day, and the next day just as many other weeds have popped up.
d. This can be very frustrating and exhausting, but we must not give up!
3. The third action for a wholly devoted heart is: we must FOCUS our hearts.
a. The apostle Peter wrote, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord” (1 Pet. 3:15)
b. In Colossians 3:1, Paul wrote: “Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above…”
c. David wrote, “I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws” (Ps. 119:30)
d. When we properly focus our hearts, they will be focused on the Lord, on things above, and on the Word of God.
4. The final action for a wholly devoted heart is: we must GUARD our hearts.
a. It is far better to keep the weeds from ever getting started, then it is to remove the weeds after they have taken root.
b. We must do what we can to keep out of our hearts that which doesn’t belong in the first place.
c. In Philippians 4:7, I really like the way Paul talks about the fact that the peace of God can guard our hearts, he wrote: And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
d. That peace that guards our hearts comes as the result of trusting God in prayer.
e. Guarding our hearts must be our highest priority: look again at Prov. 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”
f. Back in September of 2006, we were all shocked to hear the news that Steve Irwin, called the Crocodile Hunter was dead.
1. We were stunned, not that he died, for he faced tremendous dangers on a daily basis as he handled poisonous snakes and toyed with crocodiles.
2. Rather, we were surprised by the way he died – by a Stingray barb to the heart.
3. He had made it a point to be extremely alert and to guard his body from any surprise attacks by animals, but the one area he thought would not be vulnerable turned out to be the most vulnerable.
4. He had protected his limbs and his head, but he had not protected his heart.
5. Spiritually we don’t want to make the same mistake.
6. “Above all else guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” (Pr. 4:23)
Conclusion:
A. I hope and pray that all of us will continue to strive to be wholly devoted – to serve God with all we are and have.
1. And here’s the amazing thing – God wants us to be wholly devoted to Him and God is seeking to bless and strengthen those who are wholly devoted to God.
2. 2 Chronicles 16:9 says, “For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”
3. Isn’t that awesome? God is watching for those who have hearts fully committed to God, and when God finds people with wholly devoted hearts, He gives them strength!
4. I pray that when God searches throughout the earth and comes to this church family here at Wetzel Road, He finds many who have wholly devoted hearts and therefore pours out His spiritual blessings and resources upon us!
