It's like the fat guy with heart problems that goes to the doctor. The doc tells him that if he'll start eating right and exercising they can head off a heart attack. Then the fat guy says he needs all that really tasty food to support his body and he can't exercise because it makes him tired. You see, he's fat, and if the doctor can fix his heart then he'd want to eat better and actually have the energy to exercise. Then the doctor interrupts and explains that he needs to change his actions in order to fix his heart. That's how we will fix our hearts. There is no magical prayer or button that will fix our hearts. It takes effort and exercise.
All of us have heart problems. If you don't believe me, have you ever said something you regretted later? Something that just came out of your mouth? You may apologized and said, "Oh that's not me, I don't know where that came from." The truth is that is the most real you people will ever see. Jesus knew where those words come from. They come out of our hearts.
In Matthew 15 Jesus says, What comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this defiles a man. The words that come out of our mouths come straight from our hearts. Filthy mouth = filthy heart. It's not a real difficult equation. People can get a glimpse of what is in our hearts by what comes out of our mouths.
Then Jesus tells us in the next verse For from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies.
I bet you thought your heart just pumped blood. Oh no, it does WAAAY more than that. The equation gets a little more inclusive: Filthy actions = filthy heart. What is wrong with us comes down to a problem with our hearts. Our hearts are dirty, but how do they get that way?
We fill them with dirty things. The wrong friends, the wrong jokes, the wrong TV, the wrong movies, the wrong video games, the wrong conversations, the wrong websites, the wrong... You get the picture. We didn't get where we are on accident. We're not going to get out of where we are without intentionally making choices that will clean up our hearts.
We get over hatred by loving people. We get beyond greed by giving. We stop lying by telling the truth. We have victory over sexual impurity by practicing purity in every area of our lives. There is no magic button that will fix your heart and change all those things. You have to change those things to fix your heart. It takes purposeful actions to start cleaning our diseased hearts out. We didn't get in this hole on accident, we'll never get out by magic.
When we start to change what we put into our hearts what comes out of it will surprise us, but in a good way. Solomon tells us in Proverbs 4:23 to Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. Do whatever it takes to make and keep your heart pure. That's going to take some tough decisions, but they are choices that need to be made.
I had to share this message to you. Most of what I said above was not original to me. If you would like to hear more you can check out Andy Stanley's sermon It Came From Within Part 1 It's a powerful message.
In Closing...
- Saturday Night Service: We had an amazing time this past Saturday. We worshiped the Lord, drank, coffee, and tweeted. Way hipster. There was even a beret in the crowd. KEEP INVITING PEOPLE
- Sacremare: We're getting close so we're going to have to double our efforts to get this thing together. I think it could really impact the community. FOR REALZ we're having a meeting after church this Saturday and Sunday.
- Twitter: Start following us on twitter @OceansideChurch. Start using our hashtags #OCnite #OCday and #OCprayer. Get the word out!
