When God created man, He had expectations. You can consider these expectations in some detail and generate quite a list of things to do. Or you can summarize it all in two simple commands. Our text is the summary of all that God calls you to do. Loving God and neighbor cover it all. We could spend lots of time looking at this summary from lots of different perspectives. Instead, we're just going to pick one of those perspectives. God calls us to love Him with all the heart, and that means to love Him from the heart. My goal is to explore what that means, what it means to love God from the heart. I think that grappling with this is important because it affects how you follow Jesus. And that is always of first importance. I look forward to seeing the fruit that the Spirit will produce in us because of what will happen in the next while.
Let's start by being clear on this term 'heart'. What is it? It's helpful if you understand that the Bible sees us in terms of two aspects. We have an inner nature and an outer nature. And so, God says to Samuel, 'Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For Jehovah sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but Jehovah looks on the heart.' And the Apostle Paul writes, 'So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.' The outer you is the body. The inner you is the heart, the soul, the mind. The Scriptures use different words to say the same thing. So, to love God with all the heart, soul, mind and strength is to love God not just in terms of the outer you, but from deep within, from the heart. Bear in mind that the heart includes all the different aspects of the inner you: the mind that thinks, the will that decides, the affections that express emotion. All of this affects what you like and don't like, your attitudes toward certain people and ideas, what you think is funny, what makes you mad, what gets you down. All of this and more is included in that term 'heart'. God wants you to love Him with all of that.
This helps to explain the hypocrite. The outside of the hypocrite broadcasts one thing about who that person is, but on the inside he is completely different. And so, Jesus said to some Pharisees, 'Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me...”' The lips, the outer nature, were performing the religious rituals of the worship Jehovah but the heart, the inner nature, refused to do so. Being a hypocrite is being a liar.
God created man able to love Him with all the heart, from deep within and without any hypocrisy. That was Adam and Eve before the incident of the tree. Our problems started, however, before they took that first bite. The sin of Adam and Eve existed in their hearts first. The attitudes of our first parents, their sense of loyalty to God, their trust in Him even when they didn't understand what He was doing, all the stuff of the heart, all of that turned away from God when Satan tempted them and they foolishly listened. Only then did they take and eat. The sin of the heart preceded the sin of the body. In response, God pronounced the curse of death. This affected the body, the outer nature. But it also affected the inner nature, the heart. From that moment we all, by nature, have had hearts that are twisted, corrupted and perverted. And so, right before the Flood, what does Moses write? 'Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.' Hearts were twisted and it showed in actions. But the Flood didn't solve the problem. God said this right after the Flood. 'I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.' The Flood didn't change the situation.
All of this helps to explain what God has been up to. The story of the Bible is the story of God working to change hearts, to cure hearts, to restore hearts to how they were before Adam and Eve's hearts doubted God. So, we have this in Ezekiel. 'And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.' God's goal is to remove twisted hearts of stone and replace them with restored, living and pure hearts of flesh, hearts that will obey God's statutes and rules and love Him fully. That's what the Gospel is about. However, as God moved through this story of restoration He found some who were content if the outer nature seemed to perform well. These folk didn't consider the state of their hearts. As long as the outer nature looked like it was doing what was right, they figured everything was fine. The focus was on the behavior of the body. This was a big part of Jesus' problem with the Pharisees. No wonder He called them whitewashed tombs. The outside looked nice, very religious and all the rest, but the inside was filled with the stench of death.
The Gospel is much more than getting your sins forgiven so that you can get to heaven. It's about dealing with the inner person, dealing with the heart, so that a beautiful relationship with God can be restored. Jesus has come to restore hearts. So, when a person becomes a disciple of Jesus, one of the more important things that happens is that he gets a new heart, a 'heart of flesh' to use Ezekiel's phrase. This is a heart that is alive to God instead of one that is twisted and perverted. This person now loves God from the heart with a true love – but not a perfect love. The Psalmist wrote, 'Unite my heart to fear Your name.' He pleads with God because he knows that his heart is divided. Yes, there is a true love there, but there are other things also. The fact that he cries out is evidence that his heart is changed. But he is not satisfied with a partial change. It bothers him that sin that still resides in his heart. And so, the Apostle Paul writes: 'I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate' – a divided heart. There is still work to be done for the complete restoration of the heart. The work has begun. The saint has been born again. He has received a new heart. He is alive to God. But there is more that needs to happen before it is fully restored.
To that end, we have been given principles, instructions and commands in the Scriptures. These are given so that we might make progress in this. But we have also been given a model to look at so that we can see this biblical guidance in action. Jesus is our model. He loved the Father from a perfect, undivided heart. Consider the different aspects of His heart. First, there is His wisdom. Do you remember the comment that I made at the beginning of last week's sermon? Jesus always said the right thing, at the right time and in the right way. So, He was blunt with Nicodemus, gentle with the Samaritan woman, and downright caustic with those Pharisees. This wisdom is an expression of His heart. Then consider the time when Jesus took the Twelve to a desolate spot for a little break. And what did He find? Lots of people wanting something more from Him. His response? It wasn't anger at them or pity for himself. It was compassion for the people, another expression of what was in His heart. Then there are these two related events when He was in
I want to answer an important question. What do we do to make progress in changing our hearts? I want to answer that, and I will. But before I do, I want to answer a different question: why bother? It is hard to change a heart – very hard. Why should anyone pursue that goal? How a person answers that question makes a huge difference in how he lives. There are some who don't bother working at change. They figure that their sins are forgiven, and that's good enough. So, off they go pretty much ignoring this whole area. As a result, there is no change. It's appropriate to ask if such a person actually has received a new heart. Could a heart that is alive to God respond in this way? Then there are those who do bother. They pursue the goal of change, but they pursue it because they are supposed to. It is a matter of Christian duty. These are beleaguered by 'shoulds and oughts'. Following Jesus then becomes this very arduous task, a great burden to satisfy those 'shoulds and oughts'. Being joyous is hard. There is lots of effort and little to show for it. Then there are those who want to pursue this goal simply because they want to love God. There is no crushing burden. They aren't doing this to satisfy some rule somewhere. Instead, they know that they have experienced God's great kindness when their old, stoney and perverted heart was removed and a living heart was put in its place. So, these just want to love God back. These 'bother' with this just for the sake of love. And that’s why you bother.
Now, what to do. First, from Proverbs: 'Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.' If you are going to be able to keep your heart, you first need to be aware of it. You need to be aware of the inner you. We all take care of our bodies, the outer us. We take showers and brush our teeth and see a doctor when we need to. We are aware of and care for our outer nature. We need to do the same thing for the inner nature. So, look at yourself, the inner you. What's going on in there? Ask yourself questions about what you see. What attitudes, desires, emotions do you find? Look at the evidence of your outer nature. How are you acting? That is reflecting something that is going on in your heart. So, first thing: be aware of your heart. Next, awareness leads to evaluation. Is what you see good or bad? If you are going to be able to accurately evaluate what's going on in your heart you need to give serious attention to the Word. That means thoughtful reading of the Scriptures and serious interaction with the preaching of the Word. The point of the Bible is not for us to know doctrine. The point of the Bible is for us to love God. It shows us what that means and what it doesn't mean. You need the Word if you are going to be able to accurately evaluate your heart. As a result, there will be those times when you will be able to look at something in the inner you and say, 'That's really good. I remember when that was a real problem. There has been some real change.' And that is something worth rejoicing over. You've taken another step in the right direction. Praise God for that! And seeing progress will encourage you to continue to work at these things. There will also be times when you will see something that isn't right, some issue that needs your attention. Here is something that you need to repent of. Be careful here. There are two extremes that people fall into here. Some beat themselves up, thinking that such penance is a necessary aspect of repentance. That's just another form of salvation by works. But then there's the opposite problem of people who say a rote prayer without any real feeling, quote some verse about forgiveness and think that everything is fine because they went through the hoops. Real repentance toward God is not all that different from seeking reconciliation with a very good friend after you've seriously offended him. Simply going through the motions won't do. Neither beating yourself up nor glossing it over works. Repentance works. Now, for my last thought about what to do. You need to pray. I’m talking about serious, honest, from the heart prayer. You need to pray. Please understand why I say that. None of what I've suggested – examining your heart, attending to the Word, and biblical repentance – none of these things will change your heart. You can't change your heart. Only Jesus can do that. The things I listed are tools for Him to use and He will use them, but by themselves they are impotent. And so, along with putting those suggestions into practice, you need to pray. You need to ask Jesus to change you. You need to pray that He would make you more like Himself. As you do that, the Spirit will take those tools and use them. He will point out some specific area that needs work. When He does, respond with repentance and faith and deal with it. And then when change results, give thanks and rejoice.
We live in a rather superficial time. The idea of examining and then dealing with your own heart is almost completely alien to most folk we know. Yet, there are tremendous blessings for those who pursue this aspect of being a faithful disciple of Jesus. For one thing, such a person gets to know Jesus well. And that is a blessing that is not only for this life, but also for the life to come.
Let me close with a question. It’s a bit pointed but necessary. What will you do with this sermon? What will you do with you’ve just finished reading? You need to do something with it. The goal of preaching is never knowing something. The goal of preaching is always doing something. I would encourage you to take one aspect of what you’ve read, one thing that the Spirit brought to your attention, and decide to do something with it. And make that decision today. I’ve already done that for myself and I hope that you will too.
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