A HEART TRANSPLANT
A pure heart for the harvest
Psalm 51:10
S: Missions
Th: A Heart for the Harvest
Pr: WE NEED THE HEART THAT GOD HAS.
?: What? What keeps us from having that?
KW: Problems
TS: We will find in our study of Scripture, three problems that keep us from having the heart God desires for us.
The _____ problem is…
I. GENETICS
II. LIFESTYLE
III. WEAKNESS
Version: ESV
RMBC 20 October 02 AM
INTRODUCTION:
1. Have you ever felt that you just didn’t have the heart for something?
ILL Notebook: Motivation (Hopeless Resignation)
Late one night, a man had gone to a party and had too much to drink, so he decided it would be best to walk home. He found a shortcut through a poorly lit cemetery and, in the darkness, stumbled into an open grave. He tried to climb out but the walls were too slippery. Again and again he fell back into the grave. Finally, in exhaustion, he settled in a corner to wait for sunlight.
A few minutes later, another man in the same condition was cutting through the cemetery and fell victim to the same grave. He, too, tried desperately to climb and claw his way out, and he was equally unsuccessful.
As he was about to give up in hopeless resignation, he heard a voice from the darkness of his pit: "You may as well give up. You’ll never get out of here."
But he did!
Well…
2. Sometimes a little motivation will go a long ways!
One moment you have none, and then something unexpected comes along, and you are thrust forward.
Well, this month, it has been our desire to develop a motivation for the harvest.
In Luke 10:2, we find Jesus saying:
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
3. Our theme for this month has been “A Heart for the Harvest.”
We have had some exciting events for the first two weeks of this month…
…Concert of Prayer with area churches
…challenge from Jon Graf
…presentation of the flags
…report from our ambassadors to Quebec, Clarence and Pearl Shelly.
And as we have had these, I have been wondering…
4. What keeps us from having a heart for the harvest?
When Jesus considered the lost condition of people and how they lacked a relationship with God, He longed that they would know and love God.
For this is why He came—to seek and to save what was lost.
So I wonder, how come we don’t feel the same way?
What keeps us from having a heart that longs for the harvest as God does?
OUR STUDY:
Well, I think…
I. The first problem is GENETICS.
No offense intended, but…
We are all born with rotten hearts.
David testifies to this in Psalm 14 (2-3) when he says:
The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
We have a genetic problem.
Like it or not, we possess bad hearts that can be deceitfully wicked as the prophet Jeremiah tells us.
Until we recognize this, we will never have a heart for the harvest.
II. The second problem is LIFESTYLE.
Our physicians will tell us that if we live the wrong way and eat the wrong things, we hurt our heart.
If we smoke and excessively drink, we are going to hurt our body.
If we fill ourselves with junk food, we are going to clog up the arteries.
The truth we need to recognize is that…
We get our hearts dirty.
This is why David, when he committed some very terrible sins and got his heart real dirty, came before the Lord and said (Psalm 51:2):
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!
We need to get cleaned up.
We need to live differently.
But we can only do it when we acknowledge and confess what we are and what we have done.
We can only do it when we admit that the way we are living (our lifestyles) is full of poor and even wicked choices.
When we can admit this, it is then that we are on the way to have a heart for the harvest.
III. The third problem is WEAKNESS.
If we are lazy, sit around and do not exercise, our heart is going to get weak.
So…
We need to take care of our heart.
This is what Solomon tells us in Proverbs 4:23:
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
We are to keep in shape spiritually.
We are to keep the relationship with the Lord going, by exercising our hearts with prayer and study.
For when we are close to the Lord, we will have a heart for the harvest as He has.
APPLICATION:
In Psalm 51:10, David asks the Lord:
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
We need to get the heart that God has for us and means for us to have.
We need a heart transplant.
The word “create” is a powerful word that David uses.
It means, literally, to make something out of nothing.
ILL Create—get your own dirt
There was a group of scientists who got together one day and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell God that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so we just don’t need you anymore.”
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this, let’s say we have a ‘man-making’ contest.” To which the scientist replied, “OK, great!”
God added, “Now, we’re going to do this just like I did in the old days with Adam.” The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, “No…you get and make your own dirt.”
And today is no different…
We need God’s creative hand on us today as well.
For…
WE NEED THE HEART THAT GOD HAS.
We need to submit ourselves to God so that He is able to do with us what He needs to do so that we can have a heart for the harvest.
Will you give God that opportunity today?
Will you give God the opportunity to break your heart and renew your heart so that you will love the people that are lost and without Christ, that they may enjoy the same rich privilege that you already experience to know and love Him?
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
Have the heart God has…because He wants us to have it; He has chosen us to know His heart, have His heart and share His heart with others; may we truly see the world as He does and have a heart for the harvest.
Now…May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. Amen.
