Just Follow Your Heart

Introduction
We are in the second message in the series, “Lies We Believe.” As we
noted last week, these statements I am calling lies are ideas that are
commonly thought to be true. Sometimes they contain a portion of the truth.
However, it can be just enough of the truth to get us into trouble. Often, the
phrase, “just follow your heart” is given as advice when a difficult decision
has to be made. Let me show you an example:

[Napoleon Dynamite – “Just follow your heart… that’s what I do.”]

That’s humorous, but too often, people use the idea, “follow your heart” to
justify all kinds of decisions. For instance, I’ve heard people explain away
an affair… or walk away from a marriage by saying they were just following
their heart. People have made many a bad choice by listening to their heart
or, going with a “gut feeling.” The problem with following (or listening) to
your heart as the basis for important decisions lies in the true nature of the
heart.

Before we go any further, let me state how I am using the word “heart.” In
this context we are talking about center of one’s will and emotions. Of the
around 400 places in which the Bible uses the word 'heart', it assumes that
the heart is a place of intellect, thought, emotions, character, love,
compassion and faithfulness. That’s not to say that biblical writers failed to
understand the most basic aspect of anatomy—that the heart’s chief
function is to circulate our blood—they got that. Nevertheless, whether it
was based purely on a poetic approach, or whether they knew more than we
know about us, and all that the heart does, they used term in much broader
sense.

With this in mind, what is nature of the human heart? To begin to answer
this question I would like to introduce our primary text of scripture for the
day. It’s a promise from God concerning a spiritual heart transplant:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will
remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart
of flesh. -- EZEKIEL 36:26

Did you know that the first medical heart transplant was performed just over
forty years ago? But God's promise of a spiritual heart transplant was made
over two-and-a-half thousand years ago.

1
For a successful heart transplant, we need three key things: we need a
diagnosis, we need a doctor and we need a donor. I want to look at these
three things in turn.

The Diagnosis
First we need a diagnosis. And the diagnosis in verse 26 is that we have a
serious problem: our hearts are made of stone.

As noted earlier, in Bible language, the word "heart" doesn't just mean "the
large, muscular pumping thing in our chest that keeps blood flowing". The
word "heart" in the Bible has a much wider meaning. It is linked here with
spirit or soul. Often in the Bible the words heart and spirit are used
interchangeably. So when David prays “create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps. 51:10) he is not asking for two things
— a clean heart and a right spirit — but one thing: to be completely clean
inside. A person's heart and a person's spirit are essentially the same thing.

The Bible use of the word heart most closely means "center" or "core", as in
the modern phrase "the heart of the matter". In relation to people it means
the whole "inner being" or "inner man". Biblically speaking, the heart is the
seat of our personality, of our emotional state, of our intellectual activities
and of our will or volition. Your heart is who you are. Proverbs 4:23 advises,
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”

Sometimes modern usage does reflect the wider Biblical meaning of the
word "heart." We talk about someone's "heart's desire" — something they
long for with their whole being. Or we talk about giving someone our
"wholehearted support", meaning we support them without reservation. "I
wholeheartedly endorse Larry Griffith as KC’s best Santa." Or we describe
people as having a "change of heart" when they stop behaving in one way
and start following a different path.

All these uses of the word "heart" embrace far more than the physical
pumping thing in our chests: they sum up our whole being: physical,
intellectual, emotional and spiritual, which is the same way the Bible uses
the word.

So, when the Bible diagnoses that our hearts are made of stone, we can see
that we have a very serious problem. As far as God is concerned, our
hearts are just lumps of rock. They are not doing their job; they are not
taking God's life-giving essence and pumping it around our inner being.

2
If our physical hearts were made of stone, we'd be stone dead, wouldn't we?
And that's the point of the picture: towards God, we are by nature stone cold
dead. We do not love him, we do not believe him, we do not trust him, we do
not delight in him, we do not obey him. No wonder when we follow our
hearts we get into trouble. As far as God is concerned, our inner beings are
as responsive as rocks.

This is the way we are born. Not one of us was born with a heart that is alive
to God. Ever since the Fall, we have inherited a defect that has left us with a
heart problem; a heart made of stone; an inner being that is dead towards
God.

The prophet Jeremiah, a contemporary of Ezekiel's, says, “The heart is

deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jer. 17:9). Our heart condition
cannot be cured. We cannot make ourselves alive to God. We cannot make
our cold, stone, lifeless hearts beat with warmth towards God any more than
we can take a rock and make it live.

No. No matter how hard we try, no matter how good we manage to be, no
matter how much we try to pray, we cannot cure our fundamental problem:
we have hearts of stone. Our problem is so serious that there is only one
hope. We need a heart transplant. We need to have our incurably diseased
old hearts removed, and replaced with a new, living, beating heart.
Sometimes theologians call this spiritual experience “regeneration.” That's
what salvation is, and that's what God through Ezekiel promises:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you
your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

The Doctor
So that's the diagnosis: we need a heart transplant. How can we get one?
Well that's where the doctor comes in, the second of my d's.

Open-heart surgery is not something we can perform on ourselves. Open

heart surgery is something that can only be done to us, by somebody with
very special skills and training and equipment. It is absurd to think that I
could cut open my chest, whip out my heart, stick in a new one, sew it all up
again and survive to tell the tale. Medical science is good, but it's never
going to be that good.

In the same way, there's no way I can carry out a spiritual heart transplant
on myself. I can never make myself a Christian. I might call myself a

3
Christian, I might act like a Christian, I might be raised in a Christian
environment or live in a so-called “Christian Nation.” But unless God has
actually performed heart surgery on me, I will never be a Christian. My heart
will remain stone cold dead. I will never be able to know God.

No, we need a doctor to perform the transplant. And here God claims that
he is able to do it: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Actually, this promise comes at the end of a list of "I will" statements starting
at verse 24. Have a look if you have your Bible open. From the NIV: verse
24, I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you, verse 25, I will sprinkle
clean water on you; I will cleanse you, verse 26, I will give you a new heart;
I will remove from you your heart of stone, and verse 27, I will put my Spirit
in you.

These are God's promises to his people. God's people, Israel, are pretty
much at the lowest point of their Old Testament history. God has punished
them for their persistent and gross disobedience and idolatry. He has taken
them away from their land. He has taken them away from the temple. He
has given them over completely to a pagan nation. There's nothing they can
do to save themselves.

But, finally, to his broken people, he promises restoration. More than that, he
promises regeneration. He will make a new start with his people. With new
hearts, hearts of flesh, and God's own Spirit within them, they will be able to
start a deep and genuine relationship with him. It won't be dogged by all the
old problems, but will be a relationship of love and obedience. “You will be
my people, and I will be your God” he says in verse 28.

And that is the relationship you and I, if we are Christians, have with God.
He has taken away our heart of stone and given us a heart of flesh. We
have contributed nothing, except that heart of stone. The doctor has
performed the whole transplant himself.

The Donor
So that's two of the elements of what we need for the transplant: a diagnosis
and a doctor. The final missing element is a donor. Where will we get this
living, beating heart of flesh? Who will it come from?

Well, you can see where I am going with this. There's only ever been one
man who did not suffer with the birth-defect of a heart of stone. The Son of

4
God, rather than a son of Adam. Only Jesus had a heart that was
fundamentally warm to God, a heart of flesh.

When a medical heart transplant is done we know that there must have
been a death. The donor gives life to another at the expense of his own life,
usually in tragic circumstances. So it is with a spiritual heart transplant. The
donor had to die. Jesus voluntarily died so that we might have life. His heart
of flesh was so good, so sufficient that it is sufficient for the hundreds of
millions of Christians in the world, replacing their hearts of stone.

That's one of the pictures the Bible gives for what happened at the cross.
Because of Jesus' death, he can now live within us: Jesus becomes our
heart donor and gives us hope of life. So Paul can write to the Corinthian
church, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test
yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of
course, you fail the test?” (2 Cor. 13:5).

Unless this heart transplant has taken place — unless Jesus is in us, his
heart of flesh replacing our heart of stone — we are not in the faith. We are
simply not Christians.

Heart-following Revisited
When that is the case, one would be foolish to follow his (or her) own heart.
Following the unregenerate heart is walk headlong into disaster. But what
about those of us who have asked God to transform us spiritually from the
inside out? Can we follow our hearts?

Well, certainly the inclination of our hearts is better. However, we still have
to be careful. At the moment of salvation God starts a work within us—we
start a journey with the goal of being Christ-like. In Philippians 1:6 Paul tells
us that he is “confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will
carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

In the meantime, however, (while we await completion, or heavenly

perfection) we are to “walk in the Spirit.” Again it’s Paul who tells us in
Galatians chapter 5:
16
I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the
flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against
the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not
do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are
not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which

5
 are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry,
sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish
ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness,
revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also
told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not
inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23
gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those
who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and
desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

So, tendency to fall back into our old sinful patterns is only counteracted by
intentionally walking in the Spirit. We walk in the Spirit by daily (even
moment-by-moment) praying “Lord guide me, direct me, lead me.” We
are syncing up our lives, our attitudes, our words and our thoughts with
the Holy Spirit.

[Give example of hand-held device that syncs up

with the server to get the correct information.]

Our desire should be to be in sync with the Lord... to bring our hearts into
alignment with God’s heart. Then we can say with David, “May the
words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your
sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer” (Ps. 19:14).

Another way to “sync up”, in addition to prayer, is through regular study of

the Word of God. We already heard from the Psalms so let’s go there
again:
1
Happy are those who don't listen to the wicked, who don't go where
sinners go, who don't do what evil people do. 2 They love the Lord's
teachings, and they think about those teachings day and night.
– Psalms 1:1-2 NCV

“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you”
- Psalms 119:11 NIV

So, what we have learned is that we can have a heart worth following when
we begin with a spiritual heart-transplant... a true salvation experience.
But, we must intentionally seek to walk in the Spirit. We do this through
prayer (seeking God’s direction) and the embracing of God’s Word.

6
Closing
As we prepare to close this morning, have you had that heart transplant?
Have you let God take from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of
flesh? You only need one heart transplant. If the transplant has been done,
it will not fail. It may not always seem like it is successful in this life, because
the process of removing our heart of stone will not be complete until we die.

But, the obligation for us, if we are Christians, is not to follow the old heart of
stone, but to follow the new heart of flesh that God has given us. It is to walk
in the Spirit. Seek after a heart that delights in him, in prayer, in his word and
in his people. Follow that heart with all your heart!

Perhaps, however, you know that you have never experienced this
regeneration. You have never handed yourself over to God so that he can
do his regenerating, heart-transplanting work in your life. Earlier on in
Ezekiel, God urged his people Rid yourselves of all the offences you have
committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house
of Israel?" (Ezekiel 18:31).

He may be asking you the same question: why will you die? Why won't you
come to God for a new heart and a new spirit, and live? You don't need to
be good. Our scripture reading earlier made it quite clear that the Israelites
were wicked people. Yet God offers them this promise. That's the point, isn't
it? It is the spiritually sick — all of us — who need this transplant.

If you were in the doctor's surgery tomorrow and he said "Here's the bad
news: your heart is failing, it is riddled with disease and you are certain to
die. The good news is that a perfect replacement has just come in, would
you agree to a transplant?" What would you say? It would be strange to say
anything else but "doctor, where do I sign?" wouldn't it?

Well, the donor heart is available for you. The doctor is waiting to perform
the operation. Do you agree with the diagnosis? Will you come to him for a
new heart?

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove
from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Why would anyone die with an offer like that on the table? Shall we pray?