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Being Made New
In our first week it was mentioned that the goal of discipleship is to be made new into the image of Jesus. Because this is a process it takes time for Jesus to shape us into His image by chipping away at what doesn’t belong and refining the rough edges.
In this process Jesus transforms our image in four main areas, all of which are tied to the deepest areas of our identity and our purpose. Those areas are our minds, our hearts, our hands and our feet. Let’s continue by examining the work he does in our hearts.
Proverbs 4:23 - Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
While the truth we believe in our minds sets the course of our thoughts and ultimately our destiny, it is from our hearts, or our desires, where all that we do flows. Truth informs desire, but desire drives action.
There’s a song by the band mewithoutyou called “A glass can only spill what it contains”. Our hearts are the glass, and our actions are what the glass contains.
Jesus said it this way in Luke 6:43-45
“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
The mouth speaks, the hands do, the feet run in the direction and with the contents of what the heart contains. Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Now the heart of the matter is that what we’re really talking about here is worship. When it comes to the desires of our heart, the actions we take, and the intentions we possess we’re simply referring to worship. What we know from the Bible and from human experience is that it is not a decision of whether we worship or not, but rather what are we worshipping. We were not made to worship, but rather we were made worshipping.
1 Corinthians 10:31 says it this way, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” All that we do, up to and including drinking a cup of coffee or eating a steak medium-rare (anything beyond medium is a sin by the way), all of it is an act of worship. Those things may seem meaningless to us in most respects, and to some degree they are. The act of transporting steak from my plate to my mouth is ultimately of very little consequence in most regards. But when my heart’s intention is towards acknowledging God, and it is full of awe and gratefulness towards Him, the enjoyment of that steak becomes an enjoyment of God Himself, and it becomes an act of worship to thank Him for it and savor the goodness therein.
However, there is a flip side to this same scenario. If my heart’s intention is towards gratifying myself, and my heart is full of selfish desire or maybe even empty of any gratefulness at all, I have not stopped worshipping, rather I have just changed the object of my worship to be myself.
The point being that we are always pouring out that which is in our hearts. We are always worshipping. The direction and the contents of our hearts determines what it is we worship, and with that it can often become obvious what it is we worship based off of what it is we say and do.
It is therefore no wonder why Jesus would come after our hearts in an effort to reorient and refill them in His image.
Genesis 8 says that our hearts are always bent towards evil, elsewhere this is called our iniquities, or in other words our tendencies. We all have certain objects, activities or occasions that we are bent towards worshiping. Some are more prone to worship food, while others can control their food but their money has a hold of them. This can be applied in every possible direction.
Jeremiah declares that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” - Jeremiah 17:9 We see the danger that comes from hardening our hearts towards God throughout the Old Testament, and are reminded of it in Hebrews 3:8 “do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness,”
Therefore the promise is made through Ezekiel and confirmed through Jesus that even though we have previously hardened our hearts towards God, Jesus is going to take the heart of stone and transform it into a heart the beats, feels, loves and worships well.
There are several ways that Jesus begins to soften our hearts and shape them to worship rightly.
First He shows us His own heart. Jesus’ heart is most clearly seen through the Gospels where we can see not only what He said, but also what He did. He said over and over that His purpose, His desire, His heart was to seek and to save the lost. His heart was to love people, save people, and set people free. He was all about people.
So the first place to have our hearts softened is to love people well. To think about people above ourselves, to be quick to listen and slow to speak, to show genuine interest in others, and to care for others like Jesus did.
Second, Jesus softens our hearts by showing us His grace. Jesus tells a story about forgiveness in Matthew 18. A man who owed the king millions of dollars pleaded with the king to be patient with him and he would repay everything. The king went above and beyond this request and forgave all of the debt and set him free. The man leaves there and finds another man who owes him 20 bucks. He has the man thrown in jail despite having just received such mercy, forgiveness and grace from the king. The point being that the grace of the king should have transformed the man’s heart and made him forgiving just like the king. However the man didn’t understand the grace that was afforded him.
We however have been forgiven a much greater debt, and beyond that are being continually provided for and blessed by God. In seeing this grace being poured out over and over on us, our hearts should be softened and our worship should flow through being gracious to others as well.
Lastly, Jesus softens our hearts by calling us to humble repentance. Even though we are set free from sin, we still fall and choose sin at times. Jesus’ call to us is to humble ourselves and He will lift us up. It is important to understand that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but rather thinking of yourself rightly. We don’t beat ourselves up, but instead we start to see ourselves the way God sees us. We come to understand that we have sinned, we have fallen short, we have missed the mark, but the Father calls us His children, and we are loved, we are taken care of, and we are sons & daughters of the King. So by humbling ourselves we place God in His proper place; Creator, Lord, King, Father, God of the Universe, and we place ourselves in the proper place; creation, servant, son/daughter, worshiper. Through this our hearts are able to beat the way they were designed to.
The second part of this step though is repentance. 1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. In other words as we confess where our hearts have strayed, where our worship has been misplaced, where we have followed our bents, Jesus will forgive us and cleanse our hearts of that sin. This act refreshes our hearts and cleans them out so that they can be filled by God and we can pour out our proper worship.
In summary Jesus wants your heart. For out of the heart flows everything, it is the wellspring of life. A heart softened by, positioned towards, and full of Jesus is a worshipping, well functioning heart, and the proper actions will follow. For a glass can only spill what it contains.
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