Sermon: Open Hearted Worship
True Worship Originates From An Open Heart
Big Idea: True Worship Starts in an Open Heart to God
Big Aim: motivate people to seek to worship God with heart wide open to Him
Dylan makes it plain when he likes something: I like-a Tom’s Truck, Daddy! I like-a Daddy’s red car (8 times before we make it 1 ½ blocks outta the ‘hood.) I like-a juice/this food/church. I don’t like the Y. “That’s fun, daddy, that’s fun!”
Heart of the matter
Cupid
Heart Attack
New heart.
Left my heart in SF (heaven?)
Who do you want to have your heart.
Ps 14: fool says “there is no God” in his heart
Ps 15: he who dwells with God speaks truth in his heart
Ps 26:3 for your love ever before me,
and I walk continually in your truth.
Jesus: What comes from the heart is what makes one clean or unclean (worshipping or not)
Big Idea: True Worship Starts in an Open Heart to God
Heart & Mind/Kidney/Reins
Tesh: “my deepest affections and innermost thoughts” (Psalms, vol 1, College Press, p. 227)
all use kidneys as a symbol of the innermost being. This is probably so since in dismembering an animal the kidneys are the last organ to be reached. In this usage it is frequently paralleled with heart (as it is at least once in Ugaritic). Jeremiah seems to be emphasizing this innermost idea when he says that the religion of the wicked is superficial, on their lips, but far from their kidneys
It is because the heart stands for human personality that God looks there rather than at our actions to see whether we are faithful or not. We are called upon to seek God with all our heart (Deut 4:29; 6:5), so that is where he looks to see if we are his people (1 Sam 16:7).
Jer 17:9 --10
My heart is not always focused and ready for contact with the Lord. Too busy, too hard, too divided, too scattered.
When I pray or think to God, sometimes I realize how distant I am.
Character, personality, will, mind are modern terms which all reflect something of the meaning of ‘heart’ in its biblical usage. (But cf. *Body where mention is made of synecdoche.)
H. Wheeler Robinson gives the following classification of the various senses in which the words lēḇ and lêḇāḇ are used.
a. Physical or figurative (‘midst’; 29 times).
b. Personality, inner life or character in general (257 times, e.g. Ex. 9:14; 1 Sa. 16:7; Gn. 20:5).
c. Emotional states of consciousness, found in widest range (166 times); intoxication (1 Sa. 25:36); joy or sorrow (Jdg. 18:20; 1 Sa. 1:8); anxiety (1 Sa. 4:13); courage and fear (Gn. 42:28); love (2 Sa. 14:1).
d. Intellectual activities (204 times); attention (Ex. 7:23); reflection (Dt. 7:17); memory (Dt. 4:9); understanding (1 Ki. 3:9); technical skill (Ex. 28:3) (latter two = ‘mind’ in rsv).
e. Volition or purpose (195 times; 1 Sa. 2:35), this being one of the most characteristic usages of the term in the OT.
As a broad general statement, it is true that the Bible places the psychological focus one step lower in the anatomy than most popular modern speech, which uses ‘mind’ for consciousness, thought and will, and ‘heart’ for emotions.
‘Mind’ is perhaps the closest modern term to the biblical usage of ‘heart’, and many passages in rsv are so translated (e.g. Ec. 1:17; Pr. 16:23). The ‘heart’ is, however, a wider term, and the Bible does not distinguish the rational or mental processes in the way that Gk. philosophy does.
The Deepest Depth show our allegiance. Or, IF the Deepest depths bear out.
Behind the Scenes: is it what the store front says?
The Psalmist is definitely comparing himself as on the opposite side of the wicked. We explored that David is not saying he is PERFECT, though he seems to use such language. WE know from David’s life that he wasn’t perfect, and he was deeply aware and openly acknowledged his sins.
He may have been a man that wanted the Lord to come to his aid: accusations or trouble, hard times, trials. If so, maybe v2 is pleading his cause that God will listen to him.
On the other hand, he may be a man who has been reflecting on the Lord’s word, and such Psalms as 1 which compares the way of the righteous with that of the wicked man. In that case, he may be wanting the Lord to test him and receive a reassuring word (vindicate) that the Lord sees him as being on the way of the Lord
Either way, he wants nothing to do with the ways of the wicked and wants to be found as true to God. His desire, his heart, is to be found with the Lord.
Big Aim: motivate people to seek to worship God with heart wide open to Him
“Risk It!” (because of our ultimate end, and because God’s unfailing love is better than anything we know)
1. A Heart for True Worship Will Open Itself to be Examined by God
Ps 26:2 Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind;
Examine me, O Jehovah, and prove me;
MKJV
(MSG) Examine me, GOD, from head to foot, order your battery of tests. Make sure I’m fit inside and out
2 Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me. Test my motives and affections.
Test: Examination to determine the essential qualities that are present. New Bible Commentary: test for purity,
integrity.
Louw Nida to try and learn the genuineness of an object by examination,
Try: to prove, to put to the test—As Abraham in Gen 22:1. NBC: test through life’s circumstances. test, try, i.e., attempt to learn the true nature of something
Anyway, there seems to be more than the idea of a score card, or putting the results on the bulleting board.
God will actively (as invited!) put David to the test to see how he pulls through.
Maybe like the production model is looked at thoroughly in Motor Trend, Car and Driver.
RAY STEDMAN says
God’s tests catch us unprepared, off-guard. It is when we are confronted with some simple situation no one will know about that the tests of life really come. When you are relaxing at home and the phone rings and suddenly you are confronted with a call for help, or a demand for a response-and you had planned to relax and enjoy yourself all afternoon-what happens then? That’s the test.
Character is what you are in the dark.
D. L. Moody, Leadership,
2. A Heart for True Worship Will Open Itself to be Purified by God
Examine me, O Jehovah, and prove me; purify my heart and my mind.
MKJV
Try: to prove, to put to the test—As Abraham in Gen 22:1. NBC: test through life’s circumstances.
In most contexts nāsâ has the idea of testing or proving the quality of someone or something, often through adversity or hardship.
Examine—PURIFY in mkjv: indicates the “smelting process” where impurities are removed and metal refined. NBC: impurity
“The writer so desired to know his true chrarcter that he was willing to submit to whatever form of examination the Lord might choose.
We find in Jeremiah a picture of what David is describing here:
Jer 17:7 -- 8
Heart attack—something we all try to avoid, and sometimes it requires surgery:
Surgery: God’s testing may be like surgery, the passage that says we come out like Gold. (survive)
That is what the Lord does out of love
Jeremiah 9:6 You live in the
midst of deception;
in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,”
declares the Lord.
7 Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty says:
“See, I will refine and test them,
for what else can I do
because of the sin of my people?
Isaiah 48: 10 See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
Sometimes people refuse to be chastened and refined:
Jeremiah 6:27 “ I have made you a tester of metals among my people,
that you may know and test their ways.
28 They are all stubbornly rebellious,
going about with slanders;
they are bronze and iron;
all of them act corruptly.
29 The bellows blow fiercely;
the lead is consumed by the fire;
in vain the refining goes on,
for the wicked are not removed.
30 Rejected silver they are called,
for the Lord has rejected them.”
I have never thought that Christians would be free of suffering. For our Lord suffered. And I have come to believe that He suffered, not to save us from suffering, but to teach us how to bear suffering. For He knew that there is no life without suffering.
Alan Paton, Leadership
Voice Of Martyrs Picture and clip
3. A Heart for True Worship Will Open Itself to be Loved by God
Give your heart to the one that gave you theirs/loves you. And we can see from the text that God has loved him first. As has Jesus.
Tesh: the Psalmist is ready to be put to the test: because he knows both the Lord and his focus
Ps 16 My heart instructs me
My heart is glad—you will not abandon me to the grave
Loving kindness
When God revealed himself to Moses on top of the mountain, he stressed not only his mercy and compassion, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin (7; cf. 33:19), but also his justice, he does not leave the guilty unpunished (7; cf. 32:34).
6 The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed,
“The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.”
God’s “hesed,” his steadfast love/loving kindness is used in the Bible to show his choosing of Israel—though they didn’t “merit it.” It describes his “grace, necessary for their survival.” We see him declaring his steadfast love for his people, right after they had made the calf idol. Had his love not been steadfast and slow to anger, he could have rejected them as people right there.
In Ex 34 his steadfast love is kept “for thousands” or to the “thousandth generation,” whereas he “visits the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children to the 3rd and 4th generation.
Dr. Gary Hall points out in his commentary on Deuteronomy that this HIGHLIGHTS God’s faithful love as being greater than his judgement, which is descriptively more limited. (Deuteronomy, College Press, p. 118)
Thinking of family structure back then, people lived in family units where at least 3 generations could be present. If the patriarch (head of the clan, like Abraham) rejected God, the rest of the family would “suffer guilt.” They were in the same boat, and probably would even follow and repeat the sin of their patriarch. Furthermore, they would suffer by not being brought up in the way they should, and would continue in their rejection of God.
However, “intergenerational personal guilt” is spoken out against in places like Deut 7:10 (repay for sins to HIS face—not “their” as in NIV—so that “retribution would be on the individual sinner, nto to the family unity or future generation” (Hall, Deut., 156), Jer 31:28ff (everyone shall die for their own sin, and the new covenant) , and Ezek 18.
18:2"What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ’The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
Eze 18:3 As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel.
Eze 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die.
One thinks of God’s hesed love in how he dealt with Judah. Many kings within David’s line ultimately sealed their downfall,--of the earthly kingdom, but God’s love kept his promise to David alive, that an heir, Jesus, would reign on his throne “forever” (certainly at least for a thousand generations.)
Conclusion
Home show: tons of things to improve your house—function and looks. Money and time. Our desire
Jesus: What comes from the heart is what makes one clean or unclean (worshipping or not)
A Person after God (‘s own heart?) would relish God looking into his heart, proving, testing, poking, prodding. At the very best—or least painful, we are affirmed and reassured. But just as good, but more painful in the process, we are made stronger (like exercise) or even have to go through surgery (discipline) but we come out stronger. Really both are important for making our heart pure. Both use discipline (just my thoughts, don’t necessarily say it like that)
9 This third I will bring into the fire;
I will refine them like silver
and test them like gold.
They will call on my name
and I will answer them;
I will say, ‘They are my people,’
and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’”
