PASSION AND THE UNDIVIDED HEART

PASSION AND THE UNDIVIDED HEART Psalm 86:11 With grateful acknowledgement of these sources of direction and inspiration: the Holy Spirit; the Word of God; Stephen Covey, First Things First; Os Guinness, Entrepreneurs of Life; Richard Foster, Freedom of Simplicity; Paul Borthwick, Stop Witnessing and Start Loving; William A. Beckham, The Second Reformation July 20, 2003 [Additional Notes] Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory A couple of DJ's at a local radio station in East Dublin, Georgia, started poking fun in a lighthearted way at the Atlanta Olympics back in 1996. One thing led to another, and East Dublin began their own Olympics-the Redneck Games. 500 people showed up at the first year's event, and the crowd has grown every year. On July 5 of this year 12,000 people attended and cheered on the contestants as they competed in such competitive events as "bobbin' for pigs' feet" and "hubcap hurlin'". Hands down, the favorite event is the mud-pit belly-flop, when spectators watch grown men dive bare-belly into a specially-prepared mud-pit, to see who makes the biggest mess. Locals say the Redneck Games have become their town's passion. Clearly, an increasing number of Georgians are starved for entertainment. What's your passion? Jimmy Valvano was a New Yorker who went south and found success as basketball coach of North Carolina State University, which he led to a national championship. In one game, his team blew the lead and lost to arch-rival North Carolina. Valvano reported that a passionate fan wrote to tell him, "If you ever do that again, I'll come over and shoot your dog." Valvano wrote him back to explain he didn't have a dog. The man responded: "I'm sending you a dog. But don't get too attached to him." In recent teachings we have considered the important teachings of scripture concerning being single-minded, purposeful people. We studied the words of Jesus who exhorted us, His followers, to "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…" (Matthew 6:33). Then last week we spent our study time considering Romans 12:1-2, and Paul's strong teaching that those who have experienced the mercy of the Lord ought to "Not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2). This morning let's consider one of the most important elements of the Christian's "transformed mind" - Passion. One of the most sincere and underrated prayers of the great patriarch, David, is recorded at Psalm 86. Among the several heartfelt requests David brings before the Lord is the one in verse 11: "Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name." I want to challenge each of us this morning to dare to pray that last phrase to the Lord yourself this morning - Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. The first half of the verse is a hallmark prayer of David's. We find this and similar prayers all throughout the Psalms - "Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth…" The request seems humble enough at first as David asks for wisdom concerning God's will and His way. But then it seems at first glance to turn just a bit spiritually arrogant, doesn't it? "…I will walk in your truth…" But a closer look reveals that this wasn't an arrogant, boastful or pious statement at all. David wasn't expressing confidence in his spirituality. He was making a commitment. May I pause here long enough to nail this point down? We are not capable of generating enough goodness and religious fervor to do God's will in a perfect manner. We can't assert our own strength and say, "I will walk in Your truth." No, but like David, we can, and we ought, to make such a commitment of our intentions to Him. For example, we can't really come before God this morning and assert, "Lord, from this day on I am going to live in such a way that I am a great witness to others of your love and your salvation." Not, and really mean it. But we can say, "Lord, my desire is to be Your servant and to be used of You in touching the lives of others. Knowing that I am incapable of this ministry on my own, and knowing that Your Spirit within me can do it, I commit myself to obey and rely on Your power at work within me." We are not ABLE, but we are AVAILABLE. Who is ABLE? God alone. How does He work? Ephesians 3:20-21 answers the question - "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." So David commits himself to one, singular, magnificent obsession-to live whole-heartedly for God and for God alone, knowing he will do so only by God's power at work in him. Then he asks the Lord for the primary thing he will need-"…give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name." David knew that living for God in the kind of committed, sold out way that he wanted to, and having an absolute respect for God's awesome nature were essentially connected. One devotional writer wrote, "I used to write in my daily calendar '7-7:30 a.m.: Prayer.' But many times I passed that up. It was one more thing to pass by that day. Now I write '7-7:30 a.m.: God.' Somehow that's a little harder to neglect." The fear of the Lord is just that-a fearsome respect. When our children were very small they would beg me to play monster with them. That game involved me getting down on my hands and knees and being … well, the monster. They would pretend to be afraid and run to the other side of the room. Then I would lunge toward them and growl. They would squeal and laugh and run again. This would go on for awhile until I slipped and got into my role just a little too much. My roar would be a little too loud, the look of menace on my face would appear to them just a little too real. Then it was time to stop the game, gather them in my arms and reassure them that I was still daddy and hadn't morphed into the monster. The juxtaposition of overwhelming strength and power with tender love is as hard for a child to hold as it is for an adult. My love for them was staggering when they coupled it with my power as the booming voice and overpowering presence. Addressing the Lord as both God and Father can become electrifying, if we can put these two together in our minds: combining infinite love and tenderness with infinite holiness and power. This combination can become the source of our greatest seriousness and our deepest joy, that one of such might can be called Father, and that our Father can be one with such might! Fear and love go together. David said, "…that I might fear your name…" He longed to be always in that state of balance between awe and care. Furthermore, he knew that involved having a heart that was single-mindedly devoted to God. So he prayed, "Give me an undivided heart, (so) that I might fear your name." Catch that order, now. Most of us most of the time think that for us to be single-mindedly devoted to God we must first fear Him. David knew better. He knew that healthy respect for God is the exclusive right of those who have committed themselves to Him. In a word, what Paul was asking for in this prayer was PASSION. Paul was praying for God's help in reviving his faith and commitment. When he asked for an "undivided heart" he was praying against those influences we discussed this past week in cell groups: self-centeredness, materialism, isolationism and hedonism. He said, "Lord, don't let my heart get distracted from You, divided, by the influence of the things around me. You and Your will are my sole desire." What does it take for the church to be the kind of church that Antioch was (Acts 11, 13), a church totally committed to outreach and evangelism, missions and ministry? Is it zeal? Is that what we need more of in order to reach the lost more effectively? No. It's PASSION. Zealots burn out Passion smolders hot and continuous. Passion is what gets you up and keeps you going. It is the thing that when you think about it you conclude, "Yes, this is what I'm living for!" What's your passion? Many sociologists say that we live in a passionless age. Our pluralistic culture has been described by one author as accepting everything, yet committed to nothing. We live in a culture that has become passionate about all kinds of things that are relatively meaningless, like sports and other things temporal, but strangely dispassionate about eternal things and the true meaning of life. What is PASSION? Dictionary says it is fervor, enthusiasm, an intense emotion compelling action. The biblical word for passion goes the next step. The Greek word PASCHO is a derivative of the verb meaning to suffer. (Paschal Lamb) Passion is something I am so intensely committed to that I'd be willing to suffer or even die for it. There is no such thing as pain-free passion. No "passion lite" or "passion with half-the-cost of regular passion". Passionate people pay the price, absorb the cost and pursue their purposes with a sold-out zeal. Passion pays the price. No wonder David prayed for this thing called passion. No wonder Peter left his thriving fishing business to follow Jesus. He found his passion. No wonder Matthew walked away from a very lucrative career to serve Christ - he discovered passion. No wonder Stephen the church deacon was willing to die for preaching the gospel fearlessly - he had passion. No wonder Paul considered everything he had ever tried to do for God as loss for the sake of Christ. He said, "I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own…I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…" (Philippians 3:7-10) He found passion. He said, "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13-14) There is one passion that honors God supremely. That is the passion to love God and love people. This is the great commandment. If you would have a passion for God, you will have a passion for people. People are at the very heart of God. The Bible's most familiar verse says that "God so loved the world (so much) that He gave His only-begotten Son…" (John 3:16) The New Testament scripture is perfectly clear-the passion of God is to reach people with the gospel of Christ and nurture them in the Word of truth. One author put it this way: "Paul had a tremendous passion to see the saints mature, but he had equal passion to get the gospel out to those who hadn't heard it." (Bob Thune) A few years ago, our congregation had the pleasure of having with us Dr. Ruth Tucker, a renowned theologian and author. Perhaps her most powerful contribution is her book, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya. Here are some pertinent lines from that book. Some people thought he was a nut. He was just a shoemaker, after all, and an average one at that. But in the evenings, after work, he studied Greek, Hebrew, and a variety of modern languages. He devoured Captain Cook's Voyages to expand his horizons, which, because of his poverty, kept him bound to a small, forgotten English village. Some people said his time would have been better spent getting a second job to support his growing family. But the young man's passion wasn't a curious, self-satisfying hobby. Early in life he had become concerned about the millions of unbelievers outside of Europe, and he was trying to figure out what could be done to bring them the gospel. With God's help, he slowly figured it out. He ended up going to India to serve as the first Protestant missionary in the modern era. His passion inspired a generation of men and women-the likes of Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and David Livingstone (among others)-to take up the cause of missions as well. Because one impoverished shoemaker named William Carey followed his God-given passion, large parts of the world that had little or no access to the gospel have large populations of people today who confess Christ as Lord." There simply is no greater obsession in all this world than to serve God's cause of reaching and teaching people with the Gospel of Christ. None. 2 Peter 3:9 says, "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." Matthew 24:14 - "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." Matthew 28:18-20 spells out our three roles: make disciples, baptize them, and go on teaching them. What we ought to be obsessed with is how we are to be involved in that great gospel enterprise, presenting the saving gospel as clearly and compellingly as we can in the power of His Holy Spirit. Mordecai Ham was an evangelist out of Kentucky at the turn of the last century. He had a background in business and law. His preaching was zealous and blunt. Rather than sit and talk with Christians at his revival meeting, Ham insisted on being taken to the worst sinners in the community. On one occasion a non-believer hid in a corn field, but Ham tracked him down. The man asked what his intentions were and the evangelist said he was going to pray for God to kill him. When the man protested, Ham told his he shouldn't be bothered since he didn't believe in God anyway. But if there was a God then death would be appropriate for a man who had poisoned his family's spiritual prospects. The lost man begged him not to pray for his death so Ham relented and prayed for his salvation. At the final meeting Ham baptized the man and his family. The key to effective evangelism is not methodology, but passion. Here's what I think, church. I think that most of us in this room are like me-falling way short in my commitment to get the saving Word out to the lost world. I think it's time we sincerely prayed the prayer that David prayed, "Lord, give me an undivided heart that I might fear your name." I believe God wants us sold out in the cause of the gospel and I believe we remain squarely outside His will until we are. I believe we need a revival of God's purpose in us. A renewal of a passion that will move us past our comfort zone into the realm of faith-sharing the Word with lost folks. Let our petty fears of failure and rejection be erased by pure, unmitigated passion. John Ortberg said, "To truly care for people requires not caring too much about their approval or disapproval." Who cares whether they like or respect you after you give them the answer for the hope that is in you with gentleness and respect. If someone were about to be hit by an oncoming car, and you had the opportunity to save him, would it really matter to you that he might be angry with you for pushing him out of the way Or, we could just go on living a life of not caring. Just ignore the calling to which we have been called in deference to a life of ease and just being thrilled that at least we're saved! In his novel The Fall, Albert Camus tells of a man who spends his life sitting in a bar at the center of Amsterdam, commenting on life as he observes it around him. His comments reveal a lot about his own nature, but also speak beyond himself: "I never cross a bridge at night .... Suppose, after all, that someone should jump in the water. One of two things either you do likewise to fish him out, and in cold weather, you run a great risk! Or you forsake him there and suppressed dives sometimes leave one strangely aching. Camus' character has a problem: He is afraid. And just what is he afraid of? Does he fear crossing bridges? Diving into cold water? Not really. His comments reveal that his real fear is of getting involved, even by chance, in any situation where he might have to make a choice, where he might have to become personally involved in risk - taking particularly a situation implied by the condition of night." A rare proverb: "Life's heaviest burden is having nothing to carry." I wish for this church a MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION. I pray for a radical, contagious virus of passion for the lost people of this community to break out among us. A virus with no cure. One that drives us to an life-altering fear of His Name, and an uncompromising drivenness to consistently and carefully deliver the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone we know and who knows us. Would there be enough passion among us that we might commit ourselves to so insane a goal as communicating a personal word of testimony and salvation with each person in our circle of influence before the end of the year? Dare we pray Psalm 86:11 and mean it? Dare we invite our holy, exalted and loving God to do a work of revival in us, stirring in us a passion for the same things He is passionate for? Or, we could just plan to attend the Redneck Games in East Dublin, GA next July.     [Back to Top]