Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. 9:30.
[00:00:06] Good. Good morning. Two things in the front end.
[00:00:10] Number one, that prayer was not in preparation for a particularly hard message. Number one.
[00:00:16] Number two, apparently my outfit is making waves because I am dressed like it's spring. Well, guys, today it is gonna be 23 degrees.
[00:00:27] What? It's like I should have worn shorts is what I should have done. So anyways, I'm just trying to get with the weather here. All right? If I have not met you, my name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here, and I have the joy to open up God's word with you.
[00:00:41] I wanna just tell you a little story of what happened at Moody Bible Institute. There are a bunch of people who go here who went there, graduated from there. And so way back in the day, there was a professor, Dr. Marty, and he taught Old Testament survey. And so every student had to go through doct Old Testament survey class. And so here's what he would do. This is how you train Bible students. So we're just gonna give you a little bit of training today. Humor me for a moment. And if you're one of those people who's like, I won't do anything, the pastor says that's fine. But here's what he would do. He would say, saul, no heart. And then all the students would go, no heart. And then he would say, david, whole heart.
[00:01:26] That's the heart if you can't see it. Sorry. And then it'd be Solomon, half heart. Okay, so humor me. Ready? Saul no heart. David, whole heart, and Solomon, half heart. Guys, it's a quarter century later, and this is still rummaging in my brain. Now, you are officially trained as a Moody Bible student. So on the front end of this message, I want to ask you to do a little bit of self reflection.
[00:01:51] Which King best describes the current state of your heart toward God. And let's unpack this. We'll kind of go one at a time. Let's start with Saul.
[00:02:02] If you read the story of King Saul, it becomes really quickly obvious that Saul had no heart for God. And so here's what you find.
[00:02:11] God was a means to an end for Saul. He wasn't the end. And so when it came to obeying God, for Saul, when obeying God was inconvenient, he just kind of wouldn't do it. And when Saul had a decision between loving God and loving himself, doing what God commands of him or doing what he thinks is right, Saul had just this constant proclivity to doing whatever he wanted. Now, here's the deal, Saul believed in God. That's not the issue. The issue with Saul is that he had no heart for God. It's sort of like a husband in a cold marriage. And the husband believes factually that he's married to this woman, but he does not love her, let alone even.
[00:02:52] All right, next is King David.
[00:02:55] What made King David wholehearted toward God?
[00:03:00] It was not that he was perfect. Can we all agree on that? Okay.
[00:03:06] David was wholehearted not because he was perfect. David was wholehearted because he was humble. David spent the first half of his life sincerely, wholeheartedly worshiping God, pursuing God. It wasn't perfect, but it was real. And what's interesting is that David's big sin with Bathsheba didn't happen for 20 years into his kingship. The whole reign was 40 years, but the big one happened at year 20. And David's big sin didn't reveal that he hated God.
[00:03:36] David's big sin revealed that he had neglected his heart. And so David serves as a warning to every single one of us. You might be right now wholehearted toward God and especially if you are younger, but your wholeheartedness toward God today does not prevent you from becoming an idiot later. Can I get an amen? And so David is a warning to every one of us. Now lastly is King Solomon.
[00:04:00] Solomon knew God's word. And when you read the things in God's word that Solomon wrote, you do see a clear, genuine, sincere love for God. But if David's sin was revealed neglect in his heart, Solomon's ongoing sin, I think it revealed something actually a bit more scary. It revealed a divided heart. A heart that, and this is important, that loved God as much as it loved the world.
[00:04:32] I want to share with you an illustration about 8th grade girls and 11th grade boys. I was a youth pastor for a long time. I've raised girls and boys this age, girls and boy technically. I have watched a whole lot of students, hundreds and hundreds come through vill church and through our kids school and more. And so I want to share with you just an observation that happens with 8th grade boys and 11th grade girls.
[00:04:56] 8th grade girls and 11th grade boys. I got it. I got it right. So something interesting happens with girls in or around 8th grade. Spiritually.
[00:05:07] This is the time on average when if a girl who's trusted in Christ growing up, if she gets to eighth grade, she still believes in the Lord, where she is going to take her faith seriously for the first time. Like there's something that happens with girls in and around 8th grade. They get this deep sense of conviction. And then some of them have been baptized and they're like, listen, mom and Dad, I know I was baptized earlier, but I wanna get re baptized because God is doing something new in my life. It's like I understand it in a way that I never have before. Okay, that's eighth grade average time. Now, I don't know if you're aware of this, but boys and girls are different.
[00:05:43] And so boys tend to be a little bit developmentally behind the girls. Okay, this is why girls. We hear one of the most common complaints in early high school with girls. It's like the boys are so immature. And you're right, they are, but they're gonna grow up. And so what happens with boys? The same thing happens around 11th grade. And so here's what happens. Boys, they experience this deep sense of conviction. They believed in the Lord before, like their salvation was real. But then something just happens and they are convicted. And then they recommit their lives to. And they begin to take their faith seriously. Interestingly enough, 8th grade for girls, 11th grade for boys is often the average time that we watch when they begin to disconnect from first church, then youth group, then their Christian friends, and they start to kind of walk away from the Lord. So it's this interesting time of development of great choosing. And then I always wondered, why is this? And the answer was kind of right in front of our face the entire time. Because girls brains develop sooner and quicker than boys. We can argue it all we want, but it's actually just a biological fact. And so here's what we find. These things that go on in the mind, they start to happen in eighth grade for girls. Now, here's what's kind of going on.
[00:06:59] The brain no longer tolerates a divided life.
[00:07:04] The brain is integrating itself. And so this life that you have at school, where you're one person and this life that you have at church, where you're a different person, you kind of may be know it's wrong, but then your brain ultimately gets to a point where it says, no, no, no, no, no. This duplicity, this division, this hypocrisy, this distance between this life and that life, we're gonna integrate all of it into one. Make a decision. Who are you gonna follow? Christ or the world? And so let me tell you what happens in youth groups and on high school and junior high retreats. I wanna share with you the illustration that rocks the 8th grade girl's mind and rocks the 11th grade boy's mind. Okay? You have Heard the illustration and you might be like, yeah, yeah, I heard that, dealt with that. But if you are an 8th grade girl or you are an 11th grade boy and you have never heard this illustration before, I'm telling you, I have watched girls and boys weep over this illustration. The youth pastor gets up and he says, life is like a pie. And I should have just put a picture of a pie on the screen, but I didn't.
[00:08:03] Life is like a pie. And the different parts of your life are like different slices of the pie. You have the slice that is your faith. You have the slice of friends, the slice of hobbies, the slice of school and work, the slice of your family, et cetera. And then everybody goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he says, how big of a slice should God be? And we're always like, yeah, he should be like the biggest slice. And everyone's just like, yeah, I'm with you, I'm tracking. And then the preacher slows down, and then he says with complete seriousness, and he says, God doesn't want to be a slice of your life. He wants to be the crust and the filling. He wants to be a part and the foundation of every part of your life. Cue the tears.
[00:08:46] Because finally, for the first time, their brain gets it.
[00:08:50] I have been a hypocrite. I have lived two lives. And their brain finally has the ability to feel and process the full weight of the integration of the wholeness that God is calling that person to. Now, let me be clear. If you missed the window in 8th grade or you missed the window in 11th grade, do you still have the opportunity to bring a divided, hypocritical life together into one whole? Everybody? The answer is absolutely. But this is the first time the brain is able to, like, really bring all these pieces together. I wanna come back to Solomon. Because here's what you find at the end of Solomon's life. This is actually shocking. It's actually concerning. You find Solomon actually worshiping God, and then you find Solomon at the end of his life also going to the demon temples where they sacrifice children alive, and he is worshiping at the demon temples.
[00:09:41] How in God's green earth can you have such a divided heart and mind like that to go worship Yahweh in his temple and to go worship Moloch or the other demon gods in their temples. And here's the deal. There are so many students who are never, ever told the message. So many adults who have never told the message. God never intended to be the piece of the pie. He wants to be the whole thing. And now you're culpable for this knowledge. Now you know God wants to be everything. You don't get to have one life over here and then a different life over here. God wants one life where he is the foundation and the filling of all of it.
[00:10:13] And so with this context in mind, you have a Bible open up to Deuteronomy chapter 6, Deuteronomy 6. God is going to give the single most important commandment in the Old Testament.
[00:10:26] In fact, this commandment is one that is going to go directly after.
[00:10:33] You may know this by its Jewish name. The Jewish name for this commandment is the quote, Shema S H E M a. And Shema is the Hebrew for the very first word of Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 4. And here's what it says.
[00:10:49] Hear Shema, O Israel, the Lord our God. The Lord is, in other words, Israel.
[00:11:01] Listen very carefully.
[00:11:04] We have a God and his name is Yahweh. You might be thinking the word Yahweh is not on the screen. So let me just bring you a little bit behind the scenes into the Hebrew language and what translators do in your English version to help us. Whenever you see the word Lord in all caps, this is always a reference letting you know that the original Hebrew is the name Yahweh.
[00:11:32] This is God's revealed personal name to his people.
[00:11:38] And whenever you see the word Lord, capital L, lowercase O, r, D, the translators are cluing you in that this is the Hebrew word adonai, which means master or sovereign.
[00:11:53] And sometimes you're just going to see the word God. These are not random picks of words. The word God usually references the Hebrew word Elohim, which is a general term for God.
[00:12:05] Now, most Israelites or Moses identifies, I think, something really essential about Yahweh here. And he wants the Israelites to know this. He says this, that Yahweh or capital L O r D is one. This is a different Hebrew word. This is the Hebrew word echad E C H A D.
[00:12:25] Echad is a very broad word and can be translated as either one alone, whole, or undivided. That's a pretty broad range of like, interpretations here. So here's what it. You could interpret this passage like this. The Lord is one, or you could say the Lord is first or the Lord alone, or the Lord is whole or the Lord is undivided. It's actually pretty similar to the word right in the English language. R I G H T right or go right or you are right or I am right. Handed, which I'm not. I'm actually left handed. But the word has a pretty broad usage. And so how do you know what the word means? You kind of have to say, sit in the context. And what's really, really meaningful about a cod in Deuteronomy 6? What's meaningful about it is it actually is written in a way that it has at least two different meanings in the same verse. And the original readers would have caught this. And so let's read again, starting at verse four.
[00:13:33] Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Or they would maybe interpret this like the Lord alone translation. Listen very carefully. Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
[00:13:52] No one else. No duplicitous worship. We're not pulling a King Solomon here. You worship him. You worship him alone. Never. Not even a little bit. There's no syncretism. It's not a little bit of this, a little bit of that. We have one God, and we worship him alone.
[00:14:08] But Akkad is also directly connected to the next verse. Verse 5 goes on and says, the Lord is one. And here it's actually also meaning the word whole. It says this. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. So Moses is also saying at the same time, listen carefully, Israel, the Lord is our God. And because God has loved you with his whole self, it is now our joy as his bride to love him back with our whole self. It's this funny word. It cuts in both directions.
[00:14:42] The Lord is one, he's whole, he's undivided. And because this is who he is, he loves you with the kind of wholeness. And the very next command is, now you love him back with your whole self. So I'm guessing you didn't wake up today and read Deuteronomy chapters 1 through 5. I didn't even tell you we were in Deuteronomy 6. So assuming you have not done that, let me kind of give you a brief summary of something that happens in Deuteronomy 1 through 5. Moses retells the story of their parents and grandparents. And what he does is he retells the story of their divided hearts, their fear of other nations, their fear of other gods, their longing for slavery back in Egypt, their selective obedience. And one of the points that God has made From Deuteronomy chapter 1 through 5 is this.
[00:15:34] Your mom and dad and grandparents, their hearts were not a cod.
[00:15:41] God's heart has always been one undivided whole. But theirs Weren't.
[00:15:46] You are not to be like them. No division in your heart.
[00:15:50] You are to be wholehearted toward God.
[00:15:54] God is whole, therefore you are to be whole. God is one in his affections, not divided. You are to be wholehearted with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength to God. They were unfaithful, they were divided. May it never be said of us. Now I want you to look again at verse five.
[00:16:15] Because God is whole towards you, says you. Therefore shall be whole to your God. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.
[00:16:26] Millennia of scholars, theologians, pastors, et cetera have spent unending hours parsing out the difference between heart and soul and might. Can I just break it down as simply as possible?
[00:16:43] Love God the way he loves you.
[00:16:46] First, fully holy and with everything you have.
[00:16:53] What's the difference between strength and soul? It doesn't even matter at this point. What matters is that every part of you, God wants you to love him with all of it. God does not want to be a slice of the pie of your life. He wants to be the crust, the foundation, the filling that permeates every aspect of your life.
[00:17:13] But guess what this also means. Not only are you supposed to love God, but there's a huge encouragement in, in this. You are not just a slice of God's life and heart.
[00:17:24] That God loves you wholly and fully. So much so that he would covenant himself to those who come to Christ forever and ever and ever.
[00:17:37] So much so that God has bent all of history in the ark of saving you because he, his heart is wholly set on loving you. Like this phrase, God loves you. We just gotta throw it out there, but this is one of the most weighty and most powerful phrases that we can say. God, his heart is not divided to you. He loves you wholly and fully. He loves you to the greatest extent that anybody could. You know how you and I are wishy washy, like when you hurt me or you upset me, maybe sometimes my love turns off. Like even when God is hurt or upset at something we do, his love is always fully on. He doesn't love with the division, the divided, the contingent heart that so many of us love with. His love is fully, completely, totally on to you and I, his people. And that is really great news because we are people prone to have divided hearts, aren't we? And when people are divided to us, like, we're like, I don't know if I can love you, but I'll tell you, God never Plays that game at all. His heart is fully, wholly on loves you and me. Verse 6. Moses presses this point and these words that I command you today. And these words are, love God with all of your heart, soul and strength. These words that I command you today. I love. This shall be on your what?
[00:18:56] On your heart. Okay, so the beginning of the message. I asked you to evaluate your own heart. Which king did you identify with?
[00:19:04] Why?
[00:19:05] Because here in verse 6, it's not a suggestion that we evaluate our hearts. It's a command. And here's the command.
[00:19:14] You need to make sure.
[00:19:16] It needs to be on your heart that you love God with your whole heart.
[00:19:22] You need to. It needs to be pressing. It needs to be weighty on you. It needs to be on your heart that your heart is wholly devoted.
[00:19:31] Now, I have a few. So what's. And contrary to most sermons, I'm not almost done, so buckle up.
[00:19:38] I want to apply this into our own lives by asking some strategic questions. Number one, has my heart been turning away from the Lord?
[00:19:48] Listen to what Moses warns in Deuteronomy 29, verse 18. He says, Beware, lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away from the Lord. Yahweh, our God.
[00:20:04] Before a big, dumb sin is ever committed, there were almost certainly neglectful things going on over time in the heart.
[00:20:15] Protecting your heart so that it is wholehearted toward God is one of the most sacred responsibilities that we have.
[00:20:26] I want to just say this again. Protecting your heart so that it is wholehearted toward God is one of the most sacred responsibilities that you and I have.
[00:20:38] And yet we struggle, don't we, all the time. There are three primary kinds of hearts that are struggling to love God with their whole heart. And I'm guessing that all of us, we'll be able to, I don't know, understand each of these at some point in our life. But it's very probable that for many of us in this room, one of these will describe our current state. There's number one, the broken heart.
[00:21:02] It is wounded, it is hurt, it's disappointed.
[00:21:08] Something happens in hurt and brokenness. That the inclination of a broken heart is to turn against God, to push God away, to challenge him. If you loved me, you wouldn't let this happen.
[00:21:17] And yet it's foolishness when what we need is healing and comfort to push away the God of healing and comfort.
[00:21:24] If you're not careful, a broken heart will turn into the blunted heart.
[00:21:27] This is the heart that has not been sharpened. It has been left unattended. It's lost its edge. The hardest part about blunt knives is they become useless to their real purpose. You can use them for a whole bunch of other good things, but they aren't able to fulfill the purpose for which they're designed.
[00:21:44] And number three is the belligerent heart.
[00:21:47] The belligerent heart wants what it wants when it wants it. It's very much like King Saul, God, you're good as long as you're a means to my ends.
[00:21:59] The remedy to each one of these is different.
[00:22:02] And I think even if you are, right now, you're here and you're like, no, I am the belligerent heart. I don't like God. In fact, I'm angry at God.
[00:22:10] I think for most people with a belligerent heart, deep down inside, they don't want it.
[00:22:16] They would rather have a soft, tender heart to God than a belligerent, angry heart.
[00:22:22] So let's look at the remedies. The remedy for the broken heart.
[00:22:26] This requires time, tending, and patience. Psalm 34:18 says this. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed and spirit. You probably have heard this before and you think to yourself, amen.
[00:22:40] By the way, is it the Lord's desire that you stay broken and crushed for the rest of your life?
[00:22:47] Not at all. In fact, when the Lord is near to the brokenhearted, when he shows up to save the crushing spirit, one of the things you find is that he's going to start moving you immediately, slowly, intentionally, and at the right pace, but immediately in the direction of wholeness. This is what he does. He brings healing. Not just comfort, but restoration.
[00:23:10] The broken heart that doesn't heal.
[00:23:13] Here's what happens. The thing or the person that broke it.
[00:23:18] If you don't pursue healing, that thing will become your identity. And God does not want that person or that sin to be your identity or that thing done to you. He wants your identity to be in him and his.
[00:23:32] But broken hearts that are unattended to evolve into the blunted heart, the blunted heart needs to be sharpened. And this too, takes time and the right tools. I did want to spend a whole bunch of time here, but if you are in a position where you're the blunted heart, I just want to invite you to go back to last week's message where we talked about how to sharpen our hearts for God.
[00:23:52] Number three is the belligerent heart.
[00:23:54] The only remedy for a belligerent heart is repentance. And 99.9% of the time the only way a belligerent heart will come to repentance is through extreme difficulty or severe divine discipline. Belligerent hearts almost, almost always need to be humbled before they can be healed.
[00:24:19] So if you're here and you're looking at this and you're like, I'm actually broken, in my brokenness, I have pushed away the Lord. Maybe I'm blunted. You're in a season of apathy or numbness. Maybe you're in a season of belligerence. I have awesome, awesome news for you. Last week I also preached on one of the greatest gifts that God has given to every single one of us alive in this room. And that gift is called the will.
[00:24:43] And your will is your ability to choose the opposite of what you feel, of what you want, of the things that people are pressuring you toward. Your will is this God given ability that at any time, you and I, we can choose a different path. Now give me an amen on that.
[00:25:05] Yeah, it's not fun, but that makes us fully responsible for what we do or do not do. And so here's the deal. There are solutions out of a broken heart. It's not quick, it's not easy. There are solutions out of a blunted heart, and there are solutions out of a belligerent heart. And here's the deal. Even though 99.9% of belligerent hearts need to be broken until they can be humbled, that's not necessary. Even the belligerent heart has everything it needs from God to turn toward him and to repent.
[00:25:35] You have everything you need.
[00:25:38] The question is very simple.
[00:25:40] Will I, if my heart is in one of these situations, will I take the next step?
[00:25:45] To move from brokenness to healing, or from blunted to sharp, or from belligerent to repentant?
[00:25:52] And if you don't know what that next step is, everyone's story is a little bit different. You do have the will. You have the ability to sit down with someone who loves the Lord and say, I'm broken, I'm blunted, or I'm belligerent.
[00:26:05] Could I tell you my story and would you help me use my will even if I don't like what you have to say, to move in the direction of wholeness.
[00:26:15] All right, so number two, how do I grow my heart to be undivided toward God?
[00:26:22] The next verse kindly gives us the answer, and it's genius. I love that God made humanity. He made our minds, our hearts, everything. And when he tells us to do something, he tells us to do something because it our heart in the right direction. And so there are four specific behaviors he gives to the Israelites so that when they do these things, it forms their heart in the direction of God. Here they are. Number one is our hearts are uniquely formed when we teach those we love. Verse seven, he says this, you shall teach them diligently to your children.
[00:27:03] When you teach somebody you love, there is this responsibility to live up to your teaching, isn't there?
[00:27:11] And so you don't want to be a hypocrite. Nobody does. I've never met a mom and dad who's like, I'm telling my kid to do one thing, but then I'm going to go choose to be a hypocrite, right? And so what you do is you teach your children or you teach people, you disciple, or you teach people, you mentor. And what it does is it has a really powerful impact on you as you teach it. It makes you want to rise to that person or to those qualities that you are teaching. Somebody once said that we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, and 90% of what we teach. It's a little bit of pastor math, but I think it's really important that when you teach something, what it does is it drills it deeper and deeper into your heart. And so here's a simple application of this. Every week I preach and I prepare messages. And when I'm not preaching, I'm preparing messages for different things. And I do this for you. And what happens is my heart grows in love for the people that I'm teaching. Every week Pastor Ryan is sitting over here and he teaches our students and he plans and he prepares. And what happens is the more you teach a group of people, your heart grows in love for them. And then what happens also is not you don't just love them, but it makes you want to be a better man or a better woman and you want to rise to the standard that you're teaching. And here's what God knows. There is power when you have someone under your leadership and you are teaching and training them how to be godly because it forms our own hearts in the process.
[00:28:35] Number two, our hearts are uniquely formed by what we choose to talk about.
[00:28:40] He says this, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way.
[00:28:46] Typically, most relationships, they default to three kinds of conversations, past experiences, shared passions, and really funny stories.
[00:28:57] But for the whole hearted man, woman, student or child who loves the Lord, who's pursuing wholeheartedness this fourth category actually forms and shapes our heart. We talk about the Bible and spiritual things and issues of the heart.
[00:29:12] And so here's what happens. You'll find in the world.
[00:29:15] Most friendships don't talk about matters of the heart and spiritual things.
[00:29:20] But what happens when you have a friendship that allows you to go deeper in that way? It forms you. It shapes you. Every conversation you have about your heart, about the Bible, about God, your relationship with him, your struggles, what it does is it forces us to form, to love, to want to love God, even just a little bit more. The things we talk about form us, and they shape us.
[00:29:40] Number three. Our hearts are uniquely formed by the routine of our first and last.
[00:29:45] You may not think about this, but God knew about this centuries, millennia before anybody did any kind of studies on this. It says, when you lie down and when you rise. For most people, what is their first thought when they wake up?
[00:30:00] Their phone.
[00:30:02] And what is their last thought when they go to bed?
[00:30:06] Their biggest anxiety.
[00:30:08] So what consumes our days, our phones, and our biggest anxieties?
[00:30:14] And God knows that whatever you choose to think about first will form your day. And whatever you choose, with your awesome will to close your day with, will form your next day. And guess what?
[00:30:28] Days form weeks, Weeks forms form months, Months form years. And when. Catch this. When you choose to make your first and your last thought toward and about the Lord, it forms your day. It's powerful.
[00:30:43] Now, I don't know about y'. All.
[00:30:46] I get a bunch of intrusive thoughts. I get very distracted. Anybody else?
[00:30:51] I cannot. I've tried, but I cannot control the intrusive, random thoughts, the distractions that come into my brain, these ideas that pop up.
[00:31:01] But I do have control over the ideas I entertain.
[00:31:06] And so it will be natural for me when I get up to think about my phone first.
[00:31:12] And that is my impulse.
[00:31:14] But in that moment, my will, I can activate it anytime I want, and I can choose what I'm going to entertain. So I feel very gracious with myself and others when it comes to the impulses and the intrusive thoughts. I can't control that. And I'll find when I'm reading God's word and I'm spending time praying, Holy moly. The amount of distracted, intrusive thoughts. Like sometimes I will be praying and 20 minutes will go by and I will have just literally been thinking about something that has nothing to do with anything. And all of a sudden I'm like, I think I've been distracted for a while. And the Moment I realize it, I exercise my will to come back. And sometimes it's just a constant battle, like, be very gracious with yourself. The challenge. Don't feel guilty over the intrusion, but feel responsible over what you can control, which are the ideas that we entertain. And number four, our hearts are uniquely formed by what we post and publicize.
[00:32:09] You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.
[00:32:22] Every time you post something online, it forms you far more than it forms anyone else.
[00:32:35] I might be overstating this a little. Maybe not. But almost nothing of what you have ever posted has ever changed anybody's mind psychologically.
[00:32:49] When you're posting, you might tell yourself it's for others.
[00:32:53] Look at my kids, look at my thoughts, look at my beliefs, look at my convictions. Look at my food that I just made, which is fine. I'm not condemning it. I just want to make a statement about that.
[00:33:04] When you post something.
[00:33:07] Sorry, you're actually just digging these ideas, these pictures, these images, these convictions, deeper into your own heart. Think about it like an actual fence.
[00:33:19] I got 13 broken posts in my fence. Super annoying. Been dreading it all winter. And I know I gotta deal with it, and I bought the posts. And just to show you that I don't even know what I'm doing, I'm gonna YouTube this before I do it. My first sermon, the illustration, was, every time you hammer a post into the ground, you're just instilling this thought deeper. Every time you post, it's like another sledgehammer to this thing, only to realize you don't. You don't hammer fence posts in the ground. Now, I know. See, this is how little I know, but I have hammered other things into the ground, and every single hit of that hammer puts it deeper and deeper. And every time somebody posts anything about anything, it's taking this thing and it is making us more convicted. It becomes more and more of our identity. So I am a terrible poster online. I don't post barely anything at all. You're welcome, by the way. Do you know how much less conflict we have because of that? Okay, number one. But number two, I just don't. In fact, the amount of people are like, I asked to be your Facebook friend, and you didn't respond. I'm like, I don't even look at it. I'll be honest, when I go online, I actually want to see what's going on in the world and just what's happening? I don't even think about interacting.
[00:34:27] And here's what I see when I see anybody post anything on social media. This is not bad. I just want to tell you what I see.
[00:34:35] I don't see your opinion, your passion, your perspective.
[00:34:40] What I see is somebody reinforcing their identity and forming their heart.
[00:34:47] What I see every post is somebody saying, I'm going to take this thing, this idea, this experience, whatever, and I'm going to make this a deeper part of my identity. It's probably not what you want me to see, but that is what I see. And every time I post, I think to myself, when I post this, this thing, it's not just about, hey, here's who I am, this thing. I am declaring something that is important to me.
[00:35:11] And so I want you to understand that the things you post, the things you put on your shirts, the tattoos you put on your body, the things you say, every one of these, the convictions that you stand for, every time you make those, and this isn't bad, you just want to make sure they're good, true and right and godly and honorable and all the rest. Every time you declare them, you are digging them, hitting this post deeper into the ground, deeper into your heart. Every one of these declarations is identity formation. It's heart formation. So I wanna make sure that when I post, when I declare, when I put something on my shirt, when I, I'm not getting a tattoo, don't worry. But if I did, I would wanna make sure, because whatever it is that I declare and that I post and I publicize, all it's doing is revealing my identity and forming my heart in that direction. And so here's the deal. If you're struggling to be wholehearted with the Lord, consider what you talk about, what you post, what you declare, what you wear on your shirt. And start doing things that push your heart or form your heart in the direction of love for God.
[00:36:09] So number three, if you've never given God your whole heart, there is no better day than today.
[00:36:19] Every single Sunday at church. Our men, women, students and children who have never, ever come to Christ, trusted in him, truly, given him their whole heart.
[00:36:29] And so God has commanded his people not just to love him, but to love him with their whole heart. All their heart, mind, soul and strength. Jesus adds mind for fun in the Gospels.
[00:36:44] And so this is the command.
[00:36:46] And what I love about this command is God is not asking you to do something he has not already done for you first.
[00:36:53] And so God has given you His Whole self.
[00:36:56] God became flesh. Jesus. God laid aside the privileges of heaven so that he could live amongst us sinners.
[00:37:05] Jesus died for our sins in our place, took our punishment.
[00:37:09] Jesus was raised from the dead.
[00:37:12] God is offering everything to us. He has given us his whole heart. And here's what he's saying.
[00:37:18] If you and I are gonna be in relationship, then I need you to give me your whole heart.
[00:37:23] And here's the deal. Your heart was made for God. It was made to be in relationship with him. You were made to do this. You were designed to function in the best, optimal way when God has your whole heart. But I think for many people, they've never even come to him in the first place and said, God, I've been withholding my heart from you and I wanna make you my God.
[00:37:44] This is what's interesting, is every single person in the entire world who has come into a true relationship with God has done it in the exact same way.
[00:37:52] They've come to God and they've in one way or another, admitted, I've withheld my heart from you. I've sinned against you, and I want to make you not just God, but I want to make you my God. You alone, Jesus, you are my God. You alone, and I want to love you. I'm going to do it imperfectly. I'm going to fail, which is why we have the blood of Christ that covers us. But I want to. I want to give you my whole heart. And I just have awesome news. God has already given you his whole heart. And any day that you want to give him your whole heart, he is ready to receive it, forgive you, be reconciled to you, and ready to give you his Holy Spirit. So if you have never come to him ever and said, I'm a sinner, I've withheld my heart from you. I think the absolute best day to do it is today. The book of Hebrews says, today is the day of salvation. Today is the day where God's hand is extended. And if you're not ready to do it today, maybe it'll be tomorrow, maybe 10 years from, from now. As long as you are alive. God has given you his whole heart and is asking for a relationship. And you have the ability to take that and to say yes, to own that you've withheld that and to believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. If that's a decision you wanna make today, you can pray now. You can talk to any one of us. We would just love to encourage you and to celebrate with you because when you give God your whole heart for the first time. Oh man, your eternal destiny has changed. God is thrilled. We wanna see celebrate with you if God has finally, for the first time, received your whole heart. Amen. Village church Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we love you. We're thankful.
[00:39:19] We confess that our hearts are easily divided.
[00:39:24] When I read Solomon, it was striking to me how easy it would be to love the world as much as you.
[00:39:33] I know I speak for all of us when I say we want to be David. We don't want to be David with Bathsheba. We want to be David when he had his whole heart toward you.
[00:39:41] Lord, we want to be humble.
[00:39:43] We just confess our imperfections. But I thank you that even in the midst of our own imperfections, we can still be wholehearted toward you. That is our desire, Lord. For those who have never trusted in you, God, I pray you would show them, as we prayed earlier, not just that they need a savior, but that his name is Jesus and God, for all of us who are consistently examining our own hearts, thank you, Holy Spirit, that you are truthful, you are a convictor, you are kind, you are helpful. And even as you convict us, you are offering us restoration and grace and help and kindness.
[00:40:17] We don't want to be the belligerent heart that needs to be humbled. So, Lord, thank you for the will. May we humble ourselves before the hand of our holy God. Thank you that you love us and that when we do, you are always there to help us. So, Father, we commit our souls to you, our life to you, everything to you. And for our failures, we lean on the blood of Christ. We pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
