Closures & New Beginnings (Cont'd)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
March 10, 2013 - Pastor Dale
Scripture
Reading: Gen.3: 1 – 13
For several Sundays I have presented messages around the theme:
Closures & New Beginnings.
The core of what the Holy Spirit has been saying to us is that we have passed
through and come to the end of a particular season; that season has closed out.
We are now looking at a new season, a new chapter, an open door into a future we
have yet to experience. Not unlike Joshua and his generation when they arrived
at their Jordan River, we are looking at our own Jordan River and realizing that
our future is on the other side of it. There is a crossing
over or a passing through that
is essential to our possessing that future.
We have a tendency to romanticize these seasons. We hear God
speak through the prophet: “Behold, I do
a new thing.....” and we romanticize it and get goose bumps. And then we
conclude that, because we feel good about it and have shouted our “Amen!”
to it we have actually walked it out and arrived in it.
Then we make this unpleasant discovery: the first thing this new thing requires of me is that I deal
with the old thing. That
brings us to a word that often conflicts our souls. It’s the “C” word –
CHANGE! Suddenly
the new thing is not nearly as romantic.
The theme of this message is: ‘The Heart of Change is the Changed Heart.’
Regardless of what has or has not been done to you, and
regardless of your present age – young, old or somewhere in between, your life is not
finally determined by any of those factors external to you; it is determined by
your own heart. That is a rather bold and blunt
statement. Its intention is to remind each of us of the issue of personal
responsibility with respect to who we are at this stage of life –
and please note that the issue is not what we are doing but who
we are.
For the most part we attempt to explain (justify) behaviour on
the basis of things. By things I mean all those details, events, circumstances,
conditions and structures that make up the external world of our existence. We
tend to think that if only things
had been different – if we had had the advantages of that person we would have
been much more successful.
Whenever I go there – and there are moments when I do – I always
remember a black preacher who used to share on Jerry Falwell’s program. This
guest speaker pastored a huge church in the US and travelled the world advancing
the Kingdom of God. All you need to know about him and his success is how
advantaged he was as a child. He was born into the drug culture. He never knew
his father and only briefly knew his mother. At a very early age he was
abandoned completely. For the majority of his childhood and his teen years he
lived under an Interstate overpass. From that “dwelling” he went to school and
graduated high school.
At some point in his “advantaged life” (and I can’t recall all
the details of this) he was found and introduced to Christ. He was wonderfully
born again, submitted to water baptism, went to university, answered the call of
God on his life and to this day is preaching the gospel.
Whenever I recall this story I am reminded all over again that
life is not primarily about external details,
events, circumstances – what has or has not been done to or for me; my
life is determined by something internal: my own
heart.
‘Two
men looked out through prison bars. One saw mud and one saw
stars.’ It is not enough to simply conclude that each man saw something
different because they were looking in different directions. We must go much
deeper than this and ask: What was it that determined the difference of direction each
was looking in? What I am suggesting is that the choice of direction one looks
in is primarily a matter of the heart. The circumstances can be the same but the
choices we make in those circumstances are a matter of the heart. Contrary to
popular belief your heart does not follow your
eyes – your eyes follow your heart.
Note this familiar proverb from six different translations of
scripture:
Prov.4:23
Guard your heart more than anything else, because the
source of your life flows from it. The source of our life is not anything external therefore it is
not defined by or dependent upon external things. What’s defining it is its
source, and that source is our own heart.
Above
everything else, guard your heart; for it is the
source of life’s consequences. Consequences are not determined by the external structures of
life; they are determined by the heart in this sense – the heart-choices I make
in relation to those external structures.
Keep
vigilant watch over your heart; that’s
where life starts. What life is it that starts with the heart? I would suggest the
life of thoughts, the life of attitudes, the life of ideas and imaginations.
These may be very positive or profoundly negative, but whatever their nature
their source is the heart.
Be
careful what you think, because your thoughts run your
life. People and things do not run my life but the thoughts of my
heart certainly do. After 29 years in prison, Nelson Mandela could emerge and
become the President of South Africa because he refused to allow his heart to be
imprisoned even though his body was. His thoughts would run his life; not the
thoughts of an entire nation.
Guard
your heart above all else, for it
determines the course of your life.
Above
all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from
it.
I can tell you – bar none – the
most difficult thing we will ever do is to stop blaming the external world for
the state of our life and accept personal responsibility for the state of our
heart out of which our life is flowing.
Given this reality regarding the heart it seems reasonable that
we should consider what it is about the heart
that makes it so centrally defining with respect to our behaviour.
Obviously any in depth Biblical study of the heart would require
enormous measures of time and effort. For instance on the basis of the English
text – The New American Standard Bible – the word ‘heart’
is found 856 times between Gen.6:5
and Rev.18: 7. You will be relieved
to know that I am not going to reference all of those scriptures. In fact I
will reference only one.
What’s on my heart concerning the heart in the context of this
message is contained in: Heb.4:12-13 For
the
word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it
penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes
of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is
uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Whatever
else the Biblical heart may or may not be it certainly is the place in each of
us where thought and attitude incubate and grow. My heart is the home of my
thoughts and attitudes. And let me say this: There
is nothing more defining of behaviour than thought and attitude.
So there it is – it is not the external structures of the world
around me (neither people, events, details or circumstances) that determine how
I live, the course of my life, how I respond, react and behave. It is the thoughts of my heart about things and the
attitudes of my heart toward these things that determine how I live in relation
to these things.
I love that proverb that goes like this: As a man is done by so shall he be. Or
perhaps it reads like this: As a man is
done unto so shall he do unto.
The actual proverb is - Prov.23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is
he... I chose the KJV
here because of that antiquated word ‘thinketh’; the ‘eth’
on the end of the word refers to something that is ongoing and continuing. It is
vital that we understand that it is not those fleeting thoughts that may pop in
and out and pass through our hearts that define our life and behaviour. But the
thoughts I choose to entertain, to continue to allow, and ongoingly develop –
those thoughts will define and determine my life. In fact according to the
Proverb I will become those
thoughts.
You may wonder what any of this has to do with change. Let me
state simply this is the very core of change. The first thing that occurs in the
face of significant (or even not so significant) change is the exposure or
uncovering of the heart. In other words thoughts and attitudes get flushed out.
That in itself is not a problem – in fact it is a good thing. The critical part in this is not what the changes revealed
but how I choose to respond (not to the changes) but to the heart issues that
surfaced in relation to those changes.
From
Genesis 3 forward almost always our
first response is to shift blame away from our own heart to something or someone
external to our heart. And so Adam blames Eve, and Eve blames the devil. This part of
the study we will look at next week.
Let me close out this message by returning to Prov.4:23
and dealing with the issue of what it means to
guard the heart. There is a great deal of resource
material that deals with this; I want to limit my comments to just a couple of
considerations.
The first is what the proverb is not calling us to do.
It is not telling us to live with a guarded
heart in the sense of closing our hearts. It is not
calling us to build walls around our heart so no one can penetrate it or touch
it. It is not calling for stubbornness and hardness of heart. The guarded heart
is not about shutting the world out. Once again, heart
reality is not about the world outside the heart – it’s about the world inside
the heart, the world of thoughts and
attitudes.
When it comes to that world the guarded heart is about one thing – it is about the governed heart. The government is upon the shoulders of the Christ. That Christ
lives in my very spirit. In Him and through Him I have been given the power (the
ability) to govern or reign over my own heart – that is over my thoughts and
attitudes. To govern the heart involves allowing or disallowing, it involves
determining and directing the thoughts and attitudes of the
heart.
So guess what, Adam – your problem was not Eve. Your problem was your ungoverned heart. It was not Eve you
were following; it was your ungoverned heart and those ungoverned thoughts and
attitudes led you into disobedience.
At the heart of all change is a changed heart. And this is the good news in all of this: the redemptive grace
of God at work in our hearts brings about true transformation, true change –
transformed thoughts, transformed attitudes.
As long as I blame you for the state of my heart I will never come to the only one
who can transform my heart. And that is the final tragedy of living in a culture
of blame. That’s what Genesis 3 is all about. We’ll look at that next
Sunday, God willing.
March 10, 2013 - Pastor Dale
Scripture
Reading: Gen.3: 1 – 13
For several Sundays I have presented messages around the theme:
Closures & New Beginnings.
The core of what the Holy Spirit has been saying to us is that we have passed
through and come to the end of a particular season; that season has closed out.
We are now looking at a new season, a new chapter, an open door into a future we
have yet to experience. Not unlike Joshua and his generation when they arrived
at their Jordan River, we are looking at our own Jordan River and realizing that
our future is on the other side of it. There is a crossing
over or a passing through that
is essential to our possessing that future.
We have a tendency to romanticize these seasons. We hear God
speak through the prophet: “Behold, I do
a new thing.....” and we romanticize it and get goose bumps. And then we
conclude that, because we feel good about it and have shouted our “Amen!”
to it we have actually walked it out and arrived in it.
Then we make this unpleasant discovery: the first thing this new thing requires of me is that I deal
with the old thing. That
brings us to a word that often conflicts our souls. It’s the “C” word –
CHANGE! Suddenly
the new thing is not nearly as romantic.
The theme of this message is: ‘The Heart of Change is the Changed Heart.’
Regardless of what has or has not been done to you, and
regardless of your present age – young, old or somewhere in between, your life is not
finally determined by any of those factors external to you; it is determined by
your own heart. That is a rather bold and blunt
statement. Its intention is to remind each of us of the issue of personal
responsibility with respect to who we are at this stage of life –
and please note that the issue is not what we are doing but who
we are.
For the most part we attempt to explain (justify) behaviour on
the basis of things. By things I mean all those details, events, circumstances,
conditions and structures that make up the external world of our existence. We
tend to think that if only things
had been different – if we had had the advantages of that person we would have
been much more successful.
Whenever I go there – and there are moments when I do – I always
remember a black preacher who used to share on Jerry Falwell’s program. This
guest speaker pastored a huge church in the US and travelled the world advancing
the Kingdom of God. All you need to know about him and his success is how
advantaged he was as a child. He was born into the drug culture. He never knew
his father and only briefly knew his mother. At a very early age he was
abandoned completely. For the majority of his childhood and his teen years he
lived under an Interstate overpass. From that “dwelling” he went to school and
graduated high school.
At some point in his “advantaged life” (and I can’t recall all
the details of this) he was found and introduced to Christ. He was wonderfully
born again, submitted to water baptism, went to university, answered the call of
God on his life and to this day is preaching the gospel.
Whenever I recall this story I am reminded all over again that
life is not primarily about external details,
events, circumstances – what has or has not been done to or for me; my
life is determined by something internal: my own
heart.
‘Two
men looked out through prison bars. One saw mud and one saw
stars.’ It is not enough to simply conclude that each man saw something
different because they were looking in different directions. We must go much
deeper than this and ask: What was it that determined the difference of direction each
was looking in? What I am suggesting is that the choice of direction one looks
in is primarily a matter of the heart. The circumstances can be the same but the
choices we make in those circumstances are a matter of the heart. Contrary to
popular belief your heart does not follow your
eyes – your eyes follow your heart.
Note this familiar proverb from six different translations of
scripture:
Prov.4:23
Guard your heart more than anything else, because the
source of your life flows from it. The source of our life is not anything external therefore it is
not defined by or dependent upon external things. What’s defining it is its
source, and that source is our own heart.
Above
everything else, guard your heart; for it is the
source of life’s consequences. Consequences are not determined by the external structures of
life; they are determined by the heart in this sense – the heart-choices I make
in relation to those external structures.
Keep
vigilant watch over your heart; that’s
where life starts. What life is it that starts with the heart? I would suggest the
life of thoughts, the life of attitudes, the life of ideas and imaginations.
These may be very positive or profoundly negative, but whatever their nature
their source is the heart.
Be
careful what you think, because your thoughts run your
life. People and things do not run my life but the thoughts of my
heart certainly do. After 29 years in prison, Nelson Mandela could emerge and
become the President of South Africa because he refused to allow his heart to be
imprisoned even though his body was. His thoughts would run his life; not the
thoughts of an entire nation.
Guard
your heart above all else, for it
determines the course of your life.
Above
all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from
it.
I can tell you – bar none – the
most difficult thing we will ever do is to stop blaming the external world for
the state of our life and accept personal responsibility for the state of our
heart out of which our life is flowing.
Given this reality regarding the heart it seems reasonable that
we should consider what it is about the heart
that makes it so centrally defining with respect to our behaviour.
Obviously any in depth Biblical study of the heart would require
enormous measures of time and effort. For instance on the basis of the English
text – The New American Standard Bible – the word ‘heart’
is found 856 times between Gen.6:5
and Rev.18: 7. You will be relieved
to know that I am not going to reference all of those scriptures. In fact I
will reference only one.
What’s on my heart concerning the heart in the context of this
message is contained in: Heb.4:12-13 For
the
word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it
penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes
of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is
uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Whatever
else the Biblical heart may or may not be it certainly is the place in each of
us where thought and attitude incubate and grow. My heart is the home of my
thoughts and attitudes. And let me say this: There
is nothing more defining of behaviour than thought and attitude.
So there it is – it is not the external structures of the world
around me (neither people, events, details or circumstances) that determine how
I live, the course of my life, how I respond, react and behave. It is the thoughts of my heart about things and the
attitudes of my heart toward these things that determine how I live in relation
to these things.
I love that proverb that goes like this: As a man is done by so shall he be. Or
perhaps it reads like this: As a man is
done unto so shall he do unto.
The actual proverb is - Prov.23:7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is
he... I chose the KJV
here because of that antiquated word ‘thinketh’; the ‘eth’
on the end of the word refers to something that is ongoing and continuing. It is
vital that we understand that it is not those fleeting thoughts that may pop in
and out and pass through our hearts that define our life and behaviour. But the
thoughts I choose to entertain, to continue to allow, and ongoingly develop –
those thoughts will define and determine my life. In fact according to the
Proverb I will become those
thoughts.
You may wonder what any of this has to do with change. Let me
state simply this is the very core of change. The first thing that occurs in the
face of significant (or even not so significant) change is the exposure or
uncovering of the heart. In other words thoughts and attitudes get flushed out.
That in itself is not a problem – in fact it is a good thing. The critical part in this is not what the changes revealed
but how I choose to respond (not to the changes) but to the heart issues that
surfaced in relation to those changes.
From
Genesis 3 forward almost always our
first response is to shift blame away from our own heart to something or someone
external to our heart. And so Adam blames Eve, and Eve blames the devil. This part of
the study we will look at next week.
Let me close out this message by returning to Prov.4:23
and dealing with the issue of what it means to
guard the heart. There is a great deal of resource
material that deals with this; I want to limit my comments to just a couple of
considerations.
The first is what the proverb is not calling us to do.
It is not telling us to live with a guarded
heart in the sense of closing our hearts. It is not
calling us to build walls around our heart so no one can penetrate it or touch
it. It is not calling for stubbornness and hardness of heart. The guarded heart
is not about shutting the world out. Once again, heart
reality is not about the world outside the heart – it’s about the world inside
the heart, the world of thoughts and
attitudes.
When it comes to that world the guarded heart is about one thing – it is about the governed heart. The government is upon the shoulders of the Christ. That Christ
lives in my very spirit. In Him and through Him I have been given the power (the
ability) to govern or reign over my own heart – that is over my thoughts and
attitudes. To govern the heart involves allowing or disallowing, it involves
determining and directing the thoughts and attitudes of the
heart.
So guess what, Adam – your problem was not Eve. Your problem was your ungoverned heart. It was not Eve you
were following; it was your ungoverned heart and those ungoverned thoughts and
attitudes led you into disobedience.
At the heart of all change is a changed heart. And this is the good news in all of this: the redemptive grace
of God at work in our hearts brings about true transformation, true change –
transformed thoughts, transformed attitudes.
As long as I blame you for the state of my heart I will never come to the only one
who can transform my heart. And that is the final tragedy of living in a culture
of blame. That’s what Genesis 3 is all about. We’ll look at that next
Sunday, God willing.