Following Your Heart
FOLLOWING YOUR HEART 8/26/07 a.m.
If serving God is the very best thing we can do for ourselves and those we love, then why is it that so few choose to serve Him?
If God loves everyone so much, why doesn’t every one love God?
If the things of God are so clearly seen, then why doesn’t everyone believe in Him?
If God blesses us for our obedience, then why doesn’t everyone obey Him?
If God punishes sin, then why do people continue in sin?
Why do some say that man is naturally good when no one has to be taught to lie, cheat, or steal?
Why do some live a life of perversion and say it’s natural?
Why will we steal and say it was ours to take?
Why do we murder and call it choice?
Why do we take advantage and call it opportunity?
Why will say we love our child and not discipline it?
Why will say we love God and hate someone?
Why will we say we love the church and gossip about those in it?
Why is a 30 minute message long but a 2 hour move isn’t?
Why is $20 cheap for groceries but a lot to give to the Lords church?
Why can we spend hours reading a book but find it hard to read Gods word for ½ an hour?
Why do we consider the rich man an asset and the poor man a liability?
Why will we not treat others the way we want to be treated?
Why is good called evil and evil good?
Why is the wisdom of the world accepted and the wisdom of God rejected?
Why do we fight depression and claim God as our hope?
It’s simple really; the Bible tells us the reason for this type of behavior.
Jer. 17:9-109 “The heart is deceitful above all things,
And 4desperately wicked; (incurably sick)
Who can know it?
10 I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the 5mind, (Most secret parts)
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.
The ways of right and wrong, good and bad, hope and fear, and blessing and cursing are so clear (vv. 5-8), why would anyone choose the path of sin?
The cause for such action is in the heart. It is so deceitful that Jeremiah wondered who could even understand it.
We are apt to think that we trust in God, and are entitled to the blessings promised to those who do so.
But this is something about which our own hearts deceive us as much as any thing.
We think that we trust in God when really we do not, as is shown by the examples given above.
Our words and actions, choices and decisions, hopes and fears rise or fall according to the circumstances we find ourselves in.
And these ALL come from the heart.
A) What is the heart?
The heart is the very basis of character, including mind and will
The heart is the inner self, which thinks, feels, and acts.
The heart (cf. Prov. 4:23) means man’s innermost being.
The bent of man’s natural disposition, apart from God’s redeeming grace,
is described as deceitful (lit., crooked) and desperately wicked (incurably sick).
The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart,
and the human heart is deceitful (Jacob in the Hebrew) and incurable.
If we want to know what our hearts are like, we must see what Gods word says about it.
It is often said, “Follow your heart.”
Man cannot trust his own heart
Only a person with a redeemed heart can live in proper fellowship with God (Job 11:13; 1 John 3:18–24).[1]
B) How can we know it?
We often say, “Well, if I know my own heart,” but we don’t know our own hearts.
God does. He searches the heart and mind and knows exactly what it is.
We cannot know our own hearts, not what they will do in an hour of temptation
Hezekiah did not, Peter did not, and the hearts of the Jewish leaders were turned away from the Lord and His truth.
We don’t what corruptness there is in them, nor in how many things they have turned aside;
Much less can we know the hearts of others, or have any dependence upon them.
DO NOT TRUST YOUR HEART OR THE HEART OF ANOTHER – ONLY GOD WORKING IN THE HEART AND MIND OF SELF AND OTHERS
How can we know it? Read the Word and let the Spirit teach us.
C ) How is it deceitful above all things
It is subtle and false; it is apt to supplant (so the word properly signifies);
it is that from which Jacob had his name, a supplanter.
Sin has corrupted human nature so that we cannot trust our motives or minds.
It calls evil good and good evil,
Puts false colors upon things, to see things differently form what they actually are
And it will cause us to bless things that we shouldn’t bless.
It will make men say in their hearts that there is no God,
or he does not see, or he will not require,
or they shall be blessed though they go on in sin;
It will cause us to think our own hearts are a great deal better than they really are.
It will promote the idea that man’s heart is naturally good.
This lie, planned and dispersed by Satan himself,
In these, and a thousand similar suggestions the heart is deceitful.
It cheats men into their own ruin; it makes us self-deceivers, self-destroyers.
This is how the heart is desperately wicked; it is deadly, it is desperate.
The word rendered “desperately wicked” could be translated “incurably sick.”
Sin is like a disease of the heart, the inner being. Wicked. Corrupt.
Ps. 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.
(from birth)
Gen. 8:21 the imagination 1of man’s heart is evil from his youth;
Job 15:16 16 man, .. is abominable and filthy, Who drinks iniquity like water!
The heart of every man is incurably sick or wicked and can be redeemed to righteousness only by God through faith in Jesus Christ.
D) THE RESULTS OF FOLLOWING YOUR HEART
To trust in one’s own heart is as foolish as to trust in our fellow man
Pr 28:26 26 He who trusts in his own heart is a fool,
Ecc. 9:3 Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts
while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
Jer. 16:12 12 for behold, each one 2follows the dictates of his own evil heart,
so that no one listens to Me.
Mark 7:21-23 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
E) GOD SEES, KNOWS, AND JUDGES
1Sam. 16:7 For 4the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward
appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Ps. 7:9 9 For the righteous God tests the hearts and 3minds.
Prov. 17:33 The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold,
But the Lord tests the hearts.
Jer. 32:19 19 You are great in counsel and mighty in work, for your eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.
F) FINAL INSTRUCTIONS
Ps. 51:1010 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Prov. 4:2323 Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.
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4 Or incurably sick
5 Most secret parts, lit. kidneys
vv. verses
[1] King James Version Study Bible . electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1988, S. Je 17:9
1 intent or thought
2 walks after the stubbornness or imagination
4 LXX For God does not see as man sees; Tg. It is not by the appearance of a man; Vg. Nor do I judge according to the looks of a man
3 Lit. kidneys, the most secret part of man