The Unreliable Heart
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
When Theodore Roosevelt was alive, he was larger than life. He hunted in African safaris. He went to the Badlands where he became a cowboy. He led the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War.
No one could accuse Roosevelt of being a shrinking violet.
Years later, his daughter wrote of him, “he had to be the bride at the wedding and the corpse at the funeral.”
Confidence is great. Dizzy Dean, the hard throwing major league pitcher said, “if you can do it, it ain’t braggin’,”
But what about your spiritual life? How confident are you about your faith?
For most of us, we have grown up in a “hope so” culture. When asked, “are you going to heaven?’ a typical response would be “I hope so.”
While I believe that is a form of humility, others see it as a sign of shaky faith.
How much assurance can we have in our spiritual relationship with God? The problem is what the heart says and do you believe it?
Discussion
Discussion
Three Views of Confidence
Three Views of Confidence
This is something John addresses for practical reasons. His listeners suffered from the putdown of the “knowers.” They had heard the lessons.
“Unless you have been enlightened, you are not God’s child.”
“You cannot be a Christian unless you got the same special knowledge as we have…and you can never reach that level. That’s only for special people.”
It made many question their relationship to Christ and to his church. They were listening to the voices of others and they told them they were on shaking ground.
So, people approach this concept of spiritual assurance from three different directions.
Ignorance
Ignorance
Many live in the “hope so” world. They have no idea what gives them the spiritual grounding they need. They listen to any and all voices and grow confused. And, they stay on pins and needles about their spiritual lives, also searching for the newest thing.
In Acts 18, we meet one man and a group of men whose spiritual lives are based on insufficient knowledge.
The first is Apollos. He came to Corinth where he met a Christian couple named Priscilla and Aquila. He knew some, but not enough. So we hear the remedy.
Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.
He needed more than he had. He had a hole of ignorance in his life that needed filling.
The other were seven men. They had learned only of John’s baptism. Theirs was a theology of “we will do better.” They found no cleansing, just repentance. When Paul met them, he started asking. They were good men, honest men, but lacking men. He baptized them in the name of Jesus so sins could be taken away and a new relationship with God could be established.
Arrogance
Arrogance
But others depend on flawed theological theories. They believe they won the heavenly lottery and have been selected to be in God’s kingdom. They can do no wrong and they cannot do anything to break the chain of relationship. They go through life with their thumbs in their spiritual lapels proclaiming their Christianity without having anything more than a spiritual teacher’s word for it.
That’s arrogance, to believe you are ok in the face of much Bible teaching.
Confidence
Confidence
Then is the third. John wants to teach there are real reasons for us to be content in the body of Christ. It’s not based on what someone else says or how you were raised. It doesn’t even depend on you at all. And that’s the paradox. Our feelings are fickle.
That’s why he turns to the real problem.
Man’s Heart and God’s Knowledge
Man’s Heart and God’s Knowledge
John says that the voice inside creates much of our insecurities.
He wants to set our hearts at rest.
This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence:
John says, “I want to persuade you to rest.” It is a word used before in 1 John to believe something false…persuade ourselves. Here, we still need to be persuaded but about something good. And John says, you can know you belong to the truth. It is a slap in the face of the false teachers who said they knew God and no one else did. John says this kind of spiritual peace is available to anyone who belongs to the truth. In fact, the false teachers were deluded in thinking they could know when they had departed from the truth.
So what does the heart have to do with it?
If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Sometimes, our hearts condemn us. The voice inside says, “you’re not good enough. You’re slipping. You are in danger.” It’s a feeling of inferiority that many Christians have.
We all have a habit of magnifying our sins into the worst of the worse. And then, we ruminate until we pronounce both our guilt and the sentence…a life sentence of shame.
It comes, perhaps, from well-meaning parents or preachers or church leaders. You have to do better, do more. You have to be perfect. If you sin, you are in danger.
How many times have you failed to live up to all of what God says to do? How about today? I know. If you look at what God wants us to do, how many times have you failed to do the right thing or have done what wrong?
The truth is we know ourselves well. We know every fault, every motive, every slight, every sin. We keep our own catalogue of sins and it is a meticulous as an accountant’s ledger. And we may feel, “you have sinned. What kind of Christian is that?”
The answer is a human one. John even acknowledged such a fact in chapter 1.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Too many times, we beat ourselves up because we are not perfect. It’s ok. In fact, John says there is something more important than how you feel about things.
The truth is we cannot trust our feelings or our own senses. Few of us are completely objective about our inner spiritual life. We know we don’t measure up to the high bar of perfection.
While we think we know ourselves well, God knows us even better.
If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Our hearts may be unjust, so John says that God is greater than our hearts. God knows the hidden motives and the deepest resolutions. And John implies that God is more merciful to us than we are to ourselves.
Thomas Aquinas said, ‘Man sees the deed, but God knows the intention.’
The doubts we bring to God are our doubts, not God’s. God does not judge us as harshly as we do ourselves.
In the Old Testament, Saul and David are contrasted. Think about it. David commits adultery and murder. We would call him a first class criminal that deserves the gallows. Saul, on the other hand, mishandled the sacrifices and let a man live that God said to kill. Those are not exactly in the same category as pre-meditated killing of a friend. Yet, God sees them differently. God said of David, “he is a man after my own heart.” God could see far more than David or an external observer might.
The psalmist, probably David himself, said:
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
Jesus also reminds us of how much God knows about our lives.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
God does not share our blindspot, that area of our vision in which we must fill in the void. Instead, he sees the intention we truly had and the true motive behind all of our lives. He sees individual sins as part of the tapestry of our lives.
Do you believe God enough to believe that, in spite of all of your doubts and your inner condemnations, that he can still love you?
And for John, that single fact, that God is greater than anything we feel, and that he knows us far better than we do provides freedom in ways never imagined.
The Freedom God Gives
The Freedom God Gives
The settled heart, the quieted voice depending on God changes the equation.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God
Confidence is a word of openness and assurance.
It was said of Abraham Lincoln that in the throes of the Civil War, when the lives of tens of thousands of men hung in the balance, that Lincoln’s son Tad, who was just 10 years old would burst into a room full of stately men. Lincoln would stop and listen to his son, no matter how trivial the subject seemed.
That’s the kind of assurance we have in relationship with a God greater then our hearts.
It is the safety of a child tucked into bed. A child can sleep peacefully while parents fret about storms, finances, and Christmas presents. Assurance means someone who knows is taking care of life.
and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
We can ask anything. Nothing is beyond question. And, as any father, will do what is best for his son.
Assurance with God is not based on our feelings. Feelings can fool you into false assurance or the lack of assurance. It takes more than that. Freedom is built on the relationship we have with God. The question that is implied in the settled heart is do you trust God to know and do what is best. That means that trust is expressed in our lives in many ways.
First, it is in obedience.
and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
The commands of God are vital to the Christian. It would be foolish to think you would live outside the bounds of God’s desires and have the same trust in God. And John puts all of this in the present tense. We continue to guard his commands and we continue to do what pleases him.
It is what Jesus left as an example for us.
The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.”
Jesus always did what pleased God. It was his nature.
As we have seen, John is fully aware of the reality of sin in our lives. He is not talking about a spotless life. It is never about perfection but consistency. On the whole, what is the direction of your life? Is it to do what God wants or to find ways to avoid his will?
The second is John’s theme of loving one another.
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
He ended the last section with a transition to this one:
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Love is what you show, not what you say. It is Christ living in the world today through us.
Both of these tests express the tenor of a life, not the small lapses in a life. God looks at the whole, not a single act.
John welds these two traits together: the obedience to the Lord’s commands and the love that mirrors the love of the Lord. To live in the faith, to have the assurance depends on both right belief and right conduct. One is not more important than the other and one cannot be jettisoned for the other.
The great problems in God’s family have come when we cannot see this married sense of obedience and love.
I have been to church meetings where preachers were vehement advocates of right doctrine while engaging in putdowns of their opponents. There’s a lot of belief and little love.
And in recent years, the church suffers from a shrug of the shoulders and the “who cares” when it comes to teaching. The mantra, “All God wants us to do is love one another” becomes the license to ignore the will of God.
Neither the legalist nor the libertine are assured of remaining in the Lord. For staying in the Lord means we constantly juggle obedience and compassion. It is what Jesus did every day in his ministry.
Perhaps the best illustration of the freedom and assurance of the Christian life comes from the lips of Jesus himself. In Luke 15, Luke records the story of what we call the prodigal son. It is the son of a father who demands his inheritance, leaves home, and finds nothing but degradation. When the light finally dawns on him, he goes home with a wonderful speech. He will renounce sonship and start mopping floors and cleaning toilets. But when his father sees him, he throws his arms around him and hushes his lips. A ring, a fatted calf, and great joy surround the boy’s homecoming.
It’s an interesting story. We can ask, “what if the son never came home?” Or, “did he just ignore the fact that he fled?” All are the fears of the heart.
The story shows a single thread…the father loves his son and wants him home. There is always a home for those who come back. The prodigal who walked to the house rehearsing his “I am a sorry mess” speech is still part of God’s family and wants him back.
For all, God has a place in his house for those who want to serve him and love as he does.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Assurance has been twisted out of shape. It has been made a right, not the privilege. And, it is not how we feel. It is about what God knows. God knows our hearts. He knows our obedience. He knows our love. He knows our motives. He knows our resistance.
Assurance is never dependent on us but is the result of a heart and life that beats in concert with God’s heart.
How do we approach the “hope so” attitude we might have?
First, hear God and not your heart. So often, people are lulled into false assurance or lack thereof by listening to their hearts. You can feel lost but not be. You can feel saved and not be. It is time to turn to your heart and say, “thank you for your input, but now, let me hear what God has to say.” That’s how we get clarity.
The second is to live well regardless how you feel. Many times we don’t “feel right.” And God accepts that. But he wants us to live for him. Over time, living in the realm of God and his commands, loving people sacrificially will bring the correct emotional response. If you don’t feel right, turn and find what God wants you to do, and do right.
And remember, assurance is how God sticks with us even in difficult times.
When Dick Peterson's wife, Elizabeth, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, he knew It would stress his family. He did not realize how much he would learn in the journey. He writes:
The intruder invaded Elizabeth's body, and by extension, mine. Her disease became my disease and made demands on our relationship we were ill-prepared to manage. As she moved from cane to walker to electric scooter and finally to a powered wheelchair, then lost use of her right hand, I had to adjust my life to fit her needs.
Uninvited and unwelcome, this disease now forces us into a kind of sick reality game, leaving no choice but to follow the rules even as they change and become more restrictive …
Every family divvies up chores, fairly or not so fairly. The MS dictates ours and it's not at all fair, but we do have the choice to let it tear us apart or use it to strengthen our marriage bond as we face the adversity together. This reaches deeper than deciding who does what. It reaches to feelings, emotions, and attitudes about what we do, what's done to us, and who we are to ourselves and each other …
We both pray for healing. With our families and our church, we agonize before God for a return to the day when Elizabeth can offer an open handshake instead of a permanently clenched fist, or take a flight of stairs without thought.
But if we only grieve the loss, we miss the gain—that what this disease does to us may also be done for us. Even as the MS steals abilities from Elizabeth's life, a healing grows almost undetected inside. When we talk about this, Elizabeth wonders aloud, "Did it really take this to teach me that my soul is more important to God than my body?"The exposure shames me. Do I love him more than these? This is the love of Matthew 22:37–39 that commands me to love God with all that's within me, with all my heart, soul, and mind, and to love my neighbor—my wife—as I would myself.
Loving what I want for myself isn't even on the list. It's not in me to love like that, except that God has promised that his love "has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Romans 5:5, NASB). God has given me an impossible command, but he has given me the power to obey it.
The intruder still resides in our home, still presents us with new challenges each day, and still teaches us forceful lessons on submission, dependence, service, and a love that endures all things and never fails—even when I fail.
Strange as it may seem, that intruder is beginning to look more and more like a guest.
Remember, God cares for you…and in that you have all the assurance you need.