Open and Laid Bare

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Sunday, the 17th of October, 2021, at Pilgrim Reformed Church.  Our YouTube streaming channel is: 

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDIz4WuP8igQstkEOq1AMTg.  Look for the video of our recorded services on our Vimeo channel:  http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

It’s relative easy to fool someone, or to be fooled ourselves.  Some people are just very good at making up a story, and we tend to be trusting of others, at least up to a point.  If we make up a story and tell it often enough, we’ll get good at it and folks will believe it if they have no other reason not to.  After a while, we may even start believing it ourselves.  Yes, we can even fool ourselves.

Some folk may be fooling themselves when they say they believe in Jesus and follow Him, obeying His commands, when in fact they really don’t.  While we humans can usually get away with fooling each other, there are serious consequences for unbelief, for not truly believing in and following Jesus as Lord.  We touched on this a few weeks back, when we learned we will not be allowed to enter into God’s rest if we disobey Him and don’t accept His Son.  But since God is a loving and merciful God, there is remedy, a cure for unbelief.

Please listen and follow along to the message the author of the Book of Hebrews wrote in that letter to the early Jewish converts.  I’ll be reading verses 12 through 16 of Hebrews chapter 4 from the New American Standard Bible…

12 For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we must answer.

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin. 16 Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need.

--Hebrews 4:12-16 (NASB)

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for Your word.  Your word slices through any falsehoods and cover-ups, cutting straight to our hearts.  Thank You, Father, for Your loving mercy, for always giving us a remedy for when our belief falters and weakens.  Please help us understand that we cannot hide from You.  Nothing escapes Your view, nothing can be covered so that You cannot see it.  Help us see ourselves as You see us.  And help us to do as You will and not just what we want to do or are comfortable doing.  Please keep us strong in our faith and of one purpose in our service to Christ Jesus.  Please keep us healthy and safe through these trying times.  And Father, please guard us from Satan and those who blindly do his work for him.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit and better understand the message You have for us this morning.  Show us our failings.  Lay bare to us those areas in our lives and our deeds and our words that are not pleasing to You.  This we pray in the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.   Amen.

The man huddled on the cabin floor was slowly freezing to death.  It was high in the Rockies in southwestern Alberta, Canada, and outside a blizzard raged.  John Elliott had logged miles through the deep snows of the mountain passes that day checking for avalanches.  As dusk and exhaustion overcame him, he had decided to hole-up for the night.  He made it wearily to his cabin but somewhat dazed with fatigue, he did not light a fire or remove his wet clothing.  As the blizzard blasted through the cracks in the old cabin walls, the sleeping forest ranger sank into oblivion, paralyzed by the storm's icy caress.  Suddenly, his St. Bernard dog sprang into action, and with unrelenting whines finally managed to rouse his near-comatose friend.  "If that dog hadn't been with me, I'd be dead today," John Elliott says. "When you're freezing to death you actually feel warm all over, and don't wake up because it feels too good."

I believe this story illustrates the spiritual condition of too many people today.  They are cold spiritually, and sadly they are oblivious of their true condition.  But God sends His “messengers” to nudge such sleepers awake.  Sometimes the methods used are drastic, but always for the person's good.  God does not shake us because He hates us.  Our heavenly Father awakens us from our lethargy because He loves us, and wants to save us from eternal death.

In his letter to those early Jewish converts to Christianity, our author says that the word of God is able to cut through all the clutter in our lives, slice away any pretense we might erect, and judge the very thoughts and intentions of our hearts.  Now we know our heart is merely a muscle that pumps blood throughout our bodies, but we use that word to denote so much more than mere physiology.  The word "heart" is used in scripture as the most comprehensive term for the authentic person.  It is that part of our being where we desire, we deliberate, and we decide, often by flipping an invisible coin.

Joseph Stowell, in his book Fan The Flame, described the heart as "the place of conscious and decisive spiritual activity, the person as a whole: his feelings, desires, passions, thought, understanding and will, the center of a person, the place to which God turns".  And our author of the letter to the Hebrews would add that it is open and laid bare to God.

No matter what we might say, no matter the stories we may tell, no matter what we may even think, the truth of us is in our hearts, and God, who will judge us, can see that truth.  King David attests to this in his 7th Psalm, verses 8 through 10, when he writes…

8 The Lord shall judge the peoples;

Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness,

And according to my integrity within me.

9 Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end,

But establish the just;

For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.

10 My defense is of God,

Who saves the upright in heart.

--Psalm 7:8-10 (NKJV)

I think most of us would pray, “O Lord, please let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end.”  We’re tired of seeing and experiencing all the evil in this world.  This idea is certainly nothing new.  David felt this way, and we can see it in the future, as reported by the Apostle John in his Book of Revelation, when the saints in heaven plead with God for His vengeance, to put an end to the evil of the world.

But in the same breath of asking that the wicked be dealt with, we ask that the just and the upright in heart be upheld and saved.  The truth of us – whether good or evil - is in our hearts, where God can clearly see.

Like I mentioned earlier, we can easily fool one another, and sometimes even ourselves.  If deceit is in our heart, we can hide the truth from prying eyes.  Well, from human eyes, that is.  The prophet Jeremiah speaks for God when, in chapter 17 verses 9 and 10 of his book of prophecy, God says…

9 "The heart is more deceitful than all things

and desperately wicked;

who can understand it?

10 I, the Lord, search the heart,

I test the mind,

even to give to every man according to his ways,

and according to the fruit of his deeds."

--Jeremiah 17:9-10 (MEV)

The Lord looks straight into our hearts, searching there for the truth of us.  And we are judged by what He finds there, with each of us receiving our just due, according to our ways and the fruits of our deeds, whether for good or evil.

We can deceive others.  We can deceive ourselves.  We cannot deceive God.  No creature is hidden from His sight.  All things are open and laid bare to Him whom we must answer.

Now while our author warns that nothing can be hidden from God - no deed, nor thought, nor even intention – he does offer a remedy for our disobedience.  Jesus is our remedy.  In Jesus we have a great High Priest, one who came down from and then returned to heaven.

We must hold firmly to our confession that He is the Son of God, who we know as our Redeemer, who we accept as our Lord and promise to obey.  And we must hold this not just in words we speak, or in thoughts running through our heads, but in our very heart where the truth of us resides.  We can put our faith in Jesus because He came to earth as one of us, just like us, with human mortality and all our frailties.  He was tempted by Satan in all things, just like us.  Unlike us, though, He bore no sin of His own, but took our sin upon Himself that we might be seen as clean before God.  He took our sin so that we might approach our judgment with confidence, knowing that when God looks into our hearts, He will see only His Son Jesus.

But we must hold fast to our confession, be true to the words we spoke when we accepted Jesus as Lord, follow His commands to love others and through that love to help others along the path to salvation.  We must stop trying to fool others.  We must stop fooling ourselves.

At the last, when all truth is revealed, when our hearts are open and laid bare before Him to whom we must answer, may only Jesus be seen.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus, our Lord.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for Your word, which gives us fair warning that we will be judged at the end of the age.  You will search into our hearts, into the truth of us, to determine if we really did accept Your Son Jesus as our Lord and tried our very best to follow His commands.  Thank You for giving us the cure for our disobedience by truly living up to our confession of Jesus as Lord.  Father, please help us carry out the assignment He gave us.  Sometimes, Father, we find it difficult to love certain people, or even a whole group of people.  Sometimes we’re just too afraid to step out of our comfort zone and continue the work Jesus started.  Please help us be better servants.  Remind us that we are here to worship You and Your Son.  Help us follow through on our promise to serve and obey Jesus.  Encourage us and strengthen us as we strive to carry on the work of our Lord.  Please keep us strong in our spirit, in our faith, and in our service to You and Jesus.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You from our hearts through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more faithful and true, putting all our trust in You and Jesus, and seeking Your help as we do so…

Lord Jesus, You came to earth as one of us to offer us salvation, cleansing us by Your own precious blood.  And then You returned to heaven after promising to stand by our side when we face God, to intercede with Him on our behalf.  Thank You, Jesus, for giving of Yourself for us.  Lord, we ask You to help us fully live up to our name of Christian.  Help us put the needs of others ahead of our own.  Help us to always be humble in our service, not seeking the praise and admiration of men but only to be seen as righteous in God’s eyes.  Help us tell others all about You, what You did for us, what You mean to us.  Strengthen our will to do what our Father God wills us to do.  Help us to be more loving, more understanding, kinder to all we encounter each day.  And please help us as we try to show Your love to a world that hates You.  Most of all, Lord, when our Father God looks into our heart, may He see only You.  All this we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.