Heart Transformation

Prayer

Outward

Conversation with someone I met recently - worked for years at an area restaurant, a pizza place - nobody wanted to work the church shifts - Sunday lunch and Wednesday evenings. You’d have a big group come in at once, service was slower, people got impatient.

Which is a sad commentary on us as followers of Jesus, you would hope it would be the exact opposite. I can’t imagine folks not wanting to work a shift during which Jesus himself came (they’d work for free!).

Telling clue as we continued our conversation - she talked about a family member, a Christian, who had very set ideas about what you could and couldn’t do. One thing that was absolutely forbidden was card games - not just card games, but not even a deck of cards was allowed in that house.

That family member kicked out another family member who was using a deck of cards to teach basic math (flash cards) on the front stoop. Wasn’t allowed to return for a while.

That was just one of whole list of rules you had to follow to be a good Christian: No cards, no dancing, no swearing, no alcohol, no sex

Then you have Christians who’ve gone opposite side of the pendulum - rightly recognizing the freedom we have in Christ, but then they go and flaunt that freedom. Drink - drink too much. Get involved in inappropriate sexual relationships.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about importance of living according to the will of God, that this is one of our core values - Lived Obedience to Jesus, and how we really should take that seriously.

But danger here is focus on external behavior, if I just follow these rules, then I’ll be a good person.

Don’t get me wrong, this is hugely important - but the issue is where we start, where our focus is, when it comes to how we follow Jesus.

That’s what I want to address this morning as we talk about our final core value, Heart Transformation.

Remember our core values are those fundamental beliefs, those convictions that guide our decisions and motivate our actions. They are the “why” behind the “what” we do - lead others into the abundant life that comes through Jesus.

Our Core values: Kingdom First, Lived Obedience to Jesus, Shared Life Together (I hope you were putting that into practice today!), and Heart Transformation.

So, Heart Transformation - what is that all about? It’s helpful to understand what we mean by heart. In Hebrew thinking, the heart represented intelligence and will. The way you thought in conjunction with your will, your choosing, desiring - how what you think gets enacted. That’s heart. That’s what drives our behavior.

The publishing house that publishes the books we’ve been using for our Spiritual Formation Groups (Good and Beautiful God, Life, Community) is called Formatio (Latin for Formation), the symbol they use for their logo is a shell, nautilus. Nautilus has a unique feature - You’ll notice that the shell sections start in very center and spiral outward from there.

This is the image of spiritual formation - idea of “Inward change to outward witness”. The key to change, to transformation, to becoming like Jesus, is to begin on inside, the heart (which represent your thoughts and desires). Heart Transformation. Which is exactly where Jesus directs us.

Inward - Matthew 15:1-20

Matthew 15:1-6, Confrontation between Jesus and Pharisee, teachers of the law

Pharisee and teachers of the law come to Jesus to confront him - Why don’t his disciples wash their hands before they eat?

Tradition that had long been established, it was considered impure, unclean, to not wash up. Issue of defilement.

Insinuation was that the disciples were bad Jews, not following tradition (which made Jesus a bad teacher).

Jesus comes right back at them. Here’s real problem - you are willing to break commands of God for the sake of human tradition

Washing hands before eating was a tradition, not a command. According to Levitical law, only ones required to wash their hands were priests, and that was only before making the temple sacrifices.

Over time, that command got extended to all Jews before eating meals. But that was never part of God’s command to Israelites.

And this is Jesus’ point - you’re focused on these human traditions, but you neglect the very things you should be obeying. He gives example of Corban.

Corban was to devote what you have to God. You would say, “I declare corban”- on whatever possession you had, money, house, field - object would now be devoted solely to God, for him.

Which should have been a wonderful gesture - problem was it became a legal loophole, a technicality. Because when you declared corban, there was no actual obligation to give gift to temple, you could hang on it it (and ultimately use it for yourself).

So, if your parents were in need, instead of honoring them as God commanded, you could declare your money corban, it’s devoted to God - and not have to use it to help them. All while getting stamp of approval from religious authorities.

This is when Jesus gets to the heart of the matter - which is the matter of the heart - Matthew 15:7-20 -

Jesus calls them out by quoting prophet Isaiah - you hypocrites, say all the right things, engage in all right practices as far as worship is concerned, BUT your hearts are far from me.

Your heart’s not in it. Your heart is not for God. Your heart is for something else - maybe your own glory, maybe you’re more concerned with what others think about you, your heart is for their admiration, or self satisfaction of, “I’m doing the right things, I’m a good person.”

Here’s thing: Jesus wants our hearts - fullness of our hearts (undivided), and he wants our hearts - not far away - but as close to him as possible. And he wants this for two very important reasons.

First, Jesus knows that our character, who we are, comes from our hearts (intelligence and will).

This was false narrative of the Pharisees - I have to be careful about external things - because those are the things that will either make me clean or defile me.

Not washing hands will make me unclean - as will eating unclean foods (washing hands, doing right things, will make me clean).

But Jesus declares the exact opposite: “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them” - (Jesus ends up having to give the disciples a little biology lesson to explain this - whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body). But his point is, that’s not what makes us unclean, it’s not outside in, it’s inside out!

What Jesus is saying is this: If our hearts are wrong, if they are wounded and we’ve allowed those wounds to fester or become poisoned with bitterness, selfish indifference or pride. If we’re treasuring the wrong things - that’s going to come out in our behavior

Vv. 19 - For out of the heart come evil thoughts - murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

We see this same teaching throughout the Bible

Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 5:28 - But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Do you see heart issue here? If I look at a woman, and I just see her as an object for my sexual pleasure (thought) and then I desire to desire, imagine having her, I’ve moved into lust, my heart will be consumed with lust.

1 Timothy 6:9-10 - Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

The issue here is not having money. The concern is loving money, desiring it. That’s a heart issue. And it leads to all sorts of evil behavior.

If I let anger build up in me, in my heart - “I can’t believe what he did to me.” “She does that every time!” It will lead to harmful actions - sever relationship, attack back - verbal assault or I’ll make passive aggressive comments, slipping that little cut in there.

Christians can avoid drinking and playing cards and not dancing and always drive the proper speeds - and think they are being truly good. But we may be doing it so we can feel morally superior. Or that it earns admiration of others - that’s what’s really driving us. This is why we have to go deeper. What’s going on in here.

Jesus knows that if our hearts are not right, we won’t be right. Matthew 12:33-34 - Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Which brings us to the second reason - Jesus wants our hearts near to him, he wants us close to him so he can make our hearts new. So he can change us from the inside out. Heart Transformation.

As I talked about last week (Shared Life Together) - we’re very guarded with our hearts. And for good reason - we’ve been wounded before (and wounded others)

But the only way we can experience genuine change is by willingly giving our hearts to Jesus. He assures us in Matthew 11:29 - 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.

Only place in Bible that we hear Jesus talking about his heart. Jesus is gentle, humble in heart - we can entrust ourselves to him. Our hearts are in best place possible when we give them over to Jesus (and honestly, much much better than if we try to manage them on our own!). When we learn from him (new thoughts), and we surrender our will to him (take his yoke - he leads).

Jesus wants to pour his goodness and grace and love into our hearts - Matthew 12:35 - A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. When we draw near to Jesus, when we open our hearts to him, he fills storeroom of our hearts with his good - his love, his peace, his righteousness.

This is why Paul prays in Ephesians 3:16-19, this is so essential: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Prays for strength by the power of the Holy Spirit…so that, for this reason - that Christ may dwell - where? in your hearts.

If your heart is guarded, if it’s filled with love of money, if bitterness or malice have taken over - it cannot receive Jesus. It cannot be filled with good that Jesus wants to store up in our hearts.

Jesus wants our hearts filled with his love - that’s why Paul goes on to pray that, together with all the Lord’s holy people (that’s you and I) we would have power (we can’t do this on our own) to grasp, to get a hold of - the love of Christ, in all its width and length and height and depth.

We want to experience in our hearts the fullness of the love of Jesus - so that we “may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” That’s what’s going to make us good trees that bear good fruit - good stored up inside of us is God himself, his love, his goodness.

That’s when we become that nautilus - good at our very center, spiraling outward. Inward Change to outward witness. That’s what Heart Transformation is all about.

Spiritual Disciplines (live out value of Lived Obedience to Jesus, hear his teachings and put them into practice)

There’s a passage in Hebrews 10 that, based on Jesus’ work on the cross, blood he shed, he is the way for us to enter into the Most Holy Place - area of the temple that God resided. “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance of faith.”

Let’s do it - let’s draw near to God. Let’s bring our hearts, open, ready, willing.

There are any number of disciplines that invite us to do that - bring us in an attitude of humble surrender and openness to receive whatever it is that Jesus wants to do in us, in our hearts

Heart Transforming Practices: Silence...Solitude...Sabbath (delight, rest, contemplation, prayer)

Pray Ephesians 3:16-19, make this a daily prayer (for yourself and for others!)

That Father would strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

Pray that, being rooted and establish in love, you may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ - to know this love that surpasses knowledge.

Pray that your heart would be filled with Jesus, with his goodness, stored up inside.

Inspiration - Inner Change to Outward Witness

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if workers at the local pizza places - or wherever - would want to work the church shifts? They would be eager to because those would be the best shifts - because we would be type of people others would want to be around?

That the story on us as followers of Jesus wouldn’t be stories of judgmental attitudes or moral arrogance or impatience and rudeness - but stories of generosity and compassion and caring and genuine love.

That others would delight to be around us because we showed forth the best of Jesus in us - love, humility, mercy, joy?

That we really would be different because we are different (good trees bearing good fruit)

Goodness of God stored up inside of us - it’s going to come out!

Make commitment together to draw near to Jesus with sincere heart - Heart Transformation