HONEST TO GOD

HONEST TO GOD Psalm 139:23-24 With grateful acknowledgement of these sources of direction and inspiration: the Holy Spirit; the Word of God; Larry Crabb, Inside Out; Henry Cloud and John Townsend, How People Grow; Chuck Colson, The Body; Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles November 9, 2003 [Additional Notes] Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory Fred Smith, Jr., wrote an article in a recent issue of Leadership Journal, in which he told of going to lunch with a fellow believer one day several years before. The man started the conversation by saying, "I have a CPA to keep me liquid, a lawyer to keep me legal, and a doctor to keep me healthy. But I have no one to help assess my spiritual condition. Can you give me a 'spiritual audit'?" Smith had to admit to himself that he had never thought about such a thing. In the next two or three years, he said, he worked hard at the art of asking himself the hard questions-taking a regular spiritual audit. Where am I in Christ today, compared to where I was a year ago? How am I growing in my faith currently? And what do I clearly hear the Spirit of God telling me to change? These are questions we all do well to ask ourselves regularly. If we don't we all too quickly become like cast-off cicada shells you find hanging on the bark of trees in the summertime. They have the exact shape and look of a living locust-like creature, but they're just shells-their insides are gone. They're hollow, empty-forms without substance. How many in this room have lived long enough as believers to know that Christians can quickly and easily slip into a "form" of religion, while leaving the real life and substance of our faith behind? Friends in Christ, this is not the will of God for us. Oswald Chambers warns that when we dam the blessings in our life, we become stagnant, cynical, mean-spirited. We must break the dam now and then, when we sense ourselves losing a grip on the Spirit-life and we are beginning to get complacent, insensitive. We must break the dam, and let blessings flow like a river, for the freshness is in the flow. It was Jesus who said that if we will be faithful followers of His, then "streams of living water will flow from within him." (John 7:37) Fred Smith went on in that article to say that when he was not in that state of fresh flow, he felt like a "pump", trying to generate the abundant life, trying to preach and teach but never sensing God's anointing, trying to produce spiritual fruit, but never feeling successful. But when he learned and obeyed the principle of breaking the dam, the power and the presence of God's Spirit restored to him the joy and the vitality of his faith. And rather than feeling like a pump, he said he felt like a pipe-a pipe through which God flowed easily. Pipes never get tired. The key is to let God be the pump. He never tires. So, it is good to conduct the audit, ask the honest questions, undergo the scrutiny of spiritual self-examination-to see if we are whole; to see if we are still in a living relationship with Christ, or have slipped into a religious fa?de; to see if there is substance to our faith or only a shell. That's what this morning's text is all about. Contextualizing Psalm 139 Psalm 139 is David's song of wonder and love for Yahweh who has demonstrated His love and care for the shepherd king so wonderfully. David admits he hardly has the words to deliver his worship. One of the things that has him spellbound about God is how He had taken such care to create him and lay such intricate plans for his life (verses 13-18). Another concept that captivates David is the omniscience and omnipresence of God (verses 2-10). He recounts that God knows everything about him-when he sits and when he rises, He knows his thoughts and what he is going to say before he says it. God is everywhere he goes, David gushes! And he confesses that "such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain" (verses 6). And it is this mystery that so deeply fascinates the man after God's own heart. The summary verse is verses one: "O Lord, you have searched me and you know me." What a heart-stopping thought! God knows me, inside and out. It's awesome enough that He can know all things, even all things so personal as my thoughts and my plans. But He cares about knowing me so thoroughly! I mean something to the Creator of the universe-I matter to Him! It reminds us of Psalm 8 where David similarly considered all the universe God had made, and cried out, "When I consider..." all this, "...what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? Yet you made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands…!" (Psalm 8:3-8) The almighty, eternal, holy, all-wise King of the universe tells us we matter to Him! From this wondrous pier, David launches out into the deep waters of reflection about what God knows about him. And he reasons, If he knows all things about me, and He still loves me and cares about my growing more into what He wants me to be… Well, He knows things about me that I don't know about myself-dark things, unhealed areas of my soul, hidden areas in my heart where I secretly rebel against Him. Now, if you weren't certain that God loved you and was willing to forgive you, that thought could pretty well decimate you. It calls up fear about our not being all that God wants us to be-especially someone who is not in an intimate relationship with Him. But, David knew he was secure in his fellowship with God. It wasn't a proud certainty either. He knew that it was only because God was rich in grace and His mercies never come to an end that he could know he was favored in God's sight. It's the same for you and me, you know. Because of what Christ has done for us, reconciling us to the Father by His cross sacrifice, and because of that alone, those who trust in that salvation have confidence to know we are secure in His love. "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away" (John 6:37) So, trusting God's love for him, David ventures out into the deep waters. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:23-24) He says to God, You love me and I love You, and I want so much to please you by being all the man You created me to be. Show me where I am failing you! That is gutsy faith! When is the last time you honestly, sincerely asked your wife, Dear, I love you, and I desperately want to bless you in honor to Christ and to you. Is there any area where you see I could improve in my ministry to you? Or, when is the last time you had coffee with a friend and asked him to tell you, man to man, how you could improve your behavior in Christ? David wants to grow, he wants to break out of the routine of ordinary faith. If you want to please God in this way, you're going to have to learn to pray this kind of prayer, and mean it. Christian growth, at any point on the scale, always begins with being "Honest to God." Let's consider for a few minutes three observations about being Honest to God. Observation #1 - To be Honest to God, you must welcome God's inspection David invited God's scrutiny of his life. He said, "Search me, O God, and know my heart…" Please don't miss the obvious here. Inviting God's scrutiny is optional; it is a choice. Careful, now-I did not say God searching your heart and judging you is optional. I said your welcoming that inspection is your choice. When David said, "know my heart," he didn't mean he was going to help God out by opening his heart to Him. No way did David think God couldn't know his heart unless he let Him. God knows all about David, inside and out. And He knows all about each of us, inside and out. In fact, David had already worshiped the Lord with these words, "O Lord, you have searched me and you know me…"(139:1) Make no mistake about it. When David invited God's searchlight to expose his heart, it wasn't for God's benefit; it was for David's benefit! What David was looking for was God's forgiveness and healing of the hidden sins in his heart-things he didn't even know about. There are two friends we have to make if we are going to be serious of having a full and genuine relationship with God. First and foremost, we have to make friends with Truth. Truth is central to all relationships, especially our relationship with the omniscient God. Anything less than being fully open to Him is a lie. He who knows us perfectly will not allow us to avoid truth-truth about Him or truth about ourselves. We may not like what we discover when we welcome God's inspection of our hearts. But it's truth. Many Christians go on in denial about things they are afraid to admit to God. The irony and the idiocy of that hiding is that it's anything but truth. We'll shake our heads over someone who insists he is not an addict even though he has lost his family and he burglarizes in order to fund his nightly hit of crack. But we will go to great lengths to ignore the depth of our own private sins. Truth calls for disclosure. God will not, cannot settle for less. That's why David is so right, so truth-ful to open his heart and say, Search me, O God, and see…I am not happy about what you will discover for me, but I need to know if I want to grow. The sincere and committed disciple of Jesus has to make friends with Truth. We also need to make a friend of change. Every step of growth in the Christian life involves change. (That is not the same as saying every change means there's growth.) From time to time, lobsters have to leave their shells in order to grow. They need the shell to protect them from being torn apart, yet when they grow, the old shell must be abandoned. If they did not abandon it, the old shell would soon become their prison--and finally their casket. The tricky part for the lobster is the brief period of time between when the old shell is discarded and the new one is formed. During that terribly vulnerable period, the transition must be pretty scary to the lobster. Currents cartwheel them from coral to kelp. Hungry schools of fish are ready to make them a meal. For awhile at least, that old shell must look pretty good. We are not so different from lobsters. To change and grow, we must sometimes shed our shells--a structure, a framework, a tradition, a comfortable method--we've depended on. Discipleship means being so committed to Christ that when he calls us to follow, we will change, risk, grow, and leave our "shells" behind. "They go from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion." Psalm 84:7 "The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day." (Proverbs 4:18) Winston Churchill once observed, "To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." The Christian life is all about change. God's plan for us is all about changing us into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29; Colossians 3:10). 2 Corinthians 3:18 says "we are being transformed into his likeness, with every-increasing glory…" The picture there is of a series of incremental steps, one after the other, that is each Christian's program of maturity in Christ. Moving from one stage to the next stage is all about change-change in heart and changes in behavior. Knowing that it was God's will that he grow in his faith, David wisely made a friend of Truth and Change, and he welcomed God's inspection. One last thing in verses 23. He says, "Test me and know my anxious thoughts." When he uses the term anxious thoughts, he was admitting that he might have made some wrong assumptions about the rightness or wrongness of what he has done. So he says, Lord, I'm not even sure I know what I'm talking about sometimes, so be the final editor of my discernment. Here is a man who is completely turning himself over to God, saying, God I am repenting of all that I know is sin in my life, and I am admitting my needs to you, but I might have the wrong perspective on the whole thing. Please fix that, too! Observation #2 - To be Honest to God, you must understand and admit your own inadequacy You don't have to live very long before you realize how deceitful your heart can be. The prophet Jeremiah informs us, "the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) A friend who worked in a slaughterhouse once told me, "No pig ever volunteers for butchering." It breaks our hearts when we have to admit we are sinners. Hearts don't like to break, so they try to protect themselves and justify sins. The heart of man is deceitful and it tries to hide the truth and rationalize behavior, twisting the details to make us look better than we are. Russian writer Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said, "If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" Psalm 24:3-6 - "Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him." The longer I live the more I realize how deeply sinful my heart is. And the more I understand that I don't understand. I need God to reveal to me the ugly underbelly of my motives and my pride, so I can repent of them and move on in His forgiveness. He is so gracious to reveal only one issue at a time! David was called in scripture, "a man after God's own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14), but he was still a sinner. Being a sinner isn't what qualified him as a man after God's heart. Owning his guilt and humbling himself before the Lord is what brought him God's favor. And that is what brings God's grace to us as well. "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." (James 4:10) Growing in the Lord means regularly humbling yourself before Him and admitting you may be so many years old in Christ, but you are still a sinner in need of His mercy. Exercising that kind of honest humility is the only way to kill the pride that destroys us in delusions of self-righteousness and complacency. "See if there is any offensive way in me…" David wasn't saying, I dare you to try and find anything wrong with my pure heart (he knew better). But he could have stayed comfortable and complacent. He could have avoided all this broken heart and humiliating repentance stuff. All he had to do is follow the path of least resistance, ignore his wicked heart, rationalize his actions and occupy himself with the religious behaviors and looking good. We can do that, too. But believers know that if we love truth and we love God we cannot live a lie. The only cure is repentance. Do you want a reconciled relationship with God? Admit your own inadequacy, lay down your pride, and run to Jesus. On Saturday, June 22, 2002, the scheduled game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field was cancelled because of an eerie discovery. The Card's ace pitcher was found dead in a Chicago hotel room. Thirty-three-year-old Darryl Kile, who wore number 57, had been a major league pitching sensation for 12 years and had appeared in three All-Star games. At a recent team physical, the 6-foot 5-inch athlete seemed in excellent health. When the medical examiners conducted an autopsy later that day, they discovered that Kile had died from a massive heart attack. His main coronary artery was 90 percent blocked. Darryl Kile appeared to be healthy, but his heart was diseased. Jesus reminded us that a person's appearance and behavior can be misleading. The Pharisees, for example, looked impressive, but their hearts were far from God. For those willing to acknowledge their need for salvation, Jesus will save you. For those believers in Christ who are discovering deep and painful things as the Holy Spirit reveals them, I say this: don't run and hide from them. Acknowledge the truth and reality of what you are facing and bring it to the One who knows you inside out and still loves and forgives you. He will heal and deliver you. Observation #3 - To be Honest to God, you must entrust yourself to His purposes Verse 24 captures this idea: "See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." In essence he says, I want to know all that is wrong that I may repent of it and mature to new levels, and I know I will also need Your leading to know how to live for You. Commit to Him that you want to serve Him and His will from here on out, and He will take charge. And all you'll do is follow what He tells you to do. I am no computer genius. I can type a little and I know what I'd like that trio of monitor, CPU and printer to produce, but beyond that I'm lost. Once, not long ago, when I was lost in the jungle of cyberland I called on a brother who knows his way around in this forest. I proudly told him what I had done with my little computer and asked where I should go from here. He offered to come over and work on the problem with me, and, in my naivete and pride, I said, No, thanks, all I need is a little advice over the phone and I'm sure I can take care of it. He gave me some pointers, I scribbled down lots of notes I didn't understand, and my friend said, 'Need anything else, give me a call. As I hung up I heard myself say, proudly, Naw, I can handle it from here! Three agonizing days later I had to eat crow, call my friend again and admit the mess I'd made of things and, if he wouldn't mind, could he sometime drop by and rectify my mistakes. Fortunately he was not only gracious, and didn't treat me like the idiot I was, but he also came right over. I tried to rehearse to him exactly what I had done, but just said, You know what? I'm a moron and I can't even begin to explain what's wrong. I just need your help! What happened next I will never forget. He smiled and said, I'm glad you called-we'll get you going in no time. The hours of frustration melted away, and I almost cried. Within an hour my friend had worked his magic and the computer was humming along better than ever. What relief! The computer was fixed and I was healed. I tried several times to express my thanks, but haven't adequately done it. Listen, I don't know what kind of a tangled mess your life may be. You may look like you've got it all together spiritually, but inside you're locked up and miserable. Maybe you have finally gotten to the point of desperation where you know without a doubt that you cannot fix your problems. Thank God for that desperation! It's time for honesty before God. Ask Him to come in and have a look, to not hold anything back, but to tell you exactly what is wrong with you no matter how it may sting. Admit to Him you are inadequate to live a life that pleases Him (or you). Tell Him you are ready to trust Him with your life. Tell Him once and for all you are going to live your life on His terms, relying on His direction and His Spirit's power. Trust Him to do what you cannot do-to break open the dam and let living water flow from your life. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)   [Back to Top]