Heart Surgery
Sermon Review
31 January 2002
(Psalm 51:10-13)Introduction:
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, an expert on Grief and dying, once said, 'It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth - and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up - that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.' True to life eg. Dostovesky etc. Were your days last year lived to the fullest? Did you give your best to others, to yourself, and to God? Or were there some things about last year that you would prefer not to repeat or be repeated?
Before each of us here, there lay a new year, untouched, unshaped, full of all sorts of potential. What do you plan to do in it, with it, throughout it? What do you already realise needs to be different from last year? What decisions do you know that you have to make in order for this New Year to be a richer, better, and a more fulfilling one? We only have one lifetime, and we do not have the luxury of knowing when that will end. There are moments in our lives when we need to engage in heart searching and self and life evaluation - the beginnings of new years are good moments for doing this.
David: Ps.51:10-13
Sometimes, though not always, those moments of heart searching and self-evaluation come at points of desperation and lead to appeals for divine help. Such was the moment recorded in Psalm 51. In this Psalm King David comes to his senses, like the 'prodigal son', and seeks to bring his life into line with God. Indeed, he needed to. Up to his armpits in guilt over committing adultery and arranging murder, he desperately needed to do business with God - and he did. He ardently sought divine 'heart surgery' to bring about changes for he had come to realise that he was indeed deeply corrupt and in desperate need of a remedy, not just that he had done wrong. For most, I dare say all of us here, the flagrant and abhorrent acts behind his realisation and appeal seem a little unreal.
Yet I do believe that there comes special moments in people's lives when they know that God needs to do 'heart surgery' in them. These are the moments when we realise that our mind, will, and emotions are contradictory at best, or set against obeying God at worst, irrespective of the best sense within us that strives to turn us in better paths cf. Rom.7. These moments are when we come to realise that it is not the world, nor others, nor the devil that is to blame for our reluctance to change or do things differently or put God's interests first in our lives; it is not the state of the economy, the attitudes of our children or spouse, or boss, or work-mate, that are to blame. We are the problem! Our thinking, our attitudes, our priorities, our decisions, our determinations, our failings, our hang-ups, our hearts are the problem. These are moments of realisation that we need to do business with God first and foremost, in order to change and make our lives different - and they are a God-send. Where we are at with God makes all the difference in the world when it comes to living life to the full and putting His interests before our own. Have you ever experienced one of these moments? These windows in time, these God-given opportunities to experience the work of God at a deep or deeper level in your life? They come to all that seriously desire to know God.
David's approach:
Upon realising his need for a heart change, David called upon God, the Creator 'par exellence' to engage in heart surgery. Not on his physical heart, but on who he was on the inside. 'Make it pure' really meant, 'God make 'me' pure deep on the inside.' In saying this what was he asking? Clean or pure has at least two related parts to it - morals and motives. In the area of morals, David is asking to be made more honest, more sensitive to what is right and wrong, fair and foul, good and bad, more sincere and genuine, more loving, kind, and responsive to God and others. In the matter of motivation, David is asking for his loyalty to God to be single or one-eyed, rather than compromised, conflicted, and wavering. In Matthew 6:22ff. it is recorded that Jesus said, "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! "No one can serve two masters. At a deep level, David had been disloyal to God. He needed to build on the forgiveness available to him from God by finding moral renewal as well as motivational strength that only God could give him. This is why he asked for a stedfast spirit - one that wouldn't waver from its loyalty and commitment to God and crumble at demands for moral goodness in his life. When we experience these 'moments' and come and ask God to create a new heart in us we are asking for the same things.
The Flow On Effect:
David's prayer suggests that there is a flow on effect if we do not address issues of the heart with God. David knew them well. A sense of being exiled from the favour and presence of God; a loss of the Holy Spirit (not for the Christian, but most certainly an awareness of the loss of the Holy Spirit's work resisting the work of corruption as it spreads within us); the joy of salvation replaced with coldness and conflict within; the resistance of an unwilling and reluctant attitude stalling any desire to do what is right and good and proper in relation to God and others; and little or no influence on others with regard to doing what is right or witnessing impact.
Conclusion:
David knew that a special crisis had arrived in his life - a special moment, a God-given window of opportunity. He had to do business with God at a deep level because he knew that he was the problem, not God, others, or the world. We may not be in a crisis, but the facts remain the same. Moments will come to you when you need to present yourself to God for divine heart surgery just like David. When you seek undivided loyalty to Him and renewed commitment to moral goodness and honesty in your dealings with God and others. Moments will arise for you when you realise that in life we are our biggest problem - not our spouses, our children, our friends, our circumstances etc. Perhaps the beginning of this year such a moment has come or is coming for you? Perhaps you are beginning to realise that it is not just tinkering with the edges of the circumstances and activities that make up your life that is needed in order to live life fully, to put God's interests first in your life - it is your heart that has to change? Perhaps you are realising that you really need to be a different kind of person to live this year fully? If so, then take the time this morning to do business with God and find the joy of salvation which comes with a pure heart. If this is irrelevant for you, then praise God and enjoy fellowship around a cuppa shortly. If it is relevant, then why not come forward at the end of the service for prayer and ministry with either my wife or myself, or Col, or John. To live life fully with the one life you have this year, it will require a pure heart - undivided and honest and sincere. If you have come to realise this and would like to do something about it - come for prayer and ministry. Let God create a new heart in you and find joy in your salvation.
Blessings