2020-08-01 The Heart of the Problem [Healing: Restoring the Broken #4] - Pastor Jason Canfield

With a word of prayer as we get started here into the sermon. So I guess we can do a quick review. This is part 4 of the healing and restoring the broken going into that but will let spray first. Shall we Father in Heaven Lord? We just want to thank you so much for your grace for your love for the fact that you want to heal us broken people regardless of whether we deserve it or not. You are good. You are true and we can always count on you. And so Lord as we open your word this morning as we look at an additional topic on healing as we look at the heart of the problem is the sermon is hila today. I I pray the Lord that you would hide me behind your cross. Once again that you would make the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you and a blessing to each one who hears them. May you be her first and full Most in this place today and online and wherever people here this message. We thank you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.

So quick review, I jumped ahead of myself. So some of you may not have been following online. If you are following online, we are going through this series on healing I find so many people are struggling with loneliness depression and whatnot. So we looked at Sozo is the Greek word in the New Testament that describes forgiveness. It describes physical protection demonic Deliverance raising the dead physical healing. It's very comprehensive and what God wants to do in our lives. God wants to heal us restore us and make us New Creations in him. This is the word so usually when you're reading through that the gospels or the New Testament, you're going to see the word saved that is usually Sozo the root word here kind of describing the comprehensiveness of what God wants to do in our lives that matter that we looked how sometimes we can take unjust actions towards ourselves when they happen as like a debt that's owed to us. Causing them to become grievance debt collectors. And so that was one of the messages we looked out on how sometimes we continue to inflict pain in our own lives. And in others lives as we look at every wrong done to us has a debt we have to repay but that's not how scripture Paints the picture with Jesus with you can look at Joseph and we looked at other stories then we looked at last week on just how God is one who understand what we're going through regardless of where you're at in life. No matter what pain you've experienced. God understands us. He came to this world took on. Our infirmities are falling the Tendencies towards different things. He was tempted like we are tempted. He got hungry. He got tired just like we get hungry we got tired. So he understands what it's like in the fact that God not only knows and cares but fully understand I believe is one of the most therapeutic factors in the healing of damaged emotions when we're struggling. Have someone understand us. It's important to know that of anyone God knows our heart. God knows the pain we experience God knows the challenges we have he knows the thoughts we experience and so he knows better than anyone else how to heal us. And so God becomes Jesus is the source of the healing we get so this morning we're going to look at that the part of the problem in this is based on Proverbs 4:23. Now if you want to think about it this way many of you. I don't know about you but since covid-19.

Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life. That's a pretty strong statement isn't it to the course of your life? And this is you know, if you've ever watched a Disney movie or anything that says follow your heart this idea of where your heart is what you desire what you want in your inner being will often determine what you do what you do what you eat how you act what you say has everything to do with where your heart is. And so this is how scripture I repeatedly talks about this another verse would be Proverbs 27 and verse 19. There is as as a face is reflected in water. So the heart reflects the real person It's an interesting thought because many times we can mask negative feelings. We can mask and put on a smile we can act like we've all got it together can't we anybody ever walked up and say how are you doing today? And your answer was I'm fine when that is so far from the truth. You just don't want to say that to someone because it doesn't sound nice and so many times. The reality is our heart is Where We R Who We really are where are heart is in a sense. This is how scripture defines it. In fact, the word heart is perhaps the most significant term in scripture for understanding a person a whole person. If you just think for a brief moment of your reading of scripture the concept of heart comes up repeatedly David was a man after God's Own Heart kind of describing hit God's character who he is. It says, you know, he'll say that, you know, you should love the Lord thy God with all thy heart or out of the mouth out of the mouth speaks at the Inside the heart it's over repeatedly through scripture at the heart of the problem is a heart so our hearts and where our heart is and this is where you could do all the right things and be wrong the Pharisees kept all the laws. They knew the truth. They had all their facts, right they knew exactly what to do. But where was their heart and soul the heart becomes this central figure of where our problem is as well as where the solution will be as fascinating at the Hebrew word for heart level above occurs a total of 858 times in the Old Testament alone because he's at the Hebrew terms 814 of which are related solely to the human heart and speak metaphorically of the whole person love the Lord. Thy God with all thy heart is symbolizing the whole person physical body plus God's life-giving spirit Proverbs alone, which is a kind of the Them book written by Solomon uses the 99 times and that one book Ecclesiastes 42 times and Deuteronomy 51 time. So this is a term that is used repeatedly and it's interesting as you go back and read scripture. I will challenge you as we finish this sermon and you find out and understand a little bit more what this means. It will bring out a whole new light on what scriptures actually trying to say to you just understanding this one thing. I found it very fascinating and this is from the book science of the heart exploring the role of the heart in the human performance. So this is a scientific study that tells us that the heart has we misunderstood it in many ways. Most of us think our brain is where we do all the thinking and everything is happening up here when in reality our heart actually does some of that as well. It says the heart not only pumps blood but transmits complex patterns of neurological hormonal pressure and electromagnetic information to the brain and throughout the body as a critical nodal point in many of the body's interactive systems. The heart is uniquely positioned as a powerful entry point into the communication Network that connects body mind and emotions and spirit. So in reality many times what's happening is the heart is dictating what you're thinking. You can probably think of this very quickly. If you ever had an emotion overcome you ever seen someone we say love is blind or things like this where all the sudden you feel this emotion or hate can be blind as well. When you have a strong emotion, we would say that's coming from the heart and that will control what you think. Right? I always we always told our kids we would never discipline them and anger because when you're angry, you will do things you often regrets. I can probably please just a people here very quickly to save ever done something when you're angry and regretted it we could probably all raise our hands and it would be same for anyone listening online when we're angry and motions 10 to override and a heart has a lot to do with that and that's why I scripture pointed at the center of things. Proverbs 20 verse 5 says the purpose of a man's heart are like deep water but a man who has understanding brings them out. One of the things we find is the heart there's many things that are so deep that I think many of us don't even understand our own hearts. Does that make sense? It seems like you would definitely understand your own thoughts feelings, but I can tell you from experience and I can show you from scripture as we continue on that. The heart has a very deep thing and many times our sin in our lives because we live in a sinful world will protect the heart deceiving yourself. You're really okay take for example this simple example of a white lie, you know, the phrase is a lie a lie. Yes, a lie is a lie, but when we call it a white lie to masket, we protect our heart and deceive ourselves from feeling like we really did something wrong. And so these are the kind of things that happen within us that we don't even recognize are happening. But God looks at our hearts as Who We Are Now that's true, but it's a little scary when you think about it. That means you can't hide from God who you really are or what you really think and how you really feel about things. You might be able to convince a few other people that you got your act together, but you can't fool God God knows where the heart is and we can see this in a number of scriptural passages the most famous one that is often quoted as from 1st Samuel chapter 16 and verse 7 This is the passage. Where are you? You're looking at Stahl and David becoming chosen as the new king and here it says but the Lord said to say mule don't judge by his appearance or height for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn't see the way you see them people judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. So God looking at the heart now when he says he's looking at the heart. He's not talking about this actual organ that pumps blood right? And I think we all recognize that when God looks at the heart. He seen your character who you really are and this is why when it says David was a man after God's Own Heart his heart was right, even if his actions weren't always right sure. We all have struggles. The heart has its own issues as we're going to see but God looks at your heart where your heart is is a lot more important than where your actions are in many ways when it comes to God but out of the heart. You'll do things. So Proverbs 15 verse 11 says even death and destruction hold no secrets from the Lord. How much more does he know the human heart? So God sees everything God recognizes the heart God recognizes the things we try to hide from other people and this is natural. I don't want to everybody to feel guilty because you tried to hide something from people our hearts by experience many times as ever put your heart out there interested in somebody or something or some situation only to have it hurt. We all have it's called life. It happens and when someone hurts her heart than natural instinctive reaction is to protect it to put up a fence to put up a guard. Unfortunately. Sometimes we do that even against God we don't want God in our heart because then things change our hearts are really at the heart of our problem as I mentioned and let's look at that in scripture Genesis 8 verse 21 just to go right back right in the beginning in the beginning of scripture says in the Lord smelled us within the realm and the Lord said in his heart again, it's God in his heart. I will never again curse the ground for man take although the imagination as a man's heart is evil from his youth nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done? So this isn't the aftermath of the flood if you're looking at the Paso God hear Noah gets to the to the land again. He burns the sacrifice. And God says in his heart out of his heart. He speaks and he says Asks, all of us you and I were evil at the Heart level from Utah. So this idea that we we have a problem and this isn't a bad thing because quite frankly if you never recognize that you have a problem. Why would you ever seek help to get healing from the problem? So the more we recognize where our real problem is the more we can see God for the real solution to the problem and if we don't recognize the real heart of the problem, we're going to get it's like taking a pain pill for a broken arm and not having it set with that bring much relief for a short. Of time and how we treat our spiritual we take a pill so to say to temporarily remove the symptom of the core problem rather than dealing with the real deep issues of the heart which brings lasting killing and Lasting change. I've seen this in many different ways. Sometimes it's like man, you just got to tighten down your bootstraps. You got to get it and you can you can do this by sheer willpower. This is the concept Wild That is probably one of the most destructive things for a Christian. When you buckle down you're going to do this by your own strength and your own power use cut got out of the picture. I got doesn't want you to just get your actions, right he wants to get your heart right so that your actions follow the heart if that makes sense. So let's look at a few more things to fundamental heart defects. If you will that come if you will from the fall all of humanity are affected by this. There are two major defects pride and deceit according to scripture. So our hearts get proud and our hearts can deceive us and we use them to deceive others according to scripture. Let me show you that will start with pride pride if you if you will this was at the original sin in a sense because it was Lucifer in heaven in a perfect place with all perfect beans that had pride in his heart where he thought he was pretty good stuff and he wanted to be he was better than God. He had a better way to run things and God and so the beginning of everything comes back to pride pride makes us the opposite of humble. And if you're proud you're if you're too proud to acknowledge the problem again, you won't see the help and I know a lot of people that hate doctors. I hate going to the hospital. I don't think many people like going to the hospital but some people take that to a fault where they'll be literally dying before they go to the hospital because they're too proud to go. And I met people that way and if this comes true in many ways many people in the world are too proud to recognize they need a savior. They'd rather just go on. Again, Proverbs point this out to pointedly everyone everyone that it everyone's proud and hard is an Abomination to the Lord though. They join forces. None will go unpunished. This idea. Everyone is proud in the heart. Our hearts are by default proud what it means by this is where selfish you ever met a child. That wasn't selfish. We want when we want, right and it starts at a very very young age. We're proud in the sense that were seeking self first and self first is what is an attribute of pride. Again, Proverbs 18 verse 12 says Before Destruction. The heart of man is haughty and before honor is humility. So here you get this Hebrew parallelism wear a contrast one with the other destruction happens when your heart is proud or haughty raised up and that's what Lucifer did he raised himself up hottie lift it up and before honor is humility. So when we humble ourselves God Honors that honors the humility of heart and then we're open to the transformation to Sozo the God wants to bring Until we see this on and on Luke 1:51 when we get to the gospels, even we see the same concept. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, but this one takes it to a little different level in a sense because here is talking about the imaginations as we think like our thoughts of the heart. Did you know your heart has imaginations? And so where are lungs after you see? For example, when when we look at David David was a man after God's Own Heart. Yes, but did she fall when he looked at the Sheba? So his heart went after her would be what happened? And so his imaginations of his heart led him to send again as we talked about last week a little bit to this idea. The fact that our heart is broken doesn't necessarily make you the centre-right. Can you be tempted? Without saying yes, Jesus is the living example our hearts allow us to be tempted a deeper level than we often realize but that is not what the problem is the core of the problem because if we don't fix it, then we fall into the temptation of acting upon those thoughts and feelings when we act upon them. We make it come to reality but you could even take a Jesus Took the law to see if you even lust after a woman in your heart you have committed adultery if you hate someone you've committed murder. So Jesus said even there you need to be very very careful very careful of where you let your hearts imaginations go. Tom 10 verse 3 + 4 + at this way, he boasts about the Cravings of his heart. He blessed blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord in his pride the wicked man does not seek him and all his thoughts. There is no room for God when we're proud. We don't want God in our lives and I'm part of the reason why is if you've ever experienced this I've experienced it because I have a natural human heart like the rest of you and it can be proud of times and when it's proud you don't want God's correction. You don't want to change and it really makes us resistant to God's grace if you will the proud heart and it's it's a thing we we do wicked things when we allowed that Pride to take over Ezekiel 28 verse to this is specifically speaking of Satan in the metaphorical way of talking about the prince of Tyre and we can tell this is actually Lucifer be Talks about him being in the garden In this passage in Ezekiel 28, but it says son of man say to the prince of Tyre that says the Lord God because your heart is lifted up again. This is that original sin Lucifer when his heart was lifted up you say I am a God I sit in the seat of gods in the midst of the sea. Did you are a man and not a god. Do you set your heart as the heart of a God and so in the sense we can when we say God isn't there. We're proud. We think we know better right when we know better than God and we become the dictators of what is right. And what is wrong in our own heart or mind? We then become like God, where were the dictator of what's right and what's wrong and this is what we see. There's so much confusion in the world. And what's right and wrong anymore. It's a big blurry mess out there you could against The same passage the same concept A few verses later and verse 6 of the same chapter. Therefore thus says the Lord God because you have set your heart as a heart of a god. This is just a metaphoric Expressions where your heart is making the choices for you and God's not a part of your decision-making. Does that make sense? And so when we don't let God in and then we don't let God be the dictator of how we live our lives. We're bound to get in trouble when we think we know best and God doesn't know CS Lewis in Mere Christianity put it this way. He says the essential buys the utmost evil is Price He says unchastity anger greed drunkenness and all that are mere flea bites and comparison. It was through Pride that the devil became the devil Pride leads to every other Vice it is the complete anti-god State of Mind. So he didn't sugarcoat it at all. He says when you let pride in when you let selfishness take rule in your life when Pride enters your heart you're going to completely go against God. That's that's that that's how bad this situation is. So this is at the core of our problems. DSS the essence of The Proud hard, is that a dethrones God and replaces him with self the person who lives without God may not consciously think of himself as being his own God. However, when one chooses to reject God's Authority and follow their own will in reality they are choosing themselves as the final Authority on Dust their own gone. Can you see why this would be a little bit of a problem for Humanity if we're born with proud hearts and pride makes us go to that length. This is at the core of the problem of humanity and it's something that we can see in every human heart. And this is why scripture repeatedly says, we need a heart transplant. You need a new heart because your heart is heart it says Stone when we don't let when we're not receptive to God in this way. What about deceit deceit is closely linked to Pride, but let's look at Is it a little bit the human heart is the most deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who really knows how bad it is. This is Jeremiah 17:9 and you can look at this in a couple of verses maybe you heard it in another verse but the idea here is the human heart is the most deceptive deceptive deceitful above all things your heart can deceive you and this is a problem you ever met. There's there's two extremes we could go to we could go to an extreme logic where everything is about the facts getting our doctrines r i getting everything lined up. So perfect that we become a Pharisee We don't let God touch our hearts. The other option is you could allow instead of letting logic take over. You can allow feelings to take over where everything is about the emotion and the experience and it's not that either of these things are bad friends. There's nothing wrong. It's the motion and there's nothing wrong with logic but when we take him to an extreme, if you're did you will deceive yourself based on logic and reasoning self. That's really Pride or deceiving yourself as in you're letting your emotions run your life. Like I said, we could all say we've done something out of anger we regretted So it's desperately wicked. And by the way just to add on. That is for all Humanity. Not just Wicked people that that that's that's all of us. We all have the same problem in this is this is why in Romans another place that we find all have sinned and fallen short of the glory. It's it's comprehensive the book of Obadiah describes the Cecilia as well as says the pride of your heart has deceived you so you got the deceiving because of the pride you dwell in the Cliffs of the rock who's habitation is high you say in your heart who will bring me down to the ground. This was the idea that they could protect themselves they lived in the cliffs and they thought nobody can touch us. Sport let me put this in at least some Adventist context. Some people have thought well at the end of time we're going to flee to the mountains and if we just have everything there we can take care of this. I hate to tell your friends. You cannot hide anywhere from God and you cannot protect yourself from the Devil Without God. If you think of glean to the Wilderness as something that would happen at the end of time, when you flee to the Wilderness what happened to God's people that Israelites when they went in the wilderness Who provided their food God every single day and still gave the Sabbath off. He protected them when the Saints beat them. They just had to look at the snake on the pole in the snake's body. That was because they went away from following God. They weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing. And so we need to trust in God and not let the pride of our hearts deceive us thinking we can do this on our own. We desperately need Jesus. Amen. As the church and is this Society of large? We need Jesus not figuring out we can do it ourselves Psalms 12 verses 2 through 4 puts it this way. They lie to one another they speak with flattering lips and deceptive Hearts Birth for says they say through our tongue and through our tongues. We have power our lips are our own who can be our master. We can deceive ourselves the idea, you know the challenging thing about when you've deceived yourself about something is how do you fix that? This is where it gets really complicated. Because if you're the one lying to yourself, that's a big problem because now it's your you're going to believe yourself that you're right, right, but don't you usually believe you're right most people do and this idea that we if we get a lie that we believe to be truths we end up in a dangerous place we deceive ourselves in this is where it becomes a bigger problem when we're not having it all the way in our heart if it's just in her head and not in our heart, we won't really be converted Christians there needs to be a born-again experience. If you will James 1:26 says it as well if anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not Bridle his tongue but deceives that's the deceit his own heart his this one's religion is useless If religion is nothing more than a bunch of rules we missed the point religion is not meant to be a list of do's and do not now. Those are there. I'm not on doing those things. But if those things this is princess of the difference between the old Covenant and the New Covenant if you will remember the old Covenant written on Stone Ten Commandments new company says, I will write it on their hearts meaning it comes to a heart level where the change isn't just rules that we follow we want to follow them because God written them on our hearts. And so when that happens you're no longer. Seeing all these things out of the mouth speaks to get bunions of the heart. The heart has to be changed our hearts need this and if we go to Revelation 14 the precursor to the Three Angels message, we find a group of people there in a says it in their mouth was found no deceit or they were without fall Before the Throne of God at the end. There's going to be a people to figure this out and say, okay the heart is deceitful. I'm going to let God give me a new heart. I'm going to let my heart be the place that God rules. The God is the Throne of my heart and he dictates my actions my words my thoughts because God is at the center of everything like the heart is at the center pumping the blood to your whole body. And so when we do this, we become the church God always wanted us to be we become the people of God. The God has always planned and we cannot do it on our own. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to dwell in US And when the Holy Spirit is innocent changes our heart then all the things that are hard about ra Christianity aren't so hard because God has given you the desires of your heart because your heart's been changed your heart is like his and then it's not all I want a new car you recognize from God's perspective what you really need and God changes it and he might give you a car but that's not the point. He's giving you the desires of your heart because he puts those Desires in your heart. So that's Revelation at the end. The deceitful heart blinds us to the truth of who we really are. For example, people take credit for good outcomes and blame bad ones on other factors in an attempt to see ourselves better than we really are by doing so we don't see oops forgot a letter. They're our own heart condition and don't seek The Cure when we deceive ourselves in this way. So the heart becomes a huge problem. How do you know this is there where there's two deadening conditions to the heart? Hardness and fat funny way to describe it and we're hard and fat. This is what it this is the way scripture describes a friend. So I'm just going to let you read it from scripture that sell a hard heart. Now. This is probably the most common most people recognize this from The Exodus Pharaoh's heart was hardened. So this concept of hardening your heart. It's it's saying no to the Holy Spirit repeatedly, It's so this is why when you have it the blasphemy of the holy spirit being the unpardonable sin the sin that can't be forgiven is because you shut your heart off to God, you don't even hear him anymore because you plug your ears with deafening Eaton's senses to where you won't listen to God in any way shape or form anymore and that's what makes it unforgivable. And so anytime someone comes as I passed. I think I've committed the unforgivable sin the fact that you're even thinking it shows you're listening to the Holy Spirit and you haven't the people that are still listening to it. So this is this the effects long term of a hard heart Hebrews 3 in verse 15 says remember what it says today when you hear his voice don't Harden your heart as Israel did when they rebelled Israel then becomes the example again when they Harden their heart and refuse to listen to God, he says you might be hearing his work. And it says his voice but that's really just scripture friends. When you reading scripture when your hearing a sermon where scripture is actually being proclaimed your hearing God's voice to you. And so when you hear God's voice he saying don't Harden your heart and say I don't want to hear that Pastor. I don't want to change that Pastor. I don't like that Pastor. I don't like what scripture tell me. I'm going to get a different version The Sounds nicer. This is not the answer when you do that. You're hardening your heart toward what the holy spirit is saying and this is the problem we have when we don't listen to The Still Small Voice in our lives. We can see it in other places in Mark 6 verse 52. It says for they the disciples speaking up here. So this is talking about God's people. This is the disciples were following him had not understood about the loaves the Love's in the fish's because their heart was hardened now, if you were to go back and read that story in Mark when you have the feeding of the 5000 to 6000 you can see it in the same thing Jesus. It's describing them as they Harden their hearts. They didn't understand was Jesus even talking in riddle language. They're not really he said feed the people. They said we can't and he says okay bring me the food and I'll feed the people and so it was a matter of faith and they didn't see the God could do they made walls and said God can do a lot of things but not that and so we do the same time same thing in our lives when we say will God can change many things but I can't change time to addicted. I'm too this time to that that is pride coming and not allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts. It says that he said to them over foolish ones and Luke 24 and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have broken one of the things when we don't believe scripture when we don't believe the prophets are saying to us, it says we're slow of heart similar to hardness of heart is just you're not quite what you're not all the way to hard yet. You're just hardened mean so you're slow you're in a slow process where your heart is becoming harder and harder one of the ways, I I guess you could Define this and look at this on a simple practical turn every day. You're making decisions, right you wake up you eat certain things you do certain things every day your life. You should be getting closer to God because the alternative is you're getting further away from God. There's really not a name between there's no such thing as stagnant. Do you know what happens in stagnant water? All mosquitoes and bacteria and all kinds of terrible things come in you and Christian is a dying Christian. Your life has to be continually moving towards him. Otherwise, you're in the slowness of heart to believe what God is trying to tell us here's pharaohs example back in Exodus 713 Pharaoh's heart. However remained hard. He still refused to listen just as the Lord had predicted and when you think about this story when Pharaoh with God giving him a lot of chances Was God repeated this was not a godly man. This was not someone that believed in the god of scripture. But God was still being like, please stop doing this. I beg you to stop doing this. Would you please listen to me? If you do it's going to be good. It'll be great. But if we don't listen to God, then we get the consequences of our own actions, which you're no fun. Amen. It's it's still strange to me to hear response. It's kind of like petrified wood. Have you ever seen petrified wood? It's around we seen it to this is a natural soft semi pliable material that you can work on much easier. But over time if it's put in the right conditions, usually with water and minerals it becomes that the minerals take over the wood and it replaces the wood with that material and it becomes rock hard and so in a similar way our hearts can become petrified. And I should be petrifying huh? I miss a scary thoughts that our hearts could become so hard that we wouldn't hear God but that is what happens by slowly not listening. There's a petrification process so similar to the process in which wood petrified we can and almost unconsciously Harden Our Hearts by drifting through life without attention to the choices. We are making every day whether we are listening to God's voice or simply doing what we naturally want. I got to seem settled doesn't it? This isn't like I'm deliberately going against God. It's just we're not involving God in the discussion. He's not even involved in it. We're just doing what feels good what we want. We're letting emotions drive and self dry rather than God Drive. What about fat now? I put a little disclaimer up to her kind of what is describing but insensitive but it is kind of interesting that there's always a parallel with the natural and the spiritual. Do you have conditions if you get fat in your heart Yeah, your veins get clogged you get hardness of the around the cells and your heart can't function correctly in the same way. When we let that into our heart it clogs our spiritual heart and we can't function correctly spiritually. And so there's a parallel just like in the natural world. So God has all these little parallels that throws in Psalms 119 says their hearts are gross and fat. That's how I describe people your heart is gross and fat. Sorry friends. That's just scripture. As for me. Your teaching is my delight that should be the difference. We should Delight in his teaching and then the fatness melts away. It's the best weight loss program. We have a little class going on, but this is the one you really need to melt the fat of your parts. Psalm 17 verse 10 says they have closed up there fat hearts with their Mouse they speak proudly so when our hearts get fat notice the symptom of Pride the defect comes out until all of these things are interconnected and I think you'll find it fascinating as you go back and read scripture love the Lord. Thy God with all thy heart soul and mind and you you read these passages and all these references to hard is being the real heart of the problem. And what describes you as a person it brings out a whole new meaning it brings out a whole nother level of scripture that we often haven't seen before Isaiah 6 and verse 10 says make the hearts of this people do that's literally fat and their hearts ears heavy and shut their eyes less. They see what their eyes and hear what their hearts and understand what their heart and return and be healed. So when we really here when we really see God for who he really is we will return and be Healed but when our hearts are dull and fat in our ears are heavy. We don't hear him. We don't sense him. We don't everything's out God's out self is in and we don't return to him and I think this is one of the core reasons why I find God often comes to us, and he he allows us to go through trials in life because it's about the only thing that all make your eyes open make our ears open, so we hear him see him seek him and get the change that we need. Deuteronomy 32 verse 15 puts it this way. So Jacob ate feel the darling grew fat and frisky. It's an interesting way of describing him. You became fat and gross and gorged they spurn The God Who made them and scorned they're saving Rock meaning Jesus. One of the things that happened is when they describe the Aether feel this is physically speaking. They grew fat and frisky, they became fat and gross in their heart and in their person and they spurned The God Who made them and scorned the rock of their salvation this process will eventually turn you away from God. And so just like having that extra fat in your body isn't healthy for the physical body having that extra fat in your heart is not good for your spiritual life and we can see the parallels on and on the human heart according to scripture is evil. Proud deceitful deceitful fattening sensitive and hard other negative traits just to give you a few ideas to show you that this really is our problem other negative traits could be added such as adulterous heart Foolish Heart uncircumcised or unconsecrated heart over and over again. The heart is the problem. Show Friends, what do we need? A new heart and so if you're going to get to the Cure of the problem, there's really only one cure if the heart is where the problems are and we're just treating the symptoms. We need to get a new heart and it's not something you by yourself can ever. Do you have you are completely incapable of changing your heart your heart is what it is and it it's really fascinating to me that even the parallels with the human. Did. You know when you have a blood transfusion or a heart transplant the character often changes the person Have you ever seen that or heard that it's pretty, you can look it up online and see the different cases the heart changed and the personality changed. How is that physically possible we well that's what scripture has been telling us for a long time. There's a connection between the two the real heart of the problem has a heart of the Cure and we see it in his Ezekiel 36:26 God here says I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you I will take out your Stony that's a hard stubborn heart with pride and give you a tender responsive heart when we did it when he does this it goes on and verse 27. If we were to read it. I didn't get it in the side's resets when you put that fear as he will cause us to walk in his statutes and judgments. God creates the change in it rather than trying to work on the external things. And get our act together in a Christian way because we know all the morals were supposed to keep its really working the opposite direction that's working from the outside in right? It's like trying to clean somebody up so they look good enough for church. That's not what gods after God says. Let me change the heart and everything else flows. Naturally. Everything happens right when God gets a hold of your heart and when God gets a hold of your heart, it's exciting friends. It's scary to all admit. It is a little scary because he he may change things. You're not quite ready for you might change things in your life and it seems overwhelming at the time, but I will guarantee you you'll never regret it. Again, we need to have this Spirit like David had that said create in me a clean heart o God renew a loyal Spirit within me that needs to be the type of prayers God people are praying every single day. Then I Choose You Jesus. I want that deep healing. I want you to fix all the Brokenness in me. I want you to give me a new heart since that's a hard the problem. I want your spirit within me so that I hear that was still small voices that you're leading my life and I'm living in the will of God when you live in the will of God. You're good. A man, that's the goal of the Christian is to live within the will of God on a continual constant basis. If you're doing that you got nothing to worry about you're ready for eternity friends doesn't matter whether coronavirus take shower or whether the end of the world coming soon. It doesn't matter what's going on if that is where you're at your safe to be saved. This is it. This is where that this is why it's the heart of the problem. And the good news is this gets even way better. So next week. I'm going to I couldn't get it all in one serving. So we're going to go through more of this next week. I know it says closing prayer there. We're going to go through the heart of the solution. I give you the taster, you know what it is, but you don't know how good it is. Until you really see what scripture says. So we're going to look at how good it is when we really get the heart of the solution and let him into our hearts. Amen. That's close whisper loving father in Heaven. Thank you so much that as broken as we are you see us for the potential we have when we turn our hearts towards you when we get our aim fixed correctly on Jesus when we allow you into our hearts to change us even in the places. We don't want to let you go because we don't want to change those things everything you change is because you see the end from the beginning you're the only one that sees that even the devil can see all of it. We can see yes to an extent some details through the through prophecy in Revelation, but you see the details of the end from the beginning in our lives, you know every hair on our head, you know, the thoughts and our hearts and Lord. We need your new heart. We need you to put that spirit. We want you to examine us see if there is any wicked thing within us like David said we want you to make the thoughts the words of our mouths the thoughts of our hearts the meditations. We think on all of it pleasing in your sight. We want to live consistently in the will of God in your will do that for us today. Give us that heart transplant so we can be those Victorious Christians the do it almost effortly effortless effortlessly because you are the one driving Our Lives. Thank you Jesus in your name. We pray. Happy Sabbath.