Don't Harden Your Heart

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 6th of October, 2024 - World Communion Day.  This morning's service also included our observance of Holy Communion.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams.]

Family, our heart is a miraculous organ.  It cycles 60 times or more a minute, pumping blood to all the far reaches of our body, from the top of our head to the tips of our toes.  When we’re stressed, it works harder, supplying oxygen to the muscles that are straining.  If we don’t pay proper attention to our diet or our lifestyle, the passageways for that blood may become clogged, or the tissue around our heart may become too thick, forcing our heart to work even harder.  In my case, a cholesterol blocked artery led to a heart attack and a short stay in the hospital.

But you know, a lot of times when we’re talking about our “heart”, we don’t necessarily mean that throbbing muscle in our chest.  Don’t we generally think of our heart as being the center of all our emotions?  We draw a heart-shaped image or use a heart emoticon to indicate love for someone or something.  We can have a warm heart, filled with love and compassion, or a cold heart, not caring about much of anything at all.

So when we hear about the danger of a hardened heart, that blood-pumping organ is not necessarily what we need to worry about.  As we always should, let’s turn to our Bible to better understand how we can protect our heart.  Please listen and follow along to the passages I selected from the Letter to the Hebrews, all coming from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible.  I’m going to start with the 1st three verses of chapter 1, then move to chapter 3 and read verses 1 through 6 and 12 through 19…

1:1 Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. 2 And now in these final days, He has spoken to us through His Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son He created the universe. 3 The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and He sustains everything by the mighty power of His command. When He had cleansed us from our sins, He sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.

3:1 And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God’s Apostle and High Priest. 2 For He was faithful to God, who appointed Him, just as Moses served faithfully when he was entrusted with God’s entire house.

3 But Jesus deserves far more glory than Moses, just as a person who builds a house deserves more praise than the house itself. 4 For every house has a builder, but the One who built everything is God.

5 Moses was certainly faithful in God’s house as a servant. His work was an illustration of the truths God would reveal later. 6 But Christ, as the Son, is in charge of God’s entire house. And we are God’s house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ, faithful to the end.

12 Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. 13 You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. 14 For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. 15 Remember what it says:

“Today when you hear His voice,

don’t harden your hearts

as Israel did when they rebelled.”

16 And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard His voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? 18 And to whom was God speaking when He took an oath that they would never enter His rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed Him? 19 So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter His rest.

--Hebrews 1:1-3, 3:1-6, 3:12-19 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for all the examples, explanations, instructions, and warnings You provided for us in our Bible.  Through the words You inspired good men and women to write, we can see how we should live that is pleasing to You.  Sadly though, Father, we don’t always spend as much time in our Bible as we should, or as we could.  We get too busy with life, or too tired, and simply want to be entertained by whatever is on TV or some activity that draws our interest.  Forgive us these times, Father.  Please help us be reverent of You and Your word.  And help us be more obedient to You and Your Son’s command to spread Your word and the Good News it bears.  Give us the courage and the will to step out into the world witnessing to the non-believers, sharing the Gospel and showing Your love.  And please forgive us when we hesitate to speak and act on behalf of You and our Lord Jesus out of fear or anxiety.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better understand Your message today.  Help us share the Good News of forgiveness and everlasting life in our daily walk.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

Joseph Stowell, in his book, Fan The Flame, notes that, “Heart is used in Scripture as the most comprehensive term for the authentic person.  It is the part of our being where we desire, deliberate, and decide.  It has been described as ‘the place of conscious and decisive spiritual activity’, ‘the comprehensive term for a person as a whole; his feelings, desires, passions, thought, understanding and will’, and ‘the center of a person.  The place to which God turns.’”

When our Bible speaks of a ‘hardened heart’, it doesn't mean the organ that pumps blood, it means our entire being, even our thinking processes.  And that may be part of the problem: sometimes we think too much.  I love what Blaise Pascal - yes, the mathematician - said about thinking and reasoning and our "hearts"...  “We come to know truth not only by reason, but still more so through our hearts.  The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.”

Think for a moment about your soul.  Some folks get confused about the difference between our spirit and our soul, and tend to use the terms interchangeably.  But our spirit is what gives us life.  It is with us as long as we draw breath, then passes away when our mortal body ceases.

Our soul, on the other hand, is eternal.  It is pure, created by God and breathed into us at our birth.  Our soul is what makes us… us.  It defines us as individuals.  It is what differentiates us from each other.  It’s what makes this “Richard” different from any other “Richard”.

I believe this – our soul – is really what we are referring to when we talk about our “heart” – the non-blood-pumping variety.  It is the center of our being.  And it can grow cold and hard if we’re not careful.

We should all understand by now that faith is a gift from God, our faith in Christ Jesus as Lord.  But where does faith reside, where do we keep it?  Surely not in our brain, because our brain demands proof and faith is the belief in something for which there is no proof.  So faith – an intangible – must reside in our “heart”, our soul – another intangible.

Faith is something Jesus often mentioned, usually when scolding or bemoaning someone for their lack of faith.  Oh, and those times when He experienced the effects of a lack of faith did not end with His death and resurrection.  In the 16th chapter of his Gospel account, verses 9 through 16, the Apostle Mark describes a few of Jesus’ appearances after He was raised from the dead…

9 After Jesus rose from the dead early on Sunday morning, the first person who saw Him was Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom He had cast out seven demons. 10 She went to the disciples, who were grieving and weeping, and told them what had happened. 11 But when she told them that Jesus was alive and she had seen Him, they didn’t believe her.

12 Afterward He appeared in a different form to two of His followers who were walking from Jerusalem into the country. 13 They rushed back to tell the others, but no one believed them.

14 Still later He appeared to the eleven disciples as they were eating together. He rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refused to believe those who had seen Him after He had been raised from the dead.

15 And then He told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. 16 Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned."

--Mark 16:9-16 (NLT)

Pascal said we come to the truth not only through reasoning, but also through our hearts.  When our heart becomes hardened by events of the day, it adversely affects our reasoning.  The disciples had witnessed the death and burial of their Teacher, their Master.  The shock and disbelief that this could happen to Jesus caused their hearts to harden, so much so that they would not accept the word of those who witnessed the resurrected Lord.

I think this is one reason Jesus gave us our mission to go out and share the Good News.  Not only will it benefit them, but doing this will help keep our hearts pliable and flexible.  It will keep alive the stirrings and longings and feelings of our heart.  Sadly, those who hear and yet refuse to believe stand condemned by their own hardened hearts.

So let us so as Jesus commands.  Let us love our Lord with all our heart and soul and mind, and let us love our fellow man enough to help them find salvation through Christ Jesus.  Don’t let your heart become hardened.  Get out there and work for the Lord.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, who has promised us and gives us eternal life.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You again for ensuring that Your word would be saved for us in our Bible throughout the generations.  We need all the encouragements and the warnings that it provides.  But sometimes, Father, we still struggle with all the cruelty and corruption, all the evil we see in the world around us, and it all slowly hardens our hearts, a little at a time.  We worry over the future for our children and grandchildren.  We think that surely it won’t be much longer before Your send Your Son Jesus back to call us home.  Still, we trust in You, Father.  We know You are working all things according to Your plan and to the good for us and all who love You and are Your chosen.  Thank You for showing Your love in this way.  But sometimes, we just have trouble letting go of our worries and anxieties.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  And forgive us when we let the world dictate our thoughts and actions.  Please help us reach out more into the world, serving You by serving others.  Help us be more like Your Son Jesus, being more forgiving and merciful in our dealings with others.  Please strengthen our spirits to do Your will and help us do a better job of sharing Jesus with others so that they too may be saved by Your mercy and His sacrifice.  

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, You gave us a job to do, and part of the reason for that may have been to help us keep our hearts from hardening.  If we’re out helping others, sharing the Gospel, sharing Your love, helping where and when we can, then we are more likely to focus on their problems than on our own.  In this way, our hearts will stay more open, more inviting, more loving, so that others might see You in us.  Please help us be more considerate and caring of others, more understanding, more merciful, more giving and forgiving.  And heal the hurts that still separate and divide us one from another.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.