DOES GOD HAVE CONTROL OF YOUR HEART?
Matthew 22:34-40; Luke 10:30-37
TEXT FOR MORNING READING: Luke 10:30-37
INTRODUCTION
This morning you heard read to you probably one of the more familiar stories of the Bible, the story of the good samaritan. This story Jesus told came in response to the testing questioning of a "expert in the law" about the requirements for eternal life. Here is what happened:
Luke 10:25-29 (NIV)
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" 27 He answered: "’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’" 28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
Jesus then replies with this revealing look at the character of a truly good man vs the characters of seemingly good men. This story is clearly Jesus’ illustration of the commandment to "Love your neigbour as yourself" as he answers the sarcastic question of the expert in the law regarding who his neighbor is.On another occasion, Jesus encountered a similar situation:
Matthew 22:34-40 (NIV)
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: "’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Again an "expert in the Law" walks up to Jesus one day and this time asked what is the greatest commandment in the Bible? Now, this wasn’t a question asked in ignorance, the Bible tells us that the Pharisee’s intent was to test Jesus – to see if they could catch Him in error. What is interesting about Jesus answer is that Jesus concludes his reply with this, "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" Everything God has ever commanded in his word hinges on these two commandments – all of them. Remember that Jesus was speaking to a very legal crowd. The Pharisees had thousands of rules and regulations for "holy" living. Jesus narrowed it down to two commandments. In doing so, I believe to both "experts of the law" and through the story of the good Samaritan Jesus was trying to get across a major truth.
Today, I want to focus on six words that were spoken in both instances.
"LOVE GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART"
GOD WANTS YOUR HEART!! This is the major truth that is found in these two commandments. In the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus spoke directly to the outward "acts" and legalistic "rules" and "laws" of the Pharisees. In that story both a priest and a Levite walked by the wounded man – both probably on their way to do "service" for the Lord. Maybe they didn’t touch the wounded man because that would make them unclean according to the rules and regulations. So many people confuse being a Christian with "having a religion" In other words, they think that being a Christian means that you’ve got to follow a set of rules and perform at least 10,000 good deeds everyday etc… No, no, NO, NOO!!
GOD DOESN’T WANT YOUR GOOD DEEDS, HE WANTS YOUR HEARTS Christianity is not religion it is relationship. The Samaritan did a "good deed" but not because he had to! He did it out of love and compassion. Christianity isn’t about being required to do things but instead doing things as a result of your relationship with Jesus Christ! Giving your works of service to God apart from your heart is not what God wants!! Notice also Jesus didn’t say, Love your neighbor as yourself and then Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind! It is only when you give your heart to God that He can effectively show His heart to those around you.
Let’s talk about the heart for a few moments.
WHY THE HEART – WHAT ABOUT IT?ASK: When you see the word heart? What’s the first image, or thought that pops into your mind?
To the doctor the heart is an organ in our body, to the poet the heart is the seat of love, to the plumber the heart is a really good pump, to the weight-lifter the heart is the strongest muscle, to the car-driver the heart is an engine – but to God:
THE HEART IS THE CENTER OF OUR BEING
Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
In the physical sense the heart is just that – it pumps blood through our body allowing all the other muscles and organs of our body bringing sustenance and protection. The heart is one of the necessary organs of the body. Without it there can be no life.
But more than that, the heart is also the center of our spiritual being.
ILLUSTRATION:
In the book Fan the Flame by J. Stowell is found the following:
"Heart is used in Scripture as the most comprehensive term for the authentic person. It is the part of our being where we desire, deliberate, and decide. It has been described as ‘the place of conscious and decisive spiritual activity,’ ‘the comprehensive term for a person as a whole; his feelings, desires, passions, thought, understanding and will,’ and ‘the center of a person. The place to which God turns.’" (Fan the Flame, J. Stowell, Moody, 1986, p.13)In the language of the Bible, the heart is more than just an organ in the body, it is the seat of our pains and pleasures, our prospects , and our passions. But intertwined through all these things are the life killing effects of sin. God wants our heart because He wants to kill the effects of sin and as you’ll see while we walk through these things, begin to affect our heart with streams of life from His touch!!
IN OUR HEART WE FIND OUR PAINS AND PLEASURES
Our heart is the memory bank of all the bad and good things that happen to us. It is with our "heart" that we FEEL things – whether they be painful or pleasurable.
Proverbs 15:13 (NIV)
13 A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.
Think about this for a minute. The word "heartache’, refers to the pain someone feels "in the heart" when something emotionally awful happens to them. The word, "heartless" refers to someone who seemingly is void of emotion and cruel to others.
Our heart, in the biblical sense, is not only the source of our emotions but also the place where our emotional experiences stick. If you think back upon the experiences you have had in life. You may not always be able to describe the exact details of them, but you can almost always be able to describe how it felt!! For instance, I don’t remember who it was but I can still remember how it felt when I asked a girl from my elementary school years to go out with me! I also don’t remember the first time I got allowance or how much I got but I can remember how it felt holding that money and knowing it was MINE!
These are just a few trivial examples of the pains and pleasures the heart stores – but individually all of us can probably remember a few major pains/or hurts that are still resident within our heart as well as a few wonderful joys - memories of pleasurable moments.
Sadly, for some people some of these pains and pleasures aren’t consciously remembered but are in the subconscious corners of our hearts. Whether they are conscious or subconscious these pains and pleasures stored up in our hearts affect other areas of our lives.
Sin warps the pains and pleasures found in our hearts and makes them into killing agents. Sin takes all the painful experiences of our lives and makes them into instigators of jealousy, rage, hatred, bitterness, unforgiveness, depression etc. But even more deadly sin makes these painful experiences stumbling blocks that prevent a person from drawing close to God. "How could a loving God let this happen to me?" "I don’t want anything to do with God".
Sin warps the pleasurable experiences stored up in our hearts and makes them into instigators of self-righteousness, selfishness, possessiveness, self-sufficiency, pride etc. But even more deadly sin also makes these experiences into stumbling blocks that prevent a person from drawing close to God. Such a person takes these good things in happening to them and sees them as a reason for NOT NEEDING GOD!…God wants our hearts because He wants to kick sin out and HEAL our pains and SEAL our pleasures!God wants to take the memory of painful experiences stored up in our heart (not only past, but present, and future) and heal them turning unforgiveness into forgiveness, bitterness into peace, etc. Instead of pains being stumbling blocks that keep us away from God, God wants to make our Pains into building blocks that not only bring us to Him but also make us stronger and more useful people for His kingdom. He wants to make our pains something that we can rejoice in, "Praise God in ALL things". LIFE instead of DEATH.
God wants to take the memory of pleasurable experiences stored up in our heart (past, present, future) and seal them against the influences of the world, the devil, and sin. He wants to seal them so that when good things happen and when we remember the good things that happen we praise God for blessing us with these awesome events in our life. He wants to change our pride to humility, our self-sufficiency to God-sufficiency, our selfishness to selflessness etc.
IN OUR HEART WE FIND OUR PROSPECTS
Our pains and pleasures affect our prospects. When I talk about prospects I am talking about faith which is a key ingredient of our hopes and dreams.
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Heb 11:1 (NIV)
And friends, faith resides in the heart.
Romans 10:10 (NIV)
10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
In the heart is shaped our faith - what it is we believe in, what it is we hope for, what it is we dream about. Everybody has faith in something – whether it be gravity, material things, government, God, themselves. It is also equally true that everybody has a lack of faith in something – I could repeat the same list. This faith/lack of faith is the ingredient of what we hope for or feel hopeless about and our dreams or nightmares.Sin also warps the prospects found in our heart. Beginning with pains and pleasures it sends it’s destructive tendrils into the things those experiences affect in our lives. And faith is a big one.
Sin uses painful experiences to instigate hopelessness, and nightmares in our lives. It creates a lack of faith in families, in relationships, in yourself, and even more dangerous in God. Our hopes our dashed in the light of what painful experiences happened to us.
Sin uses pleasurable experiences to create faith in everything except God. And while the hope and dreams may be present they are not always based on life-giving things. There is faith in one’s own abilities apart from the influence of God, there is faith placed in people and things, there is faith placed in the environment, in the power of money etc… God wants our hearts so that He can kick sin out and restore or create faith in Him!! He wants to take the hopelessness and the nightmares crated by our pains pains and the hopes and dreams created by our pleasures and focus them on the hope of eternal life with God and the realistic and fulfilled dream of God at work in our lives. He wants to take the lack of faith created by our PAINs and the wrongly-placed faith created by our PLEASURES and give us a faith that can move mountains, and in the one who does the moving!! He starts with the PAINS AND PLEASURES of our lives and sends his life giving streams through our heart, unclogging the arteries botched up by sin and restores FAITH in HIM!!
GOD WANTS OUR HEARTS!!
IN OUR HEART WE FIND OUR PASSIONS
From our faith we develop our passions our values – the things we are fight for. In our hearts there are things that we passionately love and passionately hate. These passions…
determine character
Mark 7:21-23 (NIV)
21 For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and make a man ’unclean.’"
determine speech
Luke 6:45 (NIV)
45 The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.
determine attitudes
1 Chronicles 28:9 (NIV)
9 "And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.
Hebrews 4:12 (NIV)
12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Bottom line is that our from our passions flow our actions!! Our passions are the instigators of our decisions in life!
As, you have probably already seen by the scripture passages I have read, SIN also corrupts our passions. Through the pains and pleasures stored up in our hearts and through the infecting of our prospects Sin completes the process by bringing it’s killing poison to bear on our passions. Remember that this process can be instantaneous… or can happen over the course of many years. But sin will work its deadly mission if left unchecked.
The results of sin unchecked is that you get a person who’s character is ungodly, whose speech is foul, whose attitudes are destructive and whose actions lead them further and further away from God.
Can you see the pattern here, are you starting to get the picture? God wants our heart because ultimately, through kicking out the infection of sin in our pains and pleasures and repairing the holes it left in our faith – God wants to give us a PASSIONATE love for him and a PASSIONATE hatred for sin!! The fallout is that our character will be godly, our speech will be sweet, our attitudes will be uplifting and our actions will be carried out as a natural response to the PASSION we now have for God and the things of God. Not doing good deeds because we HAVE TO or feel REQUIRED to but because of our PASSIONATE RELATIONSHIP with God – out of thankfulness, praise, worship, intense faith and PASSION!!
CONCLUSION
1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV)
7 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."
Psalms 51:10-12 (NIV)
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV)
13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
ILLUSTRATION: (THE WIZARD OF OZ)
In the classic fairy tale of Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Woodman tells why he wanted a heart. A munchkin girl promised to marry him as soon as he earned enough money, chopping wood, to buy a house. The girl’s mother hired the Witch to stop the wedding. By enchanting the ax, the witch caused the woodsman to slip and cut off his leg; the tinsmith made him a new one. Later the ax cut off the other one, then both arms, and even his head. Each was replaced by tin, and his heart remained in love. In frustration, the witch caused the ax to split him in half, breaking his heart. Only then did the Woodsman conclude, "I had now no heart, so that I lost all my love for the munchkin girl and did not care…" (Autoillustrator.com, "Heart (emotions)")That is what God wants from us: our hearts. We can do wonderful things for Him with our hands, our feets, our heads – but it is your heart that He wants above all else.
I ask you does God have your heart?
To the person who doesn’t know Christ as their personal Savior, God wants your heart – He wants to begin a wonderful relationship with you. A relationship, not a religion!! But you have to give Him your heart… To the person who does know Christ this morning – God may have your lip service but does He have your heart? Your whole heart?…
This sermon was preached by Darren Ethier at Hanover Pentecostal Church. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
