Measuring Your Heart

• if you’ve ever flown into New York city, you might have looked out the window and seen the great lady of the harbor, the Statue of Liberty
• but occasionally this statue needs maintenance
• on these occasions, you might instead see the lady shrouded with scaffolding
• on this scaffolding you will see people scurrying about, welding and polishing and repairing and maintaining her
• and you will then realize that this grand old lady in the harbor has no capacity to care for herself
• she has to live by the scaffolding
• she is not an organism
• she is a monument, nothing more than a symbol
• there are a lot of Christians just like that lady in the harbor
• they’ve become accustomed to living by the scaffolding
• perhaps they’re hollow on the inside, who at the heart have had something happen
• I’ve found in my own life, it my walk with God is not carefully maintained, there is that subtle drift to hollowness
• and it doesn’t take very long
• my Christianity becomes something of a heartless habit, often moving into some forms of hypocrisy
• our walk with God is, above and beyond everything else, an inside-out reality
• God begins to work in our lives at the level of our hearts
• because God is not impressed with externals
• when we permit ourselves to drift into hollowness, we are forced to live by the scaffolding
• test this in your own life when you are propped up and maintained and polished by a book or a tape or a pastor or a professor or a message, and when you begin leaning on these externals for the vibrancy of your Christianity
• it doesn’t work!
• in the Old Testament, God often spoke to Israel about the coldness of their hearts
• they kept the law, but God still said to them, “You are uncircumcised of heart”
• In Joel 2:13, he says that when you repent,
• (Joel 2:13) Rend your heart and not your garments.
• (Hosea 6:6) For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
• when Jesus looked at the Pharisees, the religious establishment of the day, he said:
• (Matthew 23:27) “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.
• (Matthew 23:28) In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
• it’s possible to be religious and devout on the inside, and to be hollow and empty spiritually inside
• but I’m also struck by the promises given to us as New Testament believers
• if you understand the new covenant predicted in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, you understand this
• they prophesied the day when a new covenant would be instituted
• God would dwell within them and write his laws on our hearts
• we would interact with him from the inside out
• (Ezekiel 36:26) 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.
• (Ezekiel 36:27) And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
• then when Jesus met with his disciples in the Upper Room, he lifted the cup and said these significant words: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you”
• you and I have been grafted into that new covenant promise of God so that you and I have an edge over Old Testament believers on a heart relationship with God
• throughout all of Scripture, God speaks so much about our hearts and our heart’s condition
• but I’m intrigued by one passage in the Old Testament, which drives the spear of its meaning deep into our own flesh
• in this passage we glimpse how God works in the hearts of men and women
• it’s found in 2 Chronicles 16:9
• (2 Chronicles 16:9) For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
• in this passage, Ling Asa hired foreign troops instead of trusting God to protect him
• and God uses a metaphor, saying that God’s perceptive ability moves throughout the earth looking for something specific: people he can strengthen
• personally, I long for the strengthening work of God in my heart
• God knows my frame is dust
• I need him
• the text says that God is looking for people he can strengthen, but there’s a qualifier
• what kind of people is God looking to strengthen?
• people with particular kinds of hearts
• God is searching this earth for hearts that are fully committed to him
• it’s critical that we understand what the heart is according to Scripture
• the heart is the place of conscious decision making, the place of spiritual activity
• our hearts are the comprehensive term for our personality as a whole
• it’s where we desire
• it’s our passions
• it’s our thoughts, our understanding, our will
• it is where God meets us what is the heart? It’s really what you are
• and God is searching the condition of our hearts
• I notice that it’s an insightful search
• we live in a world that’s bent on credentials
• everyone is interested in who you are and what you are like: business cards, acclaim, honors we’ve received
• I’d like to think that when God begins to probe my life that I can stop him on the outside and talk about my credentials
• that would be much more comfortable
• I’d like to say, “Lord, wait a minute. I graduated from seminary. I’m a pastor.”
• but you know what God says?
• God pushes that all aside and says, “I’m not impressed. I want to see your heart”
• successful businesspeople, presidents of companies, come to God and say:
• “Wait a minute, Lord. Here’s my business card. What do you think? Look at the tag on my corporate door”
• and God says, “I’m not impressed”
• God is on an insightful search for a few good hearts
• I want to be like David, who could be so transparent that he could put aside all his credentials and say:
• (Psalms 139:23) Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
• (Psalms 139:24) See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
• this morning I’d like to do a spiritual EKG on all of us
• I’m asking, what does God look for when he gets past all the external things?
• let’s see what the text has to say
• (2 Chronicles 16:9) For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
• that’s the measurement of our heart: how committed we are to him
• God is looking for a heart of full commitment
• if you read 2 Chronicles, you know that King Asa of Judah had a heart fully committed to God all of his life
• but now the king of Israel has gone and placed his legions around Judah so that no one could go in our come out
• Asa is in a tight spot
• what will he do?
• he has two options
• one: he can lift his eyes to the Almighty God of Israel, who has rescued his people time and time again in their history, and say, “God, we of Judah beg you to deliver us from this invasion”
• two: Asa had the option of striking an alliance with a pagan king, Ben-Hadad of Aram
• the text tells us that Asa went to the treasury of God and took silver to strike a deal with Ben-Hadad
• God said to Asa, “Your heart is not fully committed to me, because when you get in a tight spot, you strike an allegiance with a foreign, pagan system and you don’t trust in me”
• a young businessman was climbing the corporate ladder
• he lived in a beautiful home
• and he was the head of a cable company
• after about eighteen months in the assignment, as he wa s growing with the Lord, he began to struggle
• he said, “I don’t know how I can continue to grow and be God’s kind of man – and market this unrighteousness in my community”
• some of you may understand what it means to step off the corporate ladder when your upward momentum is so strong
• one day he came to church and said, “I resigned my position this week because I came to realize that if I am going to be a man after God’s own heart, if I am going to be a man committed to righteousness, I can no longer market unrighteousness in this community”
• they asked him about his new job
• and he replied, “I don’t have one. In fact, we’re packing up and moving back to where our parents live”
• that guy left the community with his heart showing
• there was a man who would not strike an allegiance with a pagan world system, but would trust in his God when he was in a tight spot and be unflinchingly loyal to him
• when God was looking for a heart in the Old Testament, that was the kind of heart he was looking for
• at the beginning of this new year, let me give you five tests this morning of how loyal your heart is to God
• test number one is the treasure test
• (Matthew 6:19) “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
• the context is earthly values versus heavenly values
• but verse 21 says
• (Matthew 6:21) For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
• did you ever wonder where your heart is?
• try looking at where you put your treasures
• try looking at the treasure of time, the treasure of your money, the treasure of your relationships
• what about the treasure of your spiritual gifts, the equipment that God has given you?
• Christ says where you put your treasure tells me where your heart is
• he looks at our treasure chests
• they might be full of self-fulfillment, self-satisfaction, self-serving things
• or they could be full of things that please him
• but that’s test number one, the test of what you treasure
• test number two is your thought life
• (Matthew 9:4) Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?
• as the Lord penetrates my life, he says, “I see your thoughts, and they are a reflection of your heart”
• this is convicting to me, because I have a darkened closet in my brain, that place no one can invade and I think no one will ever know
• I’ve deceived myself
• what goes on in your thought life?
• is it a place where fantasies move, sexual fantasies fanned by a sensual world?
• is it a dark closet full of thoughts and fantasies of taking revenge?
• what do you think about? What do you dream about?
• test number three is your words
• (Matthew 12:34) You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
• you see, our words are tattletales on our hearts
• they reveal what is inside of our heart
• I’ve occasionally been with people, and I’ve wanted to say, “Stop! Your heart is showing”
• and there have been times when I’ve said words, and I’d like to grab them and jam them back in, because my heart is showing
• God intended our tongues to be controlled by the Spirit, by having a heart for God that might heal and encourage instead of being destructive in the body of believers
• having a heart that is not a heart for God will always show in our words
• it’s like getting all dressed up and going to a big party, but your slip is showing
• it wrecks the whole thing
• so Christ says, “When I search your heart, I measure your words”
• in Luke 8:15 we have the fourth test of our hearts
• (Luke 8:15) But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.
• it’s the parable of the seed and the sower
• Christ is talking about the good soil, and his point is this:
• our response to the Word of God is a measurement of our hearts
• he said that people who have a good and noble heart do three things with the Word of God: they hear it, then they retain it, and then they produce through it
• hearing the Word of God is not an easy task
• I’m much like you when I get under the instruction of the Word
• I listen for the first three minutes, and then my mind is off to my own little world
• or perhaps you have a big reflector on your head as you hear God’s Word
• “Boy, I hope Bob’s listening to that”
• we’ve forgotten that God intends us to listen to his Word and hear it as though we had funnels over our heads with broad mouths to drink in everything and internalize it for ourselves
• Jesus said that a good heart hears the Word of God and retains it
• that’s a tough test too
• I can easily spin off naughty little rhymes I learned in elementary school
• I’ve also memorized hundreds of Bible verses, but come to me a couple of months later and I struggle to get them out
• it takes work to retain the Word of God
• note that a good heart produces
• we have to get rid of the notion that God gave us his Word to make us theologically astute
• God gave us his Word to measure us and grow us into the likeness of Christ
• anything other than a changed life as a result of hearing and retaining the Word of God aborts the process
• God says a good heart hears, retains, and produces the good crop because it has listened to the Word of God
• let me close with the fifth test, found in Matthew 15:8
• it is the test of worship
• Christ walked into a religious system that was full of traditions
• people worshiped their traditions, and gave only lip service to God
• scoring them about a religion that had gone shamefully sour in its traditions, Jesus quotes Isaiah:
• (Matthew 15:8) “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
• do we worship our traditions and our expectations and all the false things we’ve built around our system of Christianity, and simply give lip service to God?
• or do we have hearts that genuinely glorify God in worship?
• obviously, worship is everyday experience
• Romans 12:1 makes that very clear
• Paul says, “Do you want Old Testament sacrifices? Then climb on the altar and give your body as a living sacrifice to God”
• that’s the worship God is looking for
• every once in a while I wonder if God would say to any of us, “You honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me”
• there was a pastor who had a successful ministry
• people loved to hear him preach
• he could communicate the Word of God would solid exegesis and profound application
• he ministered to a large church
• but one day he left a note on his desk saying good-by to the church, and he left for Texas with a woman he’d been counseling
• but the greatest shock was when people found out he’d been carrying on an affair with her for four years
• he was nothing more than a high-tech spiritual robot
• we hear a lot about lifestyle
• the Pharisees had a lot of lifestyle
• we’ve forgotten the God who is concerned with heartstyle
• lifestyle without heartstyle before God is no style at all
• we were saved and redeemed not to be monuments in the harbor of Christianity, but to be an organism, a movement, a power from the inside out
• Bob was a deacon in a church
• three minutes before the Sunday evening service, an usher rushed into church and said, “Pastor, Bob just fell to the sidewalk”
• everyone ran out to where he had fallen
• they could tell it was serious
• just then the ambulance pulled up, and th ree men ran out, took one look at Bob, and said:
• “His tie is crooked and he scuffed his shoes. Look at his hair! Go in and get the brush and the hair spray, and we’ll shine his shoes. We gotta get this guy lying right on the sidewalk!”
• not on your life
• cosmetics were of no concern
• they went right for the heart
• that was the core of the issue
• we need to remember that beyond everything else, God goes right for the heart
• it is my prayer that we learn what it means to be like David of old, that it may be said of us: “They were people after God’s own heart”

adapted from a message by Joseph M. Stowell