A Look at Our Darkside - Jeremiah 17:9
Preached March 4, 2001 @ Saybrook Christian Church
Brent W. Zastrow
A lightly-colored haired person had one of the old Volkswagon beetles
with the engine in the rear. While driving down the road one day the car stalled
and died. The person got out, went to the front of the car, lifted the hood and
discovered the engine missing. Pretty soon a similiar person who also happened
to have a Beetle stopped to see if they could help. They asked, “What’s the
problem?” The first one replied, “I don’t know. But somewhere along the road I
lost my engine. It must have just fallen out.”
“Oh well,” said the second, “You can borrow one from me, I have a spare in the
trunk.”
You know, engines aren’t the only things we need a spare of. Listen to
the words of Jeremiah -- The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it? Sounds like we could use a spare heart as well doesn’t
it? Especially on those days when our deceitful darkside is showing. Like those
times King Saul chased young David with a spear. When the men of Sodom
tried to break down the door of Lot’s house to get at two angels. When David
was committing both adultry and murder. When Moses killed an Egyptian
slave-master or Jacob was stealing his brother’s birthright. Or when Herod was
killing the baby boys of Bethlehem. When the disciples betrayed, denied and ran
for cover as Jesus was arrested. Or finally when a guy named Saul stood by
cheering and jeering as Stephen was being stoned to death. Max Lucado says “if
the Bible is called the Good Book, it’s not becasue the people in it are.”
The darkside of the heart. That is our subject today. It’s not a popular
subject. It’s not a fun subject. In fact it’s one we would rather forget. It’s one we
have tried to forget. We talk about the good in all men. We talk about the
potential in all men. We talk about anything and everything but the darkside in
all men. But it keeps coming back. It keeps rearing its ugly head. And so
friends we have to deal with it. We have to do something with it. We have to
find out what can be done.
C.S. Lewis wrote The greatest evil is not done in those dordid dens of crime that
Dickens loved to pain...it is conceived and moved, seconded and carried in clean,
carpeted, warmen and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut
fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian dissadent who spent so many years
in the Russian prisoner camps in Siberia and witnessed mankind at his very
worst put even more plainly... If only there were evil people somewhere committing
evil deeds openly so that it were necessary just to separate them from the rest of us and
then destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every
human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
And friends there you have it. Solzhenitsyn has arrived at the very same
conclusion as Jeremiah -- the problem is not our environment, whether slum or
mansion. It is not our race nor our social ranking. It is not genetic or hereditary.
It isn’t even how we were raised, loved or unloved. The problem with every
man is in our hearts. Once Adam sinned, a natural desire to do what is evil was
born in our hearts and we have been giving in easily to that desire ever since.
And so we have to ask, as Paul asks in Romans 7, What will we do!!!
How can we find any hope whatsoever when every inclination of the heart, as
the prophet Isaiah says, is toward evil. When as the Psalmist says, noone does
what is good, not one person. And the answer is -- absolutely nothing. You
cannot do anything about your darkside. Coming to church today didn’t do
anything about it. I heard a sermon recently dealing with this subject and the
minister asked something that brought everyone in the congregation right out of
their seats. He asked, “What if right now, suddenly what you are thinking at
this veryi moment was amplified so that all the rest of us could hear it?” What
about it? Can you sit there right now and tell me that you are proud of your
thoughts this very moment? Not many could. We have a darkside. We even
think bad thoughts while sitting in church. So church cannot overcome the
darkside.
Doing good deeds doesn’t overcome our darksides. Did you know that
by far the greatest amount of contributions to charitable organziations comes
from executives who at the same time are cheating in marriages, cheating on
taxes and cheating their employees any way they can? Many philanthropists
give millions of dollars away in their lives to try and make up for all the dark
things they do. Doing a good deed does not overcome your darkside.
Paul put it this way -- I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is
right there with me. For in my inner being(heart) I delight in God’s law; but I see
another law at work in the members of my body, wagin war agains the alw of my mind
and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work with my members.
Can you sympathize with Paul? Aren’t we all fighting that war at this
very moment? The war that goes like this - I have the desire to do what is good, but I
cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want
to do - this I keep on doing... Isn’t that a good description of all of our lives? If
then you find that to be true in your life as I do mine, what can we do? We have
already seen it is not within us to change. We know we don’t have a spare heart
to carry around, heart-transplants notwithstanding. What hope do we have?
Praise be to God, Paul goes, because even though I am full of sin and even
though the wages of sin is death, there is a way out -- through Jesus Christ and
his sacrifice for our sins and for our darksides upon that cross.
But not only did Jesus take on himself our sins on the cross, he also chose
to receive the actions of our dark hearts in the event leading up to that death on
the cross. We saw last week some of the choices he made out of love for each of
us. He wasn’t just betrayed, he chose to be betrayed. It wasn’t just the evil of
the guards that brought about his humilation and beatings, he chose them. It
wasn’t just the custom of the day that caused him to be nailed to a cross, he
chose the nails. In each instance and through each horrible act against him, Jesus
made a choice. He was never forced. In fact we even read he wasn’t killed.
The Bible says he gave up the ghost. So even at death he was making a
conscious choice.
And so he chose to take upon his shoulders our darkside. But before he
took it on, in a dramatic and sad scene, he allowed all the darkness that tries so
hard to stay hidden to be exposed to the perfect light so that for all generations
that followed, we would know and could see just what is in our own hearts.
When did this happen? At the time when Jesus was handed over to those
Roman guards. Men who had been trained in the science of torture and
humiliation. It started when they beat him with the cat of nine-tails. It was
called that for two reasons. It was a whip with nine pieces of leather. In each
piece was tied pieces of jagged metal and pottery. These jagged pieces, like a
cat’s claw, would lay open a man’s back in a matter of moments. Many times,
historians tell us, the victim never got to the cross, but died under the lashing
first. That is why Jesus was sentence to 39 lashes. They beleived number 40
would have killed him, but their intention was to keep him alive just a little
longer. To let him receive as much torture and suffering as he could. And so
Jesus experinces excruciating pain long before he feels the nails.
Have you ever felt the torture of being clawed. I don’t mean physically,
though I have a sister and I know how that feels. But I mean emotionally. Has
anyone ever purposely set out to hurt you. Maybe they were spreading false
rumors around about you. Maybe they remained silent when others were
tearing your good name to shreds. Maybe it was one of your children in
rebellion or even your spouse. They know which buttons to push and they
spend most their time pushing them. You feel like someone has taken a whip
and laid your back open.
If you’ve ever felt that you know at least in part what Jesus went through.
That is the result of the darkside of the heart. That is what our sins did for him
and what we do to one another. James puts it this way in his letter - he says we
bite and devour one another. Why, becasue we get selfish and proud and we
just want our own way and if someone gets in our way of having our way they
better just get out of our way or else. Friends, that charactistic of every man’s
heart was brought to light on the day Jesus chose this beating. But that’s not all
that was revealed. No something much darker, from even deeper in the evil
recesses of our evil hearts came out as well. It came out in the form of spit. For
after the men were done with the beating, they spit in Jesus face.
Now I have a question for you, why spit in a man’s face? The answer -
becasue you want to humiliate him completely. Spit itself carries no pain. To be
spit upon does no real physcial damage. It is to show complete disrespect for
the person one is spitting on. It is to say, I care nothing for you. You are the
lowest thing I know of. All you deserve is my spit. That is what those soldiers
were saying on that day to Jesus. That is what you say to anyone you spit upon.
Here Jesus is hanging on to life by a thread. There is no way that he is
any threat to any of those men. But at his weakest most vulnerable moment,
they spit in his face. I think they want to leave no doubt who in the picture is the
victor and who is the defeated.
Have you ever spit in someone’s face? Again not literally, but
symbolically. Have you ever elevated yourself at the expense of someone else?
Well let me ask this, have you ever gossiped? Slandered? Have you ever rolled
your eyes in arrogance? Have you ever made someone else feel bad so you
could feel good? When you do those things its the same as spitting in their face.
They cannot defend themselves, ususally they aren’t even present. So you say or
in some way imply that they are nothing and that you are everything.
That is what came out during that beating and humiliating episode just
before Jesus was taken to the cross. And if there was a doubt in anyone’s mind
as to the total depravity of mankind before that, there is no room for doubt any
longer. WE HAVE DARK HEARTS!!!!!
So again, what hope do we have? Modern man has given up hope. His
slogan in ancient times was eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. His slogan
in today is you only go around once in life so grab for all the gusto. But these things
are shallow and empty. They provide no answers. Have you noticed how full
this world is of sayings and slogans. If you listen to any of the coaches you hear
line after line of the things - ‘There’s no I in Team” Come to play defense to
don’t come at all. On and on it goes. And corporate America is even worse. But
the problem is, we expect the sayings to change our hearts and they don’t
because they can’t so we end up with a shallow world full of shallow people
who are spending their time trying to forget how shallow and empty their lives
are by having as much fun as they can. Trouble is they become sadder and
sadder and work harder and harder at getting more fun out of life. Finally man
despairs and becomes cynical and depressed and even hateful.
The answer is not to be found in doing better or working harder, it is
found the choices of Jesus. Paul concludes his 8th chapter of Romans with this --
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him
up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who
will bring any charge agains those whom God has chosen. it is God who justifies. Who
then shall separate us from the love of God? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or
famine or nakedness or danger or sword? NO!!!! in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us...I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers. neither height nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from teh love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What can we do to find hope. WE can do nothing. But friends, we don’t
have to do anything. It’s already been done. Jesus has died and was raised to
life and at this very moment, even though your heart is full of darkness and your
mind thinking dark thoughts, even while you are sitting in church, he is
pleading your case at God’s right hand. He is saying, look father, I know (fill in
your own name) has a dark heart. I know he/she is even right now thinking evil
thoughts and that they deserve only punishment, but I went to the cross and
took those thoughts and that darkness upon my own shoulders and so I ask you
to see them as you see me, as though they had never sinned. As though every
thought they have is pure and sincere. As though every act is an act of love and
encouragment. Folks that scene is being acted and reenacted on a constant basis.
And it’s not because you did something right. It’s not because you came to
church or helped an old lady across the street. It’s not because you woke up
today in an especially good mood. It’s because Jesus chose to stand there and
accept the beating and accept the spit and the humilation so you could be
reminded what really are and then see how much love he has for you. The only
thing we need to do is respond. He asks of us just one thing - make a choice
ourselves.
So again, its time to make a choice. What do you choose? Do you enjoy
knowing how dark your heart is? Do you really get a kick out hurting people,
putting them down to elevate yourself? I don’t think so. I think it is frustrating.
So why not make a better choice. Chose to respond to the love of Christ. Say to
him, I know my life is evil and my heart is dark. Renew that spirit within me
Lord. Come to live in my heart and bring with you your own spirit. A spirit
that seeks good not evil. A spirit that tries to lift others up and waits for the day
when God lifts me up. A spirit that rejoices in good and not bad, that supports
rather than supresses the truth. Invite the Spirit of Christ to overtake your spirit.
The spirit came to earth on the day of Pentecost when first the apostles and then
3000 others were filled with Him. Accept that spirit and let Jesus worry about
your dark side. He promises to work on it himself. You don’t have the strength
nor the ability to do it anyway. What could be easier. I don’t know.
So as we approach Ress. Sunday and as we rehearse again those ugly
scenes that took place leading up to the crucifixion, especially as we read again
about the beating and the spitting that Jesus chose to receive, may we remember
that you and I stand in the place of those soldiers. They represent each one of us
who hearts are just as dark. And may we thank Jesus for taking away the
darkness of our hearts and replacing it with the light and love of his own heart.
I ask you, how can you not choose his love when you see it like that?
