Saying and Doing

Well, we return now to Matthew 7 and as we've been for several weeks, we are in the homestretch of chapter 7.

And as we begin this new section here in verse 21, it's really held together. Verse 21, 22, 23, and in some ways we're going to just look at verse 21 and some something specific within verse 21.

But that's going to carry through next week. And then it's also going to be a theme that we'll see all the way to the very end, all the way up to the very end of chapter 7.

It's this matter of saying as opposed to doing, and of course the emphasis being on doing, not having mere words, but action.

In other words, as we've been saying, Jesus' sermon demands a response and that response is to apply all that he has taught, to work it out in our lives.

Are we on the narrow path or are we on this broad path that leads to destruction? Do we have the qualities that are held out at the very beginning by the

Beatitudes? Or are we like the hypocrites of chapter 6 who have some external form, but we don't have the inward reality?

These are all the things that we've seen as a theme throughout the Sermon on the Mount and they're all pressing us toward a response as we come to these last verses.

It's not those who merely hear, but those who do that will be likened to a wise man building his house on the solid rock.

So we're going to begin that theme, that focus on saying and doing, and we're going to look at that in a specific way, as I said this morning, really one point this morning once we get underway.

Next week we're going to look at the verses and perhaps dig through their context a little more carefully and we're going to especially key in on that word new in verse 23.

Depart from me. I never knew you. We don't want to read past that too quickly because that's really important to this whole matter.

What does it mean to know Christ in such a way that we are those who do rather than merely hear or merely say,

Lord, Lord. So knowing Christ or what it means to be known by Christ, that'll be our focus next week in light of verses 21 through 23, but this morning we want to key in especially on verse 21.

And those who have an empty confession, Lord, Lord, but as we'll see their heart is far from Him.

Matthew 7, beginning in verse 21. Not everyone who says to me,

Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. He who does the will of my

Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?

Cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name. And then I will declare to them,

I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Well, Jesus, of course, has just finished warning us against false teachers.

Within that, as we saw last week, these broad contours of the difference between a good tree and a bad tree.

Jesus says in verse 18, a good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.

What we said was that the tree will always bear a fruit that shows the character of that tree.

I don't need to inspect the bark. I don't need to do a spectral analysis of the DNA. Just show me the fruit and I'll tell you what kind of tree it is.

The fruit will always show the character of the tree. That fruit may not be readily apparent.

It may take some time. It may be hidden behind a lot of religious foliage, but the fruit will always show the true character of the tree.

Again, Jesus has warned, beware of false prophets that come in sheep's clothing. Inwardly, they are ravenous wolves.

So we've seen in chapter seven, especially, as well as chapter six, as well as chapter five, in the whole

Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' concern is about the heart. About the inward relationship and knowledge of God and the way that will bear out in one's life.

Not hypocritically, but in the truth of the Beatitudes, in meekness, in humility, as one hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Jesus has been pressing this inward reality. We're reminded again that God sees that which is within us, not as men see.

Men only see the surface. There's fruit on the surface. Fruit can be inspected. That's how we beware of false prophets.

But God sees in a way that no human eye can see. God discerns the very thoughts and intentions of the heart.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. The false prophets, the false teachers, they're just like the hypocrites of chapter six.

They appear to be one thing inside, but they're quite another. The problem is, as we said, we're born thorns and thistles.

We're born under the curse. That's our dilemma. But that's also the good news of the gospel of God's glory.

God alone can create us and replant us to be good trees. He alone will cultivate and prune, groweth, so that the life of those who have faith in God will bear good fruit.

But the emphasis through this all is it's not how we appear. It's what we produce. Do not be like the hypocrites.

Now, Jesus says here fully in line with that. Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But he who does the will of my father in heaven. So not everyone who says,

Lord, Lord. The only ones that enter into the kingdom of heaven are those who confess

Jesus as Lord. All right. So everyone who enters the kingdom of heaven says,

Lord, Lord. But not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Really important, we understand that the only people entering the kingdom of heaven are those who say, Lord, Lord.

Or in the context of Romans 8, Abba, Father. That can only be cried out by the spirit of the

Lord. But not all those who say, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. There's a difference between the mere words and the fruit, the character, the inward reality that leads to those words.

In other words, Jesus is saying talk is cheap. Talk is cheap.

It's as cheap as a little gold necklace with a cross on it worn by the most godless debauched celebrities.

Like, why are you wearing a cross? You're just condemning yourself worse. You're profaning that.

Talk is cheap. Paul condemns, in 2 Timothy, Paul condemns holding to a form of godliness.

Maybe a good way to think of that, a silhouette of godliness, a mirage of godliness. It seems to look all right.

But in reality, it's denying the power. What is the power of godliness?

It's the power of Christ's blood to sanctify the life of a believer. So it has the form, the outward appearance of godliness, but there's no inward reality.

There's no cleansing from within. It denies the power. Remember some weeks ago, we gave the analogy of Antiques Roadshow.

You know, and some, oh, we use it as a crockpot. We used to scoop mud in the backyard. No, that's a priceless vase.

That's a 19th century urn from China. It's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Well, this would be the very reverse of that. This is the thing we were never allowed to touch growing up. It's been behind that glass case.

My parents brought it back from Japan. We know that it's worth perhaps hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.

And then the expert says, no, this was just a tourist trinket. It's worth about $8. Those are my favorite moments on that show.

To watch the devastation. Talk is cheap.

Talk is cheap. Isn't that what James said, James 2? You believe there is one God? Great.

You're confessing the Lord, the Lord thy God is one? Great. You believe there's one

God? You do well. Demons believe that. And in believing that, they tremble. Because they understand what we don't in our profane speech.

God is holy. He's a consuming fire. That's a terror to darkness.

Well, James spells this out. Therefore, he says, laying aside all filthiness, overflow of wickedness.

Really interesting that this is front -loading this. This is James 1 .21. It's in doing this that something is able to happen.

This is essentially how repentance and faith are simply two sides of the same coin. It's not that one happens prior to the other.

But the faith that saves is a repentant faith. And the repentance that saves is a faithful repentance.

It's both and. They belong together. You can't have faith without repentance, nor repentance without faith.

And James is saying, in laying aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness. Love that imagery. Overflow.

It's the overflow. You ever have those moments where you hit the plunger on the toilet?

The water's supposed to go down, but it instead comes up. And you dial

Blue Owl or whatnot. This is supposed to go the other way. It's the overflow. Laying aside all filthiness, all overflow of wickedness.

Receive with meekness the implanted word. This is all held out by James. Notice whatever he's going to say in chapter two about how faith and works cohere together.

One says, I have faith without works. I'll show you my faith by my works. So that one who says, I'm justified by faith apart from works is not actually accurately understanding the way that faith and works cohere.

Now, James is in complete harmony with Paul. We can put it this way, that Paul is emphasizing the discontinuity between the law which condemns us and this gospel of grace freely given to those who trust in Jesus.

But of course, within that, the law is wholly just and good. Paul is leaving and teaching from a place where there is room for continuity.

But he's emphasizing the discontinuity. James, on the other hand, is emphasizing the continuity.

It's the royal law of liberty that sets one free. This is what is borne out by faith.

He's emphasizing the continuity, but of course, he's leaving room for discontinuity. Why? We can say that just from verse 22.

Receive with meekness the implanted word. What's the word there?

I think in context, it's the gospel. Receive the gospel. Notice the gospel is something that has to be planted in you.

How does a bad tree bear good fruit? It can't. It has to be uprooted.

You have to be made new. You have to be born again. You have to receive in meekness this implanted word.

In repentance, you lay aside all wickedness, all overflow of the filth of the flesh. You say,

God save me. And he implants that gospel grace in your life. And as James says, that is able to save your soul.

Maybe even a better translation, save your life. The gospel will save your life because it's given you a whole new life.

It's an implanted word. Now, notice what immediately flows out of this.

We come to this understanding in repentance and in faith, in meekness, in that place of humility.

God has planted his grace. He's made us a new tree, given us a new life as a new creation in Christ Jesus.

We receive that implanted word. That's able to save our lives. And what immediately flows out of this? But James says, be a doer of the word.

Otherwise, you're deceiving yourself. You're thinking that you've received this implanted word. If you've received it, it must bear fruit.

That's where he's going in chapter two. It must bear fruit. So don't deceive yourself that you've received an implanted word if you can't find the fruit of that implanted word.

In other words, if the gospel is not at root in your life, bearing the fruit of God's grace, do not deceive yourself.

Be a doer of the word, not a hearer only. That's James' point. He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it.

It's not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. He will be blessed in what he does.

In other words, that really has been a new planting. There really will be fruit if he continues in it, if he applies it, if he doesn't settle for the cheap talk of,

Lord, Lord, without any fruitfulness to back that up. You can dangle a cross necklace over anything, but a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, nor can a good tree bear bad fruit.

Not ultimately, not comprehensively. Does that mean that we, as those who still struggle with the flesh, who still have all sorts of pockets and crevices of sin in our lives, are waiting to become good trees?

No, as one Puritan said, though a field of wheat has tears in it, we still call it a field of wheat.

And though a good tree has misshapen branches and some insect -ridden fruit, it can still be called a good tree with good fruit.

The difference is, what's characteristic? What's at root? What's internal? These are the things that are borne out.

And God's gracious acceptance of us, His willingness to implant this word in our lives doesn't end our obligation to obey

Him. In some ways, it creates it on a whole new plane, on a whole new footing. God's law is no longer condemning us.

It's no longer a burden neither we nor our fathers could bear. Now, as James says, it's a law of liberty.

Now we desire to draw near to God in these very ways. The law becomes, as it were, the walking stick of sanctification.

By the law, I know what sin is. By the law, I'm able to examine myself. By the law, I can reflect on God's perfections.

It's only by the law that sin is known. As I was talking to a brother a few weeks ago, yes, amen.

It's only by the law that sin is known. But it's only by the gospel that sin is hated.

The law will help you identify sin, but it's powerless.

It's powerless. The gospel has power to transform.

The gospel will not only help you see what the law is pointing to, it will help you to hate it.

Because of this stronger affection, Christ has saved me from this. And now that I see it, though it doesn't condemn me,

I hate it even more. I used to hate it because it condemned me. I wanted to water it down. I wanted to plug up my ears.

I didn't want to hear the law. But now because the gospel has said I'm embraced in the beloved, now I really hate my sin.

Now I say, let your law examine my life. I know that I'm accepting you, but I just hate that this is where I'm at.

See, gospel grace, a royal law that leads to liberty. Not that the law can liberate, but the law becomes a law of liberty for those who have the implanted word of the gospel in their life.

You see, very, very important we hold all these things together. Now what comes with that implanted word is the

Spirit of God indwelling the lives of His people. So that we no longer walk in the flesh, because if you walk in the flesh, you'll die.

But rather we walk in step with the Spirit, because if we walk according to the Spirit, we will live.

Our faith has united us to Christ. That's a repentant faith and a faithful repentance. And that faith is an instrument.

It's a way of laying hold of the gospel of Christ. Christ alone then being the ground of our acceptance with God, our justification, fruit begins to work itself out in our lives.

What does that look like in Matthew 7 gloss? It looks like doing the word. It looks like not having an empty profession.

It looks like our lives aren't saying Lord, Lord in one area and then denying the

Lord in every other area. If I could just put it bluntly, if our faith in Christ has not transformed our lives, we have not put our faith in Christ.

What's new? What's different? That's why

Jesus will say in verse 23, I'm surprised you seem to have the wrong guy.

I never knew you. There's a new life, a new direction, a new affection.

There's a new way of carrying ourselves, of understanding ourselves, of understanding God and understanding the world and others around us.

It's a newness of life, Romans 6, 4. Everything has become new to those who have this implanted word.

Now, the sole point I want to establish this morning is simply this. The single point

I want to establish is the difference between merely saying and doing. What's the difference between saying and doing?

It's everything the Sermon on the Mount has brought us to see. Merely saying is the external.

Merely saying is what the hypocrites do. Merely saying is the form of godliness without the change.

Merely saying is the tree without the fruit. Merely saying is to not have one's heart toward God.

The difference, in other words, between saying and doing is keeping the heart. That's the difference between saying and doing, keeping the heart.

Talk is cheap. These people worship me with their lips. Their hearts are far from me.

What's the difference between saying and doing? It's keeping the heart.

One says, I won't do it. But later on, he goes in the field and he does it. The other says,

I'll do it. But he ends up not doing it at all. Which one did the will of his father? You see, it's the doing that is borne out by the heart.

So the difference between saying and doing is keeping the heart. Now, there's a lot more that we'll unpack even next week, and even as we head through the rest of Chapter 7.

But this is the point I want to establish. And really, my whole direction for this sermon came from reading

Charles Spurgeon, and this great, this masterwork of a sermon called The Sieve. One of my favorite sermons that I've come to read of late from Spurgeon.

And he's spending a lot of time in his language talking about externalists. That's his word, externalists.

Those who have a superficial claim to Christianity. Those who look the part, but they deny the power.

Those who can say the right things, answer the right catechism questions, but there's no inward root of grace bearing fruit in their lives.

And he's simply driving this home, there's no heart for God. And so for me, that's been very helpful to reflect on.

The difference between saying and doing comes down to the heart. We could bear this out in all sorts of ways.

I'm going to let Spurgeon speak in a moment. In fact, if I didn't think it was, you know, to leave my task unfulfilled,

I would just read Spurgeon for the next 45 minutes. Such a great sermon. But the

Lord clearly is keying us in from the very beginning. It's why he writes his law on our heart. And when mankind falls and he denies that which corresponds to his conscience,

God comes to Israel and he carves it by his own finger into stone. Because that's the picture of their heart. This granite, this unfeeling, unmoving object within your chest.

I had to carve my law into it and still nothing will come out of it. There's nothing living. And so the promise of the new covenant is,

I'm going to take that heart of stone and get rid of it. I'm going to give you back a heart of flesh. In other words, I'm going to put a new heart in you, a new spirit in you, a new ability, a new desire in you.

That's the result of God pouring out his spirit on his people. It all comes down to the heart, keeping the heart.

The difference between saying and doing is keeping the heart. So Spurgeon is talking about externalists.

And by that, as we'll see, he's talking about those who don't have a heart for God. They have the form, but not the heart.

The principle, but not the core. They can jump through the hoops, but they don't have the reality.

It's a shadow. It's a mirage. These are externalists. And they only care to be externalists.

They're not looking for the heart. They're as the people clamoring after Saul.

He's tall. He's comely. This will be the guy. Look at this. And God is saying,

I chose a man after my own heart. One who seeks to know me. One whose desire is for me.

So my desire is for him. That's the difference between an externalist and one who has a heart for God.

Listen to Spurgeon. There can be no doubt our Lord referred in the first place to a certain class of superficial externalists who said,

Lord, Lord. But there, their religion ended. Such persons still exist all around us.

They say good things, but they never feel what they say. All their expressions only go as low as their throat, never from the depths of their heart.

If you were going to keep coming back, it's going to keep drawing us back to the heart. The confession is only as deep as the throat.

It's not coming out of the heart. They are a stony ground, have no depth in the earth, hard, barren rock, barely concealed by a sprinkling of soil.

They're called externalists rightly because they have a notion that they've attended to the outside of godliness.

And if they've done that, then the whole matter is settled. As long as I'm keeping the outward, as long as I'm showing up and going through the motions,

I must be good with God. I go to mass. I rub the rosaries.

I pay the tithe. I go through the motions. I must have the heart. I must be accepted.

It must be OK. It's those who settle in for priestcraft, those who think if they're in the right institution that somehow that means something toward God.

What credit is that to you? If they sing with their voice, they conclude,

Spurgeon says, they conclude they've praised God. And when the hymn is all uttered to melodious notes, worship has been presented to God, even if the heart has never praised him at all.

You could have the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing some 19th century Protestant hymn.

That is hideous to God. You can have a ragtag group, as I've often heard, and perhaps this morning when we lacked the accompaniment from the piano, you have a ragtag group of people that can't hold a note to save their life, and they would be on the viral reels that come out of American Idol contests as the things that are hilarious to watch.

But if their heart is singing to God, that is well pleasing worship to him. When they bow the head and close their eyes in public prayer, they think they're doing something very right and proper, but they're only thinking of their farm, their garden, their children, their home, their accounts.

Externalists are satisfied with the shell of religion, whether there's life within or not. You ever go to the ocean? We love finding little hermit crimes when we go to the

Cape every September, and most of the time you flip them over and there's no life within. It's always disappointing.

As Spurgeon's saying, the externalist is happy to have the shell. It doesn't matter if there's life in it or not. The shell is all that's seen.

If they read a chapter from Scripture every day, they feel very complacent. They think they're searchers of the word, although they've never gotten to the inner sense.

They just allow their eyes to run over the verses and the lines. If they never get an answer to their prayers, they still feel satisfied because they've never really worked out their prayers.

They're like children who give runaway knocks. This was the 19th century equivalent of ding -dong ditch.

Like boys who give runaway knocks, they have no expectation of an answer. They only intended to give

God the husks. They never think he will look to see if there's a colonel. They want to give him the outward sign.

Imagine that that is satisfying to him because it's satisfying to them. God must see as men see.

God must be pleased because I'm pleased. They're content to have made clean the outside of the cup, but the washing of the inside, the new heart, truth in the inward part, the giving of the heart and love to Jesus, that is beneath their attention.

And if we talk of it, they are weary of it. They think we're puritanical. They imagine we're just judging them after a lofty standard.

We're too severe with them. But, oh, beloved, it is not so. Does not every thoughtful man see that without the heart, all religion is vain?

Isn't that the constant chorus from the Old Testament prophets? Isn't that why

Jesus tells the woman, the Father is seeking those who will worship him in spirit and truth?

Not in externality, not in superficiality, not in hypocrisy, not in the outward manner, not as this coffin with bones on the inside, but in spirit and in truth, with a pure heart, with a true desire.

Now, listen to Spurgeon. What can there be in a mere external form?

Put it to yourselves. What can there be? What would you think if your children were going around the home, doing the things that they were told to do, but just in a cold manner, not with any trust, not with any confidence or delight in your love as a father or in your care as a mother, but just going about the house mechanically, doing what you tell them to do, and nothing more?

You see the image he's painting? Hey, you need to go do this. Oh, can we get this together?

Yes. Yes, Father. A plain expression, just going through the motions. You might think, oh, what's going on there?

At some point, as a parent, that's going to eat away at you. Hey, what's going on? Why are you so wooden? Why are you so cold?

You seem really distant. Listen, okay, I asked you to do something, you're doing it, that's great, but what's going on here?

Are you angry with me? Why are you distant? What's going on here? That's what Spurgeon is keying in.

He would say, you would feel the want of your children's love, and you would resolve,

I must have their heart. I must have their heart. Now, if that's true of imperfect parents, how much more so of a perfect father in heaven, who created us for himself?

If we're just going through the motions and there's no heart, if we, as it were, spiritually speaking, have wooden faces and we're going through the motions, and there's no desire to please him, it's not done out of love for him.

It's not done out of service for his sake, out of that affection and warmth. It's not because we're responding to his care, to his love for us.

It's just wooden, it's mechanical, it's empty, it's distant. What would that mean for him? He yearns with a holy jealousy, but that jealousy is not other than his love.

It's a jealous love. A parent's heart yearns with jealousy.

They see their child jilted, turning away. It's one of the most painful experiences as a parent, and you feel perhaps helpless.

Well, how much more is God yearning with a holy jealousy? Do you think

I drink the blood of bulls and goats? Do you think I created this whole system for my needs?

Do I need anything? The sheep of a thousand hills belong to me. I made everything around you, including you.

I don't need anything. If I did, I wouldn't come to you for it. So you think you're appeasing me?

You think this is pleasing to God, even though I have no heart in it? The whole point is the heart. The whole point is that you would know me.

The whole point is that I would reveal myself to you. The whole point is that you would come to embrace me.

Don't you see the dynamics of the prodigal son? Just going through the motions, having no regard for his father, and even when he's turned around because of the consequences of sin, he's coming back woodenly, mechanically.

What's the heart of the father like? Is it wooden? Is it mechanical? Is it cold? Is it distant? It's the same heart that causes

Jesus to outstretch his hands as he overlooks Jerusalem and says, I would have gathered you.

You weren't willing. I was willing. I've been willing. This is the one who says, don't say,

Lord, Lord, and think that has accomplished anything. Don't think that this talk or this shell or this externalism has somehow commended you and rendered you acceptable.

Do you even know me? In that state, he's saying, I don't know you. Maybe you're coming in in some slavish fear, but perfect love casts out that fear.

We're not saved to dwell as servants who have no regard and no desire for our master.

We're adopted in the beloved to be sons and daughters of God. Well, later on in Matthew's gospel, he keeps pressing this matter of what's inside, what's from the heart.

This is the great sermon, and everything in a way flows out of this. This is

Jesus preaching the gospel to his disciples, and he's pressing the matter of the inside.

As we're saying now, the matter of the heart. God, our father, desiring us to know him and to love him because he made us for himself and he loves us so much.

He didn't withhold his own son. Well, Jesus has said at the very beginning that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the

Pharisees that would never enter the kingdom of heaven. And now we see that that righteousness corresponds to that which is not just outward, but inward.

Not just the appearance of fruit, but actual fruit, the fruit of knowing him and loving him. Not the cheap talk of Lord, Lord, but the profession of one's life.

Lord, Lord, I do things now I would have never done if I didn't know the

Lord. I refuse to do things now that I would have loved to do if I didn't know the Lord.

That's what it means to have a right profession. It's actually made a difference. That's a tree bearing fruit.

Well, later on in Matthew's gospel, when he called the multitude to himself, he said to them, hear and understand.

It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out that defiles a man. Again, you see it keeps going into this, internal, inwardly.

Do you understand these things? Hear and understand. That's what he says, hear and understand. Don't let your eyes go too quickly.

Hear, listen, understand. Think of yourself in light of this. Well, his disciples come to him and they say, don't you realize the

Pharisees were offended when you said that? Their standard of righteousness was externalized.

That's what Jesus is condemning. And it seems that Jesus is playing fast and loose. He's saying, it's not what you eat.

It's not what you touch or taste or handle that will defile you. It's what comes out of you that defiles you. That's very offensive to the

Pharisee. Our righteousness is bound up in what we eat, what we avoid. You think of Peter, you're getting the vision in Acts 10.

No, Lord, Peter, I called it clean. Don't call it common. I've made it clean.

There's that sense of it's bound up. Our prohibitions are our righteousness. If we can avoid all those things without us, we maintain the righteousness we have within.

Jesus is saying, dead wrong. The unrighteousness is within you. It doesn't correspond to that which is outside of you.

It comes from within. It's what's within that defiles a man, not that which is without. Parallel to this in Mark 7, he calls the multitude to himself and he says, hear me, everyone, understand.

You can't be more urgent than that. Are you listening? Are you paying attention? Have you actually grasped this?

Not with a nod, not with a yawning, yes, amen, I understand it. But in a way that you're actually bearing it down on your soul.

Hear me, everyone. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear this. What comes out of a man defiles a man.

Because within, out of the heart, that's the key. That's the difference between saying and doing.

Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

All these evil things come from within and defile a man. When we're talking about that which is within, we're talking about the heart.

Jesus is teaching us that the only reason people are defiled is because of their hearts.

It's what's in the heart, that heart of stone that needs to be made a heart of flesh.

If we view sin as something external to us, something that we can handle by tasting not, touching not, we're missing the entire point.

Sin is not something that we do when we're born under Adam's curse. Sinners is what we are.

It's not something extrinsic to us. It's something intrinsic to us. That's what it means to be born in Adam.

Jesus was pointing out to the scribes and the Pharisees what they should have already known. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

We all alike are unclean. Our righteousness is like filthy rags. We're fading like a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.

What we sang at the very beginning of the service from Psalm 51, what's David's cry? Create in me a pure heart.

That's the greatest need. Everything else flows out of that. That's the difference between knowing

God and hating God, between saying, Lord, Lord, and actually doing the will of the Father. Create in me a pure heart,

O God. We are, as we've often said, we are quick to distance ourselves from the scribes and the

Pharisees. Whoever we are, we are not them. Of course we are them. Of course we are them.

You are just like me. You have a little Pharisee that lives right on top of your heart. When Jesus is warning us to beware of the scribes and Pharisees, he's warning us to beware of the tendencies of being a scribe and a

Pharisee. So if this doesn't unsettle us, if this doesn't splash water on our faces, we probably haven't understood it rightly.

We probably assumed whoever Ross is talking to, he's not talking to me. I'm talking to myself and all of you.

We all have this little Pharisee on our heart. Have we understood the heart is the difference between mere saying versus doing?

As Jesus makes clear, the human heart is the source of sin. It's a lot more in the biblical metaphor than just a muscle that circulates blood through our bodies.

The heart is the core, the center in ways that we still use enigmatically.

It's the seat of the mind. You know, if you think of the, if you go to the ancient

Egyptian exhibit at Fitchburg Art Museum, for example, they have a wonderful Egypt room and they have various infographics talking about the process of mummification.

And of course the heart was a very significant organ. That was true in the ancient Near East in general. The scriptures reflect on that.

Uh, what they didn't put a lot of emphasis on was this stuffing in our heads. So as they're creating vessels to make sarcophagi out of these various precious organs, it's like, well, let's get rid of this brain stuff.

That doesn't mean anything. Because the idea was the seat of the mind is in the heart. Out of the heart flows your thought life, your conscience, your desires, your will, your ambition, your imagination.

That's a heart matter. It's really only the result of the past few centuries that we tend to locate everything to the brain.

In fact, so much so that we give to the brain that which then divides us from our bodies.

So we're, we're thinking of ourselves as brains rather than as hearts. The Bible would say we're not primarily brains.

We're hearts. We're not thinkers. We're desirers. So the whole soul of man is comprised in a man's heart.

What we discern, what we judge, what we choose, what we refuse, what we avoid, what we love, what we cleave to, what we are averse to.

All of this is bound up with the heart. The heart is the seat of everything in our lives.

That's why Proverbs 4 says, keep the heart. Every issue of life flows from it. Keep it.

And keeping the heart is a difference between saying, mere saying, empty profession and doing the will of the

Father. Now, keeping external rules, no matter how pious, will never change the heart.

This is a big problem. We have this heart. We see the gravity, the weight of it.

But the problem, as we've said, is we're born with a stone heart until we're born again and given a heart of flesh. And so with our stony heart condition, we're always trying to find ways to change.

Usually not change our heart because we're almost always ignorant to that being the issue at stake. But we're trying to change the consequences of a stony heart.

We're trying to change the directions and the trajectories of having a stony heart. We don't like the consequence, the fallout of that stony heart.

But externality, superficiality, no matter how pious, no matter how many hoops you jump through, no matter what you memorize, no matter how keen and crisp your profession is, it will never change your heart.

You cannot change the heart from the outside in. You have to lay aside all that filthiness, all that overflow of wickedness and uniqueness received the implanted word.

That's how you get a new heart. Most assuredly,

I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Unless God replants you as a new creation, unless God takes out that heart of stone, you can't even see the kingdom that you would want to enter into.

You don't even know what it looks like. You don't even know where to find it. You don't even desire it as you should. But if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.

Old things have passed away. Behold, all things become new. And Lloyd -Jones says, there's nothing more vital for us to realize in this very thing, the

Christian life, the Christian faith. It's not something that we add on to what we have. It is something done to us.

That's beautiful. It's not something we add on to what we have. It's not something we maneuver into our lives in the direction we're going.

It's something that is done to us by God. The Christian faith is ultimately not only a matter of doctrine or understanding, but he says, a condition of the heart.

Again, that's the promise of Ezekiel 36. I'm going to give you a new heart. So you'll never know me.

You'll never be able to walk in my ways unless I do that. That's not something he says. Let's try to work out a way that together we can get you a new heart.

You do your part. I'll do my part. Let's make it. No, that could never happen. God has to say,

I will give you a new heart. I will cause my spirit to dwell within you. I will cause you to walk in my statues.

Well, perhaps the greatest book on keeping the heart, and one that if you're looking for a good fireplace read this winter,

I would highly commend is John Flavel, the great Puritan John Flavel. And it's his exposition of Proverbs 4 .23.

Again, I mentioned it. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs every issue of life. It's a marvelous, marvelous treatment of that verse.

And the book is entitled Keeping the Heart. And he says, this is the most important business of a

Christian. Without this, we're but formalists in religion. What Spurgeon calls externalists.

All of our professions, all of our gifts, all of our duties mean nothing. God's request is simply this.

My son, my daughter, give me your heart. Professions, gifts, duties come with the heart.

But without the heart, they mean nothing. My son, my daughter, give me your heart.

Flavel says concerning our hearts, God seems to say what Joseph said of Benjamin. If you don't return with Benjamin, you'll never see my face.

Come with your heart, in other words, or don't come at all. The father is seeking those who desire to worship him in spirit and truth.

How many of us didn't even have that as a guiding font to our gathering here this morning? Did we come with that weight, that expectation, that sober realization that I'm coming and my heart is before God?

Is the song of my heart to know him? Am I examining my heart to find any ways that I'm cold or distant or going through the motions mechanically in a way that I know is grievous to him because he's the father who loves me?

It's an old 90s worship song that I remember we used to sing at summer camps and it's just a beautiful lyrics on this point.

You probably, some of you are familiar with it. Don't sing it if you know it. I'm coming back to the heart of worship and it's all about you.

And the second line is, I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing that I've made it when it's all about you.

What's the key within that? What's the heart of worship? Your heart, that's the heart of worship.

The heart of worship is your heart for God. Your desire to know him and to be known by him.

Your desire to be close to him and ever closer to him. We're hurtling toward the end of the year.

This has been a hard year in many respects for you, perhaps for this church. It's been a wonderful year in many respects as well.

Are we coming back to the heart? Where is our heart? That is the question that always is meant to constrain and direct all of our thoughts and activities as Christians.

Are we coming to the heart of worship? Do I recognize the centrality of my heart, my thinking, my affection, my desire?

Listen to some of these gems from Flavel.

Though the world be in your hands, let it not jostle Christ out of your heart. The world, in other words, with all of its demands is not the problem.

The heart is the problem. Because if I have my heart for Christ, no storm will overtake me.

Jesus shows us as much when he has a heart for his father that sustains him even through Gethsemane and even through the

Via Dolorosa and even through Golgotha. Nothing will overthrow me.

Though I'm encircled by great balls of bastion and I can count all my bones, I entrust myself to you.

He kept his heart. He kept the heart. The heart is a hungry and a restless thing.

If you've ever, and I'm ashamed to say, I've done this a few times this year, just gone out and bought a half gallon or a pint of ice cream and just dogged it down.

And the French have an expression, a hungry heart eats. A hungry heart eats.

Well, the heart is a restless thing, isn't it? It's a hungry thing. Our hearts want to be satiated.

Our hearts want to find rest and they want something to feed upon. And if it can't find something to feed upon in the

Lord, it's going to hunt for something everywhere else. Listen to what

Flavel says in light of this. That which we delight in, we are never weary of. That which we delight in, we are never weary of.

So the son of God having a heart for his father of such delight that he was never weary of obeying, of meditating, of praying, of enjoying.

It wasn't a wearisome thing to him because he kept his heart. When I find a weariness in my flesh, knowing full well as Jesus taught us that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

But when I see a weariness, a dejection, a discouragement, I have to ask myself the question, am

I keeping my heart? Or if I made this something other than what it is.

It's about me. Do I want to pull out all the little violins and I only share things because I'm hunting for pity and I want it all to be about me because I haven't kept my heart.

It's like Jesus when he's dragging his cross to his execution place and they have all the hired wailers and mourners.

And he says, weep for yourselves. I don't want your pity. Weep for yourselves.

Weep for the destruction that's coming. The heart is a hungry thing.

It's a restless thing. And that's why as Paul tells us in Philippians, we're to be anxious for nothing, but in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, we're to let our requests be known to God.

You won't let your request be known to God if you don't have a heart for God. You'll try to work it out. You'll try to figure it out in your flesh.

I can make it work. I'll find a way. I'm willing to kind of take corners

I shouldn't take, say things I shouldn't say. I'm gonna make it work. I won't let my request be made known to God and entrust myself to him if I don't have a heart for him.

But if you don't have that, then you won't have the peace of God, which Paul says surpasses understanding and guards your heart in Christ Jesus.

You see, it all comes back to the heart. It emanates from and returns to the heart.

Listen to A .W. Pink. After waiting on God for guidance, some special word from his scriptures, which is suited to our case, the spirit bringing it to our notice, is plainly a message to God about our heart.

He does this that we may be assured of his will for us. And so the most important thing we can do is to wait on God, to tell him intimately what perplexes us, to beg him to prevent us from making any mistakes, to earnestly cry that he will make his way plain and straight before us, and then to give us the patience we need to endure in the meantime.

We're reminded that in keeping the heart in this way, whatever is not of faith is sin. And so we make our request known, we draw near to God by faith.

We trust his timing. We know that when we ask for something and it's blocked, he has something different or perhaps a different time.

This deepens our conviction if we have a heart for him rather than causing it to be hollow. We begin to order our lives after the heart that we've kept toward him.

Commit your way to him, trust him. He will bring it to pass. Now, keeping the heart as we come to a close, keeping the heart is the difference between merely saying and doing.

And the reason Jesus can say, depart from me, I never knew you. Because those who found it so easy to say,

Lord, Lord, never really cared to know him. Everything they wanted out of Christianity, everything they wanted out of the church, they found apart from him.

And that's why he can say, you've done amazing things and you've done it all in my name. Funny, I never knew you.

Your heart was far from me. Your heart was far from me. It's not enough, brothers and sisters, to say,

Lord, Lord. And you cannot do the will of your father unless you have a heart for him.

Keeping the heart is the vital matter of all of our faith. There's a lot more to say to this that we'll get to next week when we're talking about communing with Christ, knowing him in this way.

But let me just sort of close by stating this, especially this morning. Keeping the heart involves simply this, keeping near the cross.

You want to keep your heart, brother and sister? Keep near the cross. We're just back to the

Beatitudes in some ways. The ones that he comforts are those who are mourning for their sin.

The ones that he gives assurance to are those who are wrestling through their doubts. The ones that he upholds are those who are weary and throwing themselves upon him.

You see, if you want to keep your heart, don't do it in your own strength, keep near the cross. That's the wellspring of life for the

Christian. The more you know of your need to be near the cross, the more you'll be in the presence of him who bled and died to put a new heart within you.

And that's how you'll be able to keep it. You'll keep that which he's committed to you, that which he's given to you. It'll impact the way that you approach him, the way that you pray, the way that you think, the way that you interact, the way that you worship.

You'll be able to keep the heart if you keep near the cross. The further you get from that, the further you get from the gospel.

Now you don't even hate sin. Maybe you can still identify it, but it won't be long before you can barely even identify what's north, what's south, what's black, what's white.

You just won't be able to. You want to keep your heart, keep near the cross. Look to him who gave you that new heart in repentance and faith and trust yourself to him because not everyone who says,

Lord, Lord, enters the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of the Father in heaven. Amen. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your word. Thank you, Lord, that you know us better than we know ourselves.

Lord, we can go to such great lengths for such great lengths of time to convince ourselves that it is not so, but your word just cuts through it all.

And I pray, Lord, your word would sober us, unsettle us so that we can be comforted, that we can come to the full assurance and the full measure of our faith.

Lord, I pray you'd keep your people near the cross. I pray there, Lord, we would see that continuing need for you to uphold our hearts because our flesh and our hearts fail us.

But we don't have anyone else but you. Forgive us for ways that we wander, for times that we backslide.

Let us not grieve you as our father in heaven who's made us for yourself. And all our goodness and all of our glory is bound up in you.

May we not do these acts or externalities in some mechanical way.

May our worship, may our piety, may our means of grace not be some dull wooden thing that we think is commending us when it's only condemning us.

We think it's pleasing you when it's only grieving you worse. May we not quench your spirit in these ways,

Lord. Let it be with that childlike simplicity of seeking simply to please you.

For you say that your kingdom is of such, children fully dependent upon the father, seeking to please him out of love for him because of what he's done, because of who he is.

Help us, Lord. Give us childlike faith, childlike trust. Help our talk not to be empty, not to be hollow, not to be cheap.

Let us not be like the hypocrites. Give us the heart of our faith and put that faith, that implanted word deep within our hearts that we will bear the fruit that leads to life everlasting.