Devoted to Sincere Hearts

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

When I saw the headline, I had to read the article. The headline said “Eight Devoted Halo 2 Gamers Still Online.” Halo 2 is a video game that was made for Microsoft Xbox 360. And it was a game that if you were hooked up to the Internet, you could play players around the country, literally around the world. Now the problem is that it’s an antiquated game and Microsoft has made the decision to shut it down and to turn down all of the servers except you have eight devoted players who are staying online. And as long as these players stay connected and as long as they keep playing the game, the game will go on forever.

So these eight guys are keeping it going, making tremendous sacrifices, probably losing sleep, missing work, going to great expense to keep the game alive. I have two comments on that. The first one is, “Get a life.” And the second one is, “Talk about an example of being devoted, of making great sacrifices, of going to the extreme to make sure that this game they love keeps going.” They understand what it means to be devoted to something.

Now we’ve been talking about being devoted around here for the last two weeks, devoted not to a game but to a guy. Devoted not to something that takes us out of life but to someone who gives us life. Devoted to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and we want to know what does it mean to be a devoted follower of Jesus?

We’ve discovered several things along the way. Today we zero in where to be a devoted follower means that we need to have a sincere heart. We’ve been taking our cues from the early church. It’s recorded for us in the book of Acts. In Chapter 2, we see this band of believers coming together and it gives us clues of what it is to be a devoted follower. So in Acts 2, it says this, “Everyday they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes. They ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” Sincere hearts.

When scripture talks about the heart and really even today when we talk about the heart, we’re rarely talking about that pulmonary muscle that pumps blood through the rest of our body. We’re talking about something which is deeper than that. When we talk about the heart, we’re talking about the core, the center of a being, where our passions, our emotions, our feelings, our attitudes, our motivations stem from the heart.

You can hear it in the clichés that we have, right? We say that home is where the heart is. And we say that we’re going to get to the heart of the matter or we say you should just follow your heart. You see, for us and for scripture, when it talks about the heart, it’s getting sort of down to the nitty gritty, down to the nugget. What is it that makes us who we are? What is it that makes us tick? Where does our motivation come from? What shapes our attitude? What shapes what we say, what we do, even how we think? And it stems from the heart.

So scripture says that we should have a sincere heart, an honest heart, a pure heart, a genuine heart. So to have a sincere heart, as we dig in a little bit more, we find out that a sincere heart is single minded. Let me explain what I mean by that. A single mindedness about our heart means there’s only one thing that can guide and direct us. There’s only one thing that could occupy our hearts. We can’t be going off in different directions and certainly not in competing directions. But there is just one thing that’s going to set the priorities in our life, one thing that’s going to be sort of the driving force behind us.

And if you look at our gamer dudes here, whether you agree with them or not, they have just one thing they’re focusing on and one thing only. Everything else falls subservient to the one thing they want to do, which is to keep the game going. But isn’t that why we would describe them as being devoted? Because they know the one thing. They have a laser sharp focus in what’s driving them because there’s only one thing that can occupy your heart at a time, only one thing that can rule your heart. There’s only one thing that can sort of guide and direct what you do, what you say and even what you think.

So as a follower of Jesus, if we want to have a sincere heart, there needs to be a single mindedness to that heart and the single mindedness, the one thing that drives us has to be Christ Himself. It’s Christ who has to be at the seat of who we are as a human being. Christ has to have that seat in our heart. He’s the one who leads and guides and directs all we say, all we do and even all we think. Jesus Himself put it this way in Matthew, “Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment,’” He says. So Jesus picks out of all of the Old Testament what is the greatest commandment. He gets down to the nitty gritty. He gets down to the heart of the matter when he says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” That has to be the one thing that drives you and that shapes all of your decisions and all of your words. It’s Christ who occupies our heart because Christ has changed our heart.

That’s what the resurrection has done for us. That’s why we’re a follower of Jesus Christ because He has come in and He has changed our heart. He’s changed the way we think. He’s changed the way we act. Paul put it this way when he wrote to the Church at Corinth, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come.” In Christ, when He occupies our heart, He has changed us. He’s made us into a different being so we think differently.

In fact, many of the things we think as Christians, as followers of Jesus, they’re counter intuitive, are they not? Think about some of the things that we believe in and some of the things that guide and lead our lives and compare that to the way that the world thinks or an unbeliever thinks. We say we should love our enemies. Really? We say we should forgive those who have done bad things against us. We say the least, well, they’re the greatest. The greatest? Well, they’re the least. We say the first should be last. The last, they should be first. There’s a whole list of things because Christ is at the center of our lives, because He’s changed our heart that changes our entire way of thinking. To have a sincere heart is to have that single focus, a single focus on Christ so He is the driving force in everything we do and say and think.

But a sincere heart is also a genuine heart. What I mean by a genuine heart is that what’s happening on the inside has to match what we do on the outside. If the heart is at the core of who we are, if that’s the part that defines us, where our motivations and our attitudes come from, then there has to be this matching up of what you see on the outside, that should match what’s going on in the inside.

This past week, I read another article. Goldman Sachs’ CEO was in front of the Senate panel and he was finishing up. Some of the finishing comments that he made there, he said he wanted to assure them that he was deeply concerned and he was doing a thorough internal cleansing and they’re going through everything in the company. Now some have questioned him and some have wondered, “Was he sincere in that revelation or was it strategy?” You see, they’re wondering if what’s happening on the outside equals what’s happening on the inside for him. Was he just saying the things he needed to say to try to smooth things over? Did he order the internal cleansing that was going on in the company because he had to, he had to save his bacon? He had to do something to make things right. Or was there a sincere desire in his heart to return honesty and integrity to the company? What was going on in the outside, does that match what’s going on in the inside?

We can do all the right things and we can say all of the right words but not match the heart, not match what’s happening on the inside. And, my friends, God is just as much, if not more so, concerned about what’s happening on the inside than on the outside. Listen to what He says to the prophet, Isaiah, He’s lamenting here, “The Lord says, ‘These people come near to me with their mouth. They honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.’” God is lamenting. Their hearts are far from Him. They said the right things. They did the right things but it had no meaning for them. Their hearts were not in it. We can do all of the right things but we could end up doing them for all the wrong reasons if our heart isn’t in it, if what’s going on in the inside doesn’t match what we’re doing on the outside.

There are lots of reasons why we can do the right thing but there can be the wrong reasons. You see, we can do all of the right things because we don’t want to get caught. We can do all the right things because we don’t want anyone to know, we don’t want to have the embarrassment because we don’t want to have the punishment. So maybe when we’re going down Interstate 80, we’re not going to speed because we saw a patrol car and we don’t want to pay the ticket. You see, we don’t want to get caught. We don’t want to pay the price for that. We can be true and honest on our income tax, why? Because we don’t want the IRS after us, right? They’re a scary bunch of people. So we’ll be true and honest. We can do all the right things but for the wrong reasons.

And it’s the wrong reason because ask yourself this: What do you do when there’s no chance of being caught? What do you do then when no one will know? Men, answer me this, when you travel and you go to a hotel and you look at the Pay-Per-View movies, why do think the hotel makes such a big deal when it says, “Titles do not appear on the bill.” No one will know. We won’t get caught. You can do all the right things but for the wrong reasons.

You can do all the right things because you like it. You like the recognition. You like the affirmation. You do nice things for people and they pat you on the back, they give you a hug, maybe even a larger setting. People acknowledge the great things you’re doing and so you like that feeling. You say things like, “I get more out of this than what I put into this. This is wonderful.” So we do all kinds of good things. But what happens when you do something incredible for an individual and they don’t acknowledge it? They don’t so much as say thank you to you. Don’t we turn around muttering to ourselves, “That’s the last time I’ll do something for you.” Then why did you do it to begin with? We can do all of the right things but for the wrong reasons.

There’s a great example in scripture. We read about it just a few moments ago. It’s the story of Ananias and Sapphira. They’re doing the right things but their heart is not in it. That’s what’s the issue and that’s why it’s put into the scriptures. It’s rather dramatic in the story, right? The early church gathered all of their resources together and they pooled them together in a common treasury and then they gave them to people as they had need. Some people sold property. Some people sold their goods. It all went into the general treasury. Well, for whatever reason, Ananias and Sapphira said, “Eh, you know what? I think I want to get on this bandwagon.” So they sold a piece of property and they’re going to give the proceeds then to the church. But they make a decision, “We’re going to hold back part of it.” I want you to understand that part’s not the trouble. Okay? That’s okay, if they want to do that, that’s fine. The trouble is they present to the church, to God that they’re giving 100% because, after all, who’s going to know. The church isn’t going to know how much they sold the property for. They’re not going to get caught. They’re not going to be embarrassed. But won’t it look terrific when they lay down at the feet of the apostles this large check for this piece of property they sold? You see, they were doing the right thing but their hearts weren’t in it. They were doing it for the wrong reasons. And if Ananias and Sapphira think God is interested just in what we do and not in our hearts, well, they’re dead wrong. God is interested in our heart. A sincere heart does the right thing for the right reason.

A sincere heart is a heart that’s been changed by Christ. A sincere heart now has Jesus as living in our hearts and directing and guiding us. A sincere heart has been touched by God’s love and now it wants to respond in love. A sincere heart doesn’t do the right thing because of fear of punishment. Jesus has already taken the punishment. That’s what the cross is all about. That’s why He was nailed there. That’s why He died there. To pay the punishment for all of our sins. So there is no more punishment. Jesus has paid the punishment. So we do the right things not because we have to but because we want to. There’s this inner desire in our hearts to be faithful to God and to respond to what God has done for us.

And when a sincere heart flows out into our actions, we could care less whether people notice or not. And we act the same whether we’re in public or whether we’re in private. We make the same decisions whether people will know about it or no one will know about it. Because that’s not where it flows from. It flows from a sincere heart, a heart that’s been changed by Christ. And, my friends, only God can give you that heart. Only God can change your heart and make it a sincere heart.

A few moments ago in our confession, we read from Psalm 51. David is crying out to God here. And what is he asking? He says, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” David, the one who God described as a man after His own heart and yet David cries out to God and says, “God, you have to change my heart. You have to create that sincere heart in me.”

And that’s the way it has been throughout all of history. If we’re going to come back to the early believers, that band of people who gathered together in Jerusalem, it’s recorded for us in Acts 2, do you remember back when Peter was preaching to them and he ends in a rather stern note, a convicting note? The very next verse says this in Acts 2:37, “And the people were cut to the heart and cried out, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’” The word of God cut to the heart of the matter. And Peter says, “Believe and be baptized. Receive the Holy Spirit and forgiveness for your sins.” God had changed their hearts.

And God can change your heart. And God has changed your heart. In baptism, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You receive the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name every single day. God changes your heart. He now occupies your heart. Now we want to be devoted to that, devoted to this sincere heart God has given to us. That means diligently, on a daily basis, we need to refocus. Where are our priorities stemming from? Is Christ ruling my heart, coming back again and again? Is Christ at the center of my life? Is He the one who is seated on my heart, guiding and leading and directing all of my decisions and all of my actions? Why am I doing the things I’m doing? Am I doing the right things but am I doing them for the right reasons? And questioning ourselves on that and evaluating ourselves saying, “Am I doing this out of love for God? Is this flowing out of the love that I receive from Him?” Always being diligent in coming back, “Do I have the sincere heart? Am I holding onto the sincere heart God has given to me?”

When we’re devoted, when we’re devoted to Jesus, that doesn’t mean we just sit back and receive. That means we’ve been changed and now God calls upon us to be diligent. God calls upon us to live that faith out. If you want to go back to the gamer dudes, they were diligent, were they not? But in the interview, they asked one of them, “Why are you doing it?” He said, “It’s not to win. It’s not the competition.” He said, “It’s for the love of the game.”

We want to be diligent. We want to be devoted to the love of Christ, responding to the love that He’s shown to us. Now as a devoted follower, we want to show that love for our lives. To do that, we have to have a sincere heart. Amen.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church