The deeper problem.

Q: What does the Bible say about the heart's condition?

The Bible teaches that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, affecting every aspect of our lives (Jeremiah 17:9). In the Bible, the heart represents our inner person, encompassing our thoughts, desires, motives, and emotions. As stated in Jeremiah 17:9, 'The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?' This radical depravity means that our sinful nature manifests itself in various ways, including our thoughts and actions, which reveal the true condition of our hearts. Jesus emphasizes this in Matthew 15:7-9, criticizing the Pharisees for their external religiosity while ignoring the internal corruption of their hearts, showing that what comes out of the mouth reflects what is in the heart.

Q: How do we know Jesus cares for our heart?

Jesus cares for our hearts as he desires to heal and transform our inner being (Luke 14:1-6). In the Gospel of Luke, particularly in Luke 14:1-6, we see Jesus demonstrating His compassion by healing a man with dropsy on the Sabbath. This act not only highlights His authority over the law but also reveals His deep concern for the state of our hearts. Jesus knew the hidden motivations of the Pharisees and aimed to expose their hypocrisy. His willingness to heal the man shows that He values our inner spiritual condition far more than mere external observance of religious rituals. Through this healing, He illustrates how true transformation begins in the heart, leading to a new way of life that glorifies God.

Q: Why is a transformed heart important for Christians?

A transformed heart is essential for true faith, as it leads to genuine repentance and obedience to Christ (Ephesians 2:1-10). For Christians, a transformed heart signifies regeneration and newfound life in Christ, as indicated in Ephesians 2:1-10, where Paul describes believers as having been 'made alive' from spiritual death in sin. This transformation involves not merely a change in behavior but a fundamental reorientation of desires, motivations, and decisions that align with God’s will. In Matthew 7:16-20, Jesus teaches that a good tree produces good fruit, signifying that the evidence of our conversion is displayed through our actions and way of life. Thus, a true transformation of the heart inevitably results in a lifestyle that reflects faith, obedience, and a desire to honor God in all aspects of life.

Seeking once again the help of the Lord and guidance and enabling of his spirit, I would like you to turn with me to the Gospel according to Luke chapter 14, and the text really you'll find in verse 1. And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day, that they watched him. As we read, you'll know that he goes on to indicate that before the Lord Jesus, as he was sitting down to eat, there was a man before him that had a condition called dropsy. The Lord Jesus knew what was in the hearts of the Pharisees that were before him and so it seems that this was a setup for the Lord Jesus Christ.

As we saw last week there was the lady that was bowed over, bent over double because of the infirmity that she had and again they were questioning the Lord Jesus Christ and accusing him of doing a work that should not be done on the Sabbath day and the Lord Jesus confronts them with a statement regarding their loosing or taking of their animals to be fed and demonstrating to them that they're willing to do the lesser, they're willing to take care of their animals upon the Sabbath day but they are not willing for a person to be healed on the Sabbath day and so Jesus argues from the lesser to the greater that man is far greater than animals. that though animals are given to us for our pleasure and care, yet human beings are on another level completely.

They are made in the image of God, they have a spirit, an eternal spirit, and therefore they are to be cared for in a better way than than animals. And so the Lord Jesus, knowing what was in their hearts, once again they tried to set him up by placing him in a position that they know he is going to act. They know that the Lord Jesus Christ was a man of compassion, They know that if they set before him somebody with an illness, that he was going to heal them, that person, on the Sabbath day. They knew that the Lord Jesus Christ was a man of love, a man of concern, a man of compassion, and that they tried to set him up, to accuse him of being a sinful person. And so Jesus, knowing their hearts, sought to expose their hearts before they could accuse him.

So he asks him, is it lawful? to heal on the Sabbath day and they held their peace and he looked on him, that is the man who had the dropsy, and he healed him and he let them go. And so Jesus again uses the illustration of their animals which they took care of, which of you shall have an ass or an ox fall into a pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day and they could not answer these things. And so here today we have the Lord Jesus healing somebody with dropsy.

We have the Lord Jesus being invited into a house of one of the Pharisees. Last week the Lord Jesus was in the synagogue. He was sitting under or he was in the place where the word was being read, the psalms were being sung and the scriptures were being expounded and here we have him in another location in somebody's house. He had been invited there. For someone to be in somebody's house, you have to be invited into that house. The Pharisee had invited the Lord Jesus into his house so that they could eat together.

The house is like a private place. And as we go on, as we begin to read through this chapter, you will see that the Lord Jesus has worked all of this out to expose their hearts. If you think of our homes, our homes are like our sanctuary, the place where we go. It's like when we invite somebody into our home, we're inviting them almost into our hearts. in our homes are the things that we deem important, the things that we deem precious. And so when we invite people in, it's like they're able to see within our hearts the things that we value, the things that we like. And so as Jesus is being invited into this Pharisee's home, it's like he's being invited into his heart and is able to see everything that takes place within that home and within the heart of this man and unbeknown to them. the Lord Jesus Christ, not only is he able to see all that takes place in the physical, he is also able to understand and see what is taking place in the hidden recesses of their hearts. He knew that they had set him up. so he begins to expose the hypocrisy of their hearts, their external religion.

Now this sickness of Dropsy in the modern day naming of it is something like Udima. which is a condition of the swelling of the legs or swelling of parts of the body as the heart and the internal organs fail. so liquid builds up in the tissue and the swelling takes place. So the man that was before the Lord Jesus Christ, he had this disease. He was swelling up, his legs were swelling up, his feet no doubt were swelling up, his hands were swelling up. And what what the Lord Jesus Christ was seeing visually was just a manifestation of what was taking place internally.

And so as we look again at these different miracles of the Lord Jesus, he is purposely dealing with the condition of the people faced before him. Jesus knew that this man would be there. Jesus knew that he would be invited into the home of the Pharisees. And this man summed up the Pharisees completely.

Their problem was the ha. And that problem with the heart was manifesting itself in the screens of their lives, in the physical realm. Just like this man, he had a problem with his heart, a problem with his internal organs, and it was producing an evidence on the external. His body was swelling.

And so Jesus uses this man and produces three parables that show just exactly what is going on in the hearts of these Pharisees that are before him. We read in verse one, that they watched him, was a setup. They watched the Lord Jesus to see what he would do. But then we see the tide turns. He then begins to watch them.

Verse 7, and he put forth a parable unto those that were invited, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms, saying unto them. Verse 12, and he said also unto him that invited him. Verse 15, and when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Then said he unto him, a certain man.

And so the tables are turned. They go from watching the Lord Jesus Christ to the Lord Jesus Christ, watching them and examining them and then giving parables suitable for the condition of their hearts. He saw all that was going on in the house. He saw all that was going on in their hearts. they that they loved the uppermost rooms of the seats and there of the chief rooms of and he put forth a parable unto those which were invited when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms saying unto them and so he gives that parable of those that that They chose these high rooms in the feasts so they would be seen, so people would see how important they were.

They were swelling with pride, wanting to be seen, wanting people to think well of them. then he goes even deeper. He goes to the man who invited him to the feast and tells him, you're only inviting people to your house because you want to be invited back to their house. He says that you want to continue living in this sphere of people patting you on the back and encouraging you and saying what a great man you are and then being invited to their house and it's just inflaming the pride. The condition of your heart is getting worse and worse and worse and the swelling of your flesh is becoming more and more and more.

He says, no, don't do things to get reward. Don't do things so that people will think well of you. When you have a dinner, when you have a feast, don't invite those that can repay you, but invite the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed. Be blessed by God. Be blessed with the true thankfulness of those that are less fortunate than yourself, receiving great benefits. You will be blessed, he says, in the resurrection of the just. And so Jesus, dealing with their hearts, their swelling pride that was manifesting itself in the way that they were living.

Our heart. When the Bible speaks about our heart, it's not speaking of that organ that just pumps blood. It's speaking about our inner person, the inner you, the unseen part of us. But that unseen part of us, which God describes as the heart, has an effect on every aspect of our life. When the Bible speaks about our hearts, it's speaking about our whole person. a whole unseen person, the thoughts that we have. Remember, the Bible tells us that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And so when the Bible speaks about our heart, it's speaking about that unseen part, the thoughts that we have, the desires that we have.

They are corrupted by sin. They are sinful desires. They are sinful thoughts. our motives, the reasons why we do things. The reasons why the Pharisees were inviting Jesus to the feast was because they wanted to trap him. The reasons why the Pharisees were inviting their friends to the feast is because they wanted to be invited back to their house and they wanted to continue having that cycle.

So there was a motive involved with their kindness. And so our motives are all incorporated within our hearts and our emotions. also incorporated, the things that make us happy, the things that make us sad. If you remember back to when you were an unbeliever, your emotions were different. Someone could speak of Christ, somebody could speak of the love of Christ and it would have no effect upon your emotions whatsoever, maybe even a hardening of your emotions, but now in Christ there's a softening of the emotions and those things that you once were those things which once brought a hardening now bring a softening and you can find yourself even joyful or even weeping over Christ and his sufferings for you and so our emotions are all incorporated in this name of our hearts. But also our decisions, the decisions that we make, the thoughts that we have cause us to make decisions. And the decisions that we make ultimately outside of Christ are self-motivated for ourselves, our own pleasure, our own edification, just like those Pharisees. Making that decision, I'm going to hold a feast. I'm going to invite the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to bring a man with dropsy there. I'm going to gather my friends round about him. I'm going to set him up.

And so his thought process, his decisions, his emotions are all bound up in this word, his heart. It is the internal you, the unseen part of you. The heart, we could say, is like the engine of a car. It is that which is unseen yet causes the car to move. It's that part of us which moves the body.

Our body is like the screen of our hearts. What people see about us is really what is going on in our hearts, although Because our heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, we're very good at changing and altering what people see. Our hearts may be thinking and doing one thing and we may try and portray a veneer of something else to others round about us. As I was doing the youth at Heathfield recently, I was speaking about the heart and the voice.

That when we're with certain people, we speak in a certain way. That when we're in front of our mum and dads, we would never use certain words because we know we would get in trouble. And so we are like a chameleon that changes by the environment that we're in. When we come to chapel, we behave in a certain way. When we're with our parents, we behave in another way. When we're with our friends, we completely change.

Or our work colleagues, we change because we want to fit in. And so our heart and our body are not really in sync. We're corrupted by our nature, yet we don't want other people to see that, just like the Pharisees. The Pharisees were corrupted within their heart, yet they put a veneer of righteousness and godliness on.

Christ Jesus was able to penetrate into their heart and find the source of their great problem. He knew their thoughts. He could see them afar off. He knew the reasons why they were doing the things that they were doing, and that was to capture him. And so the heart was saying one thing, but the screen was saying another, yet the Lord Jesus Christ was able to understand their motives. Jesus, he could see both.

You see, people say, don't they, that God looks on the heart, but man looks on the outward appearance. And they rest in that. They're happy about that. But really, are you really happy? If you would not want man to see your heart, if you try and deceive men about your heart, why would you be so happy for God to see your heart?

God who cannot behold evil. The only reason people say that is because they know that God is not going to bring judgment straight away. God is patient and God is kind. And so they say, well, you know, man looks on the outward appearance, God looks at the heart.

But do you really want God to look at your heart? Would you really want, if you're not willing for your heart to be read by people, why would you want your heart read by a holy, holy, holy God? If you're so willing to cover up your heart with an external religion, why then would you want to hide your heart, allow God, sorry, to see what goes on in your heart?

Matthew 7, from verse 15, it says, speaking about false prophets, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs or of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them. So this is all that you and I have to judge people on, by the fruit, by the external. We cannot see into the heart of a person, but we can see what is played out on the screen of their lives. We can see the fruit that is produced by what is going on within their hearts, although people are able to deceive. They are able to pretend that they're a good tree with a good heart by doing good things. Ultimately, that final judgment comes down to God. God is able to understand and to see what is taking place in the heart and what is taking place in the external, just like the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall know them by their fruit. so the heart then controls the act.

In Matthew 15 verses 7 to 9 it tells us there, you hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you saying, this people draw nigh to me with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandment of men. And so he looks at them and says, you're hypocrites.

Your heart is so far from me. You come to me with the right words. So your heart and your mouth, they are out of sync. You say the right thing, but your heart is far from it. It is a vain religion. It is a fake religion. There is no true transformation of the heart. They knew what to say. They knew what to do. But the motive that was driving them was not from the heart. It was to be seen of men.

And there are many like that. Many like that. Just all about the external, all about looking the part, all about ticking the boxes, but there's no transformation of the heart. It is not done out of love, it's done out of fear of men. Worrying about what everybody else will think. We must do this, we must do that, we must do this. But it's not done out of love to the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's done out of vain, a tradition, a heart so far from God, yet the lips saying and speaking the right thing. In verses 18, the same verse, it says, but those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart. They defile a man, for out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts. murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands defiles not a man.

And so you see there, the Lord Jesus incorporates the thought process as part of the heart. And so our from within come all of these things. When the heart is not right before God and it is corrupted, it is out of sync. Some people live, we could say they live in sync, that their heart and their body, it does the same things. They're totally corrupt and they don't care.

But there are those who try to place a veneer to hide the hidden evil of the heart, forgetting that God is able to see, just like the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew what was going on within the hearts of the Pharisees, although they tried to hide it and cover it up. He purposely placed a man there with dropsy who had the swelling of the body because Jesus knew that the real problem was down there within his heart was producing the swelling.

And he heals both. He deals with the heart, which affects the body. The man with dropsy, he is immediately healed. His heart was healed and the swelling immediately went away. And that's how the Lord Jesus deals with us. You cannot have your heart healed and your body still remain carnal, still remain, we could say swelling with pride. He watches us. He deals with us, the whole man. not just the inner man. You see, as before, as the inner man affected the outer man, so when conversion takes place, a new heart will I give you, so the inner man affects the outer man. He heals both the heart and the body. And if he heals both the heart and the body, it will affect both every aspect of our life.

If you remember on Wednesday, we had the three Fs that destroy a minister. Fame, or can destroy a minister. Fame, finance and female. Well today, We have three W's that are affected by true conversion. Our walk, our wardrobe and our wallet. You see, outside of Christ, when we walk according to the course of this world, Satan has every part of us. He has our heart, he has our body, he has our walk, he has our wardrobe and he has our wallet. Every aspect of our life is governed by our carnal heart. And so our walk is our manner of life, the way that we live.

As I've said, some people don't care. Some people believe that you can be in Christ and continue to live as a worldly person, continue to live completely unchanged. But the scripture doesn't teach us that. The scripture says that if your heart is changed and you've been born again and you've been given spiritual life, therefore your life will now change. You've been taken from a broad way that leads to destruction and all that are on it and you've been placed on a narrow way that leads to life and you're following the Lord Jesus Christ. You've been given a new heart, therefore new thoughts, new desires, new motives, new emotions. and new decisions, all focusing upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you look at the letters that were written to the early churches in the scriptures, you will find that a lot of these are focused upon how these people should be living and how they should have changed, what they were and what they have become.

Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 it says, and you has he quickened or you has he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins where in time past he walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air the spirit which now works in the children of disobedience among whom we also had our conversation or our manner of life our way of life in times past, in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he has loved us.

And so he says, this is, you were once dead. This is how you once lived. You lived, your manner of life was filled with lust. being driven by the flesh, motivated by the desires of the flesh and the mind, the inner man, were completely corrupted. But he has now made you alive and you're no longer to walk as you once walked. There must be a transformation taking place and taking place as the Lord continues to work in you.

You cannot, the scripture says, serve God and the material things of this world. You cannot have one foot on the broad road that leads to destruction and one foot on the narrow way that leads to life. You cannot be carnally minded and spiritually minded at the same time. You cannot fit in with the world and fit in with the church at the same time. It can't work. You cannot serve two masters because you will love one and hate the other. You cannot say you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ on Sunday and then go and serve Satan for the rest of the week. It can't happen. Who do you love? Who drives you? Who is the one that you are following?

If you were once dead, now you've been made alive. Surely you're following the Lord Jesus Christ, or is it being that you haven't truly been made alive? That's the question that we have to ask ourselves. Are we truly born again if we still have the desire to live after the course of this world? Are we truly born again if we're still driven by the unconverted heart, driven by our lusts? Are we really with the Lord Jesus Christ? And that's what the apostle is pressing.

You were once like this. You were once changed. Now, why are you still living the same? Are you truly changed? Are you a sheep? Are you a wolf in sheep's clothing? A fake Christian, a Pharisee with an unchanged heart and a body that looks okay. chapter 4 and verse 17.

This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their minds. Again, pressing the same point. You've been converted. You've been born again. Why are you continuing to walk as the other unconverted people? Why are you behaving like the other converted people? Why do you feel more at home in the presence of unconverted people? Do not walk as the other Gentiles walk in the vanity, the emptiness of their mind. Your mind, your heart has been changed. God has given you a new heart, new desires, new motives. And therefore, why are you going back? Why are you sliding back in this carnal condition?

Their understanding is darkened. You have been enlightened, illuminated a given life. having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

But ye, but you, have not so learned Christ, If so be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Christ Jesus, truth in Jesus, that you put off concerning the former conversation and way of life, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. You put on the new man, which after Christ is created in righteousness and true holiness. And he goes on.

You've been changed. You've been cleaned. Are you like a pig that has washed and now gone back to the mud? Are you like a dog that goes back and eats its own vomit? Surely not. If you've been washed in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and you've testified that you're following him, why now go back? Was it that you were never following him? Or is it that you've lost your first love and you see no beauty in the Lord Jesus Christ because he hasn't done what you want him to do? Our walk, our manner of life must change. And if our walk and manner of life must change, then every aspect of our life must change. Our wardrobe must change.

If you look at the reasons why God gave us clothes, it was because of our sin, because of our shame. If you read through the Old Testament, you will notice that the nakedness is always referred to as shamefulness, that God will discover your shame, which would be what we would determine the private parts of our body. If we look at the world, and how the world dress. As the world drifts further and further away from God, their dress becomes more and more shameful, exposing those parts that God says are uncomely or not right to be uncovered. and to wear clothing that enhances those types of the body, to draw attention to those types of the body.

And so that is how the unconverted dress, the people of the world, how they dress. They dress in a way, in the way that they do because they hate God. They have no desire to please God whatsoever. They are corrupt in their mind. But the apostle says, but you are not so. You are not so.

You understand the reasons why we wear clothes, that we are sinful and God has clothed us and told us to wear clothes. If you look at Adam and Eve, they wore aprons. They made themselves aprons. But God made them coats to cover their bodies. And so our walk changes, our wardrobe changes. See our clothing, it says a lot about us, how people will immediately make judgment or make thoughts about us. They will look at us and they'll say, oh, I can see what they're wearing. We look at, we can identify a policeman, for instance, by the clothes that he or she is wearing. Somebody, a paramedic, we immediately recognize them by the clothes that they're wearing. A fireman, we know that he or she is a fireman.

Their clothes are there to identify them and to protect them from the work that they are doing. A builder, You may see a man walking or a lady nowadays, you may see that they've got their work clothes on, they're covered in mud, they've got paint over them and you can determine this person, they work in the building industry by the clothes that they wear. An office man or office lady, they often look very smart as they go to work and you know this is what they do. They've taken that time and effort to look right because they know that clothing is important. Clothing identifies them for the work that they are doing.

And we look in the Old Testament and we see that God designed the clothing of the high priest for the work that he was to do. He was identified, he was separated for that work and that was shown in the clothes that he was to wear. As the football is taking place at this moment in time, and it's soon to be, I think, the World Cup or something, people will begin to wear football t-shirts and things. And you will know, this person supports that team, that person supports that team.

They are identified by the clothing that they wear. And so our clothing is important because it says something about us. It tells other people about us. And so the football fans, they wear their clothes because they like to represent their team. People who like a certain style of music. You can tell by the clothes that they wear, the Hastings motorbike event. You can tell by the different clothes the men or women wear there, the types of motorbikes that they drive and no doubt the type of music that they listen to. And so our clothing says a lot. Jesus says, follow me. The football teams have their followers. The music people have their followers. The sports people have their followers. But Jesus says, follow me.

He doesn't say follow me and wear a long robe. He doesn't give us a uniform to wear. He doesn't say that you need to wear a dress code. You have a dress code. to be a Christian but he lays down principles in the Word of God that govern how a Christian should wear and the clothes that they should wear.

In Timothy it tells us there 1 Timothy chapter 2 from verse 9 says, in like manner also the women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness, with sobriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but that which becometh women professing godliness with good works.

And so here he sets out how he deems a woman should dress, that her beauty should not be all to do with the external. Her beauty should not just be that she's wearing beautiful clothes or that she's plaited her hair in a nice way. If that's just as far as your beauty goes, that your beauty must come from a transformed heart which manifests itself in the fruit of the spirit, a woman. professing godliness with good works. Peter also, 1 Peter chapter 3 from verse 1 it says, and likewise you wives be in subjection to your own husbands that if any obey not the word they also may without the word be won by the conversation or the manner of life by the wives. that they may behold your chaste conversation, that is your modest conversation, your modest way of life, coupled with fear, whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of the plaiting of hen, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel, but let it be of the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God a great price.

And so he sets before us the beauty of a woman, how it is to be. If we look at the world They describe beauty as revealing as much as their body as possible. That's the struggle that the young girls are having to go through at the moment. This world says that beauty has to do with your body.

And if you don't have what they deem a perfect body, then you are not beautiful. But the scripture tells us true beauty comes from the heart and because the heart is changed it manifests itself in the flesh. That your beauty should come from within and not from without, not only without. It doesn't mean that you have to wear the most miserable clothes you can find.

I've been thinking about this for some time. God is the creator of colour. If you look at spring. and the amount of colour variation that there is in the flowers and in creation. It is absolutely amazing. And that God created colour for beauty. You may have, you could say, a really strong bush. We could say that's like the man. The man is meant to be strong, the image bearer of God. But that strong bush produces beautiful flowers. Adam was taken from Eve. Sorry, Eve was taken from Adam as his helpmate, one suitable for him. And the woman is the beauty of man. She is the glory of man.

She's not suppressed by him, but she's not to use her body as a means to allure him, but she's to dress herself beautifully and to behave herself at what is professing a woman becoming godliness as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not a follower of football, not a follower of music, but a follower of the Lord Jesus. That is to be our motive. That is what is to motivate us for the way that we live, the way that we dress.

No doubt you've heard the saying too much, that our clothing shouldn't cost too much. Some, you know, you can buy this suit for maybe £100 or you can go to another shop and pay, you know, £10,000 for a suit. Is that right for a Christian to go and spend such obscene amounts of money on the things of this world? or if you are quite happy to spend 10 grand on the suit, how much money are you putting into the church collection? How much money are you giving to missionary organisations and things like that? You see, it must touch every aspect of our lives. How much money do we spend?

Is it too much? Is it too little? Is our clothing too little? Is it too small? Does it reveal too much of our body? Is it too tight? Dress beautifully, but not lustfully. At our clothing, there must be a frame for our face rather than to display every crevice of our bodies.

Dress like Christians. Dress like followers of the Lord Jesus Christ who have been illuminated from the corruptness of this world and then our wallets. that grace touches our wallets. If you look at the early church they gave, they had that desire to give for the advancement of the kingdom. The Apostle Paul said, when I come upon the first day of the week, set aside that which is to be given. There was that concern for others. It wasn't just a hoarding up for myself and my life, but there was that outward looking for those that were in poverty, the widows and the orphans of this world and that those were struggling in this world.

It touches every aspect of our lives. And so as Christians, what motivates us in how we live? Do we have principles? Do we wake up in the morning and are we governed by the principles that we have, by the clothes we put on? Do we ever think, would Jesus be happy with me wearing this? Or if I was to die and I had to wear these clothes for all eternity, would I be happy? Would I be ashamed to stand in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ with these clothes that I am wearing? when we spend our money?

Do we have any principles? Do we say, do I really need this? Or am I buying this because I want it? This money that the Lord has been given me, should I be spending on myself a new suit or something else, maybe a luxury item, or is there somebody that is in need that would benefit from the things that the Lord has given to me?

And so we should be saying to ourselves, I am a Christian. I'm a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why I live the way I live. These are the principles and boundaries that I have. This is why I wear these clothes. These are the principles and boundaries that I have. And this is how I spend my money. because of these principles, because of the scripture, how the Lord has revealed all of these things to me.

And so before the Lord Jesus Christ was a man with dropsy, he had swellings in his body, but Jesus knew the deeper problem was the problem of his heart. Heal the heart, he healed the body. May the Lord then work in our hearts that our hearts and bodies may be in sync and our lives may testify that we are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we have been healed for all eternity. Amen.

May the Lord help us in closing this service by singing hymn number 170 from Hymns of Worship. Soldiers of Christ arise and put your armour on, strong in the strength which God supplies through his eternal Son. Hymn number 170 from Hymns of Worship to the tune number 58.

♪ Which God so blessed through his eternal Son ♪ ♪ In the Lord of hosts and in his power alone ♪ ♪ New in the strength of Jesus' trust before God's throne ♪ his brave fight, with all his strength endured, and take to the field for the fight, the Armory and we closed the gate. Still serving in your captive sight and watching you do it. From strength to strength go on, wrestle and fight and pray. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ Where Christ the Lord absolutely resides ♪ Dear Lord and Heavenly Father, we give Thee thanks for Thy Word. We thank Thee for the transforming power of Thy Spirit in salvation. We thank Thee that we can be given a new heart and we pray that that new heart may overcome the weaknesses of our flesh and help us to live according to Thy Word, to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Him. And now Lord, we pray thou dismiss us with thy blessing and number the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the Father, with the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit to be with you each now and forevermore. Amen.

The deeper problem.

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about the heart's condition?

How do we know Jesus cares for our heart?

Why is a transformed heart important for Christians?

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The deeper problem.

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about the heart's condition?

How do we know Jesus cares for our heart?

Why is a transformed heart important for Christians?

Sermon Transcript

About James Gudgeon

Comments

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