The Word Written on Our Hearts

Prayer

A Vision for God’s Word Written in our Hearts

I want to start this morning with something I’ve shared with you before, something that Dallas Willard teaches about transformation, that he says is necessary to grow in order to become like Jesus Christ. That is the idea of VIM, Vision. Intention. Method. To experience change (this is true of any change) we must have a Vision for what we want the change to look like. And we must be Intentional about pursuing that change, it has to be more than just a vague desire, a hope. Finally, Method, a planned strategy for how change will take place. Vision, Intention, Method - VIM.

As we come to the end of the season of Lent, we’re also nearing the end of our sermon series, Why the Word. Why the Bible is so essential, so foundational. Over the last weeks we’ve talked about how the Word reveals, through his Word, God makes known to us who he is and what his will is. That the Word is truth. It’s infallible in its teaching. The Word is God-breathed, its Spirit-filled. Finally, the Word equips, it trains and teaches us to do the good works God has for us.

This morning I want to talk about the idea of the Word being written in our hearts. The idea that God’s Word would be imbedded in us, it would be the way we naturally think, what Scripture teaches us about who God is, what he’s done for us and how we are to live. The truth of what the Bible teaches us would be what we most deeply believe, and therefore, act out of. That’s the idea, the Word written on our hearts.

And this is God’s vision, his intention for us. The writer of Hebrews quotes the prophet Jeremiah in Hebrews 8:7-12, For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said: “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 9 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. 10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

So the writer of Hebrews is making the point that there was a very good reason why God established a new covenant in Jesus Christ. And it’s because the old covenant didn’t work. The binding agreement God made with his people at Mount Sinai, that if they followed his commands, if they were faithful to him as their God, then he would bless them wonderfully. But if they did not - and they didn’t, he would curse them, he would bring punishment upon them. And we’ve seen plenty of examples of that in our journey through the story of the Old Testament.

Through the prophet Jeremiah God declares that he is going to make a new covenant, which is the covenant we are under, the covenant mediated by Jesus Christ, covenant of grace, Jesus dying for our sins, offering us forgiveness and the gift of eternal life - as it says in verse 12, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Note the promises of what God will do in this covenant, his Vision for us - he will put his law in our minds and write them on our hearts. We will be his people, and he our God because we know him, we know who he is and what his will for us is, and we will live it out. That’s God’s intent here.

And what God is doing in this new covenant is huge - before his Word, the law, was external. Not in the minds of his people, not written on their hearts, they didn’t truly know God. Like a list of rules written on the wall that you’re supposed to keep. Which is why they were not faithful to them. God is saying here that now his Word will be internal, in us, part of who we are.

When we were up at Wild Ridge last weekend, staying at the Gauley River Lodge for the Capernaum Overnight, we had a list, check-out list of all the things we were supposed to do to clean up as we were preparing to leave. Similar to what you’d have if you stayed at an AirBnB or VRBO, you’d check the list, make sure you’re following it. It’s external. But you don’t do that at your own home, the knowing and the motivation is not external, it’s internal. You simply know what you need and want to do - and you do it.

Look at how Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 3:3, You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Here’s what I want to put forward to you this morning to consider - if you’re a letter from Christ, what does your letter to say? What does your everyday life - what you say, your tone, your demeanor, your actions, speak to others about Jesus? What about Jesus and what he teaches is written on your hearts?

My hope is that God’s vision for us would be our vision as well. That it would be his Word in our minds, written on our hearts. We would naturally think and act out of Jesus’ teachings. And to give you an idea of what that looks like, let me share this from CS Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity, where he talks about our sinful actions, how they don’t just reveal what we do (or don’t do), but who we are, what’s written on our hearts:

...surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.

The point I’m making is that God’s vision for us - and what I hope is our vision for ourselves, is that we don’t have to be the type of people who have to put on a disguise, we have to pretend to be kind, generous, humble. Rather, that it would be written on our hearts, the natural way we act toward others.

This is exactly who Jesus was, how he lived, God’s word was written on his heart, we see that from the very beginning of his ministry toward the end.

At the beginning we have Jesus being led by the Spirit into the wilderness in order to be tempted by Satan. What’s very revealing in these encounters is how Jesus responds to Satan in each of the three times he tempts him. It’s always through the Word. God’s word is written on Jesus’ heart - he knows the Father and what the Father is all about - and he lives in accordance with that. Note how he responds to Satan’s very first temptation, to turn stones into bread to break his fast - Matthew 4:4, Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Today is Palm Sunday, where we commemorate the Triumphal Entry, Jesus riding the donkey into the city of Jerusalem, in what will be the last week of his life. Here, too, Jesus acts out of the Word written on his heart as he comes to the temple and sees what a mockery they have made of the entire area, filled with those selling animals for sacrifices and moneychangers taking advantage of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. His anger erupts as he recognizes the truth of the prophetic words from Isaiah and Jeremiah - My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.

Even in his last moments, hanging on the cross, when he cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” In the time of Jesus, there where no chapter or verse numbers assigned to the words of the Bible. So Psalms were known by their first line - Jesus is shouting out the first line of Psalm 22 because he knows that the words of that Psalm are being fulfilled in him. He is the one being forsaken by God in that moment, he is the one being scorned, despised by the people, mocked, insults hurled, whose clothing is being gambled over. Jesus knew that he would be enduring all this, it was written on his heart. It makes the fact that he willingly did this, for us, all the more amazing.

Intention and Method - God’s Word Written on our Hearts

Coming back to Dallas Willard’s recipe for change, it’s not simply the Vision that’s necessary if we are going to be people on whose hearts God’s word is written, who are that letter from Christ, it requires intention and method. And since these are often tied together in Scripture itself, I’m going to address them together. At their most basic, it’s simply acknowledging the reality that becoming people who have the mind of Christ, who naturally act out of his word, does not happen by accident - but rather it happens slowly, gradually, through our intentional effort.

Here’s why - we don’t come to the Scriptures as a blank slate. There is already a word written on our hearts. We already have deeply held beliefs, ways of thinking, stories we believe about ourselves, about who God is, about what’s important in life, what’s the best way to live.

All that’s come from how we were raised, things we picked up both explicitly and implicitly from our parents and extended family, at school, in the culture we’re part of - the news we listened to, TV shows and movies we watched, churches we grew up in. It’s why I can tell you that most of the graduation speeches that will be given this May and June will have some version of “follow your heart”, don’t let others tell you can’t do it - because that’s part of the American ethos. All of this has shaped the things that even now are in our minds and written on our hearts.

I don’t know if you saw this, but the actor, James Van Der Beek, died recently as a result of cancer. Tragic death, as he left behind his wife and their six children. He made a video on some of the things he was reflecting on as he faced death, and in it he shared some profound thoughts. Because as he was enduring treatment, becoming weaker and weaker, all the things he had relied on to understand who he was and his value in life were slowly stripped away, one by one. He couldn’t act anymore, that glory and fame was disappearing. Not just that, but the role he has in his family as husband and father - to provide, to protect, to nurture. Couldn’t do any of those. Stripped of all that, he had to embrace this one simply truth, let this be the thing written on his heart that would sustain him as he neared death: I am loved by God.

And that’s exactly the process - we have to unlearn things in order to learn the things of God. Our book study for our Spiritual Formation Group, The Good & Beautiful You, that’s the whole premise - every chapter, what’s the false narrative you may believe about yourself. What’s the true narrative about who God made you to be? That’s what we have to be intentional and strategic about having written on our hearts.

There’s plenty of examples in the Bible encouraging us to do exactly that - be intentional and have a method, a strategy. Trusting, of course, that the Holy Spirit is always working in us as we do our part, that he is the one who writes the truth on our hearts.

In Deuteronomy God is speaking to his people through Moses regarding their faithfully obeying his commands, we see this is 11:18-19, Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Instructions go on, offering more ways, more methods to “fix” God’s word in their hearts and minds.

We see both intention and method here. First the command to fix God’s word in their hearts and minds, be intentional about the need to know and be committed to following what God teaches us. And then offering a slew of methods, tying them as symbols on hands, teaching them to your children, talking about them wherever you go.

There are a number of verses in the Bible that encourage us to “take to heart” God’s Word. When you take a word to heart, you’re taking it seriously, you’re attentive to it, rather than being dismissive of it. Just like I do with every word Wendy speaks to me, I take it to heart (if she were here, I’m sure she’d back me up on that). But listen to these (take them to heart):

Deuteronomy 32:46-47, ...he (Moses) said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you - they are your life.”

Revelation 1:3, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

One last example - the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 13 about the Sower who sows seed and it lands on four different types of soil with very different results. Seed is the Word of God, message about the kingdom of God, Jesus says, and soil represents the hearts of the listeners.

Some seed falls on the hardened path, representing people whose hearts are hardened, they do not receive the Word. Some seed falls on rocky soil, representing listeners who get excited about the message, but don’t take it to heart. It stays shallow, it never takes root, so when hardships come, they fall away, they don’t stick with the truth of God’s Word. Some seed falls on soil that’s infested with thorns and weeds. That soil represents people who are listening to too many voices, let the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth, as Jesus says, choke out God’s word. None of it bears fruit.

To have good soil is to have a heart ready and willing to receive God’s word. To know it not just here (mind), but here, to have it written on our hearts. That requires Vision and Intention and Method. A desire to be a letter from Christ (because you know him!), a person whose every words and actions communicate to others what Jesus wants everyone to know: “I love you more than you can possibly know. I long for you to share in the life that I came to give you, that I died for you to receive. Come, follow me.” I pray that’s your vision, to be such a letter from Christ.

Spiritual Practices - As you think about your own spiritual formation, think in terms of VIM. Be specific in your vision, where do you sense God at work in you, growing you? What’s the Word you want written in your heart? And how can you be intentional and strategic about knowing the Word and living it out (recognizing that it’s a slow, gradual process).

Dallas Willard - the power of memorizing Scripture. He suggests longer passages, but, as always, start where you are. Tips or ideas to help you fix God’s word in your heart (tie it on your hands, foreheads): Cross in my pocket (“If anyone wants to be my disciple...) Someone shared with me recently their prayer has been, “Thy will be done.” Struggling with anger, grudge (Lord’s Prayer - “Forgive us our debts”… or “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”). Struggling with worry? Matthew 6, passage on Jesus’ teaching that begins with “do not worry”.