"A God-Filled Heart"

Psalm 139:7-10

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.

     Dear Friends in Christ,   

   Back when I was attending college many years ago, I spent a couple of my summer vacations working for the strip mines of southern Illinois.  I was part of the reclamation department whose job was to reclaim the land and get it back into shape after it had been mined.  Well, the 2^nd summer I worked for them, the boss who was over me put me in charge of 2 other guys younger than I who had also been hired for the summer.  And for the most part, we spent that summer working outdoors on our own, completely unsupervised.  When I went into the office in the morning the boss would tell me what he wanted us to do for the day and we would go and do it.  But once in a while he would assign us a job that required his presence because we wouldn’t know how to do it.  One of those jobs involved building fences over long stretches of open terrain.  None of us had ever built a fence before so he had to show us how it was done.  And I discovered something when he was out there helping us, and that is that it’s sometimes a lot better working with someone than simply working for someone. 

   This is something that I was reminded of again as I pondered what I was going to preach about today.  For this morning I want to talk to you about what it means to have a God-filled heart.  And I want to introduce this subject by making a statement very similar to the one I made just a few moments ago.  And that is that it is truly a wonderful thing when we stop working for God and instead we start working with God.

   You see, I believe that many Christians today have this picture of God in their mind as being this divine CEO sitting up there in heaven while we are his loyal and faithful employees down here.  He has his office and we have our territory.  We can contact him as much as we feel necessary, but for the most part we’re on our own while he sits in his heavenly corporate office overseeing it all.

   But is that really the picture that God gives us of himself in the Bible?  Not at all!  Remember when Jesus gave his disciples the Great Commission in Matt. 28 to “go and make disciples of all nations”?  How did he end those marching orders?  He said, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Elsewhere in I Cor. 3:9 the Apostle Paul tells us that “we are God’s fellow workers.”

   Did you catch that, my friends?  God isn’t some distant CEO who remains aloof from those who serve him.  Rather he is a fellow worker with us, a co-laborer.  He and I work together.  You and he work together.  And let me tell you something, that is one awesome thought!  In fact, it’s one that I carry with me every Sunday morning when I’m driving in to church to preach.  I always use that time to have a little talk with God in which I basically tell him the same thing every Sunday.  And that is : “I can’t do this on my own.  I need help.  I need your help.  I need your presence.”  And he never lets me down.

   So what this all means, my friends, is precisely what we heard before in our text, namely, that we can never go anywhere without the presence of God.  We can never undertake any task or challenge without him being right there beside us.  His presence never wanes.  It never diminishes in our lives.  Now granted, our awareness of it might falter from time to time, but the reality of his presence never changes.

   We see a good example of this in Jesus who always had a keen sense of his Father’s presence in his life.  For example, in John 5:19 he says: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”  And in John 14:10-11 he tells his disciples: “The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.  Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”  

   It’s clear from those passages how intimately connected Jesus was to his Father.  In fact, they were so connected that when one of Jesus’ disciples, Phillip, asked him on one occasion, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us,” Jesus responded by saying, “Phillip…anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”  So Jesus had this unbroken communion and connection with his Father that he was not only aware of, but that others could plainly see in him as well.

   And guess what, my friends?  That is precisely the kind of relationship God wants to have with us.  And in the Bible he makes use of several interesting analogies or word pictures to try to drive this home to us.  For example, in John 15:5 Jesus says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”  So God wants to be as close to us as a branch is to a vine.  Now that’s pretty close, isn’t it?  For each one is an extension of the other.  The branch isn’t connected to the vine only at the time the vine is supposed to produce fruit, is it?  Of course not.  Nor does the gardener keep the branches in a box under his bed and then on the day he wants grapes, Duct tape them to the vine.  Rather, the branch is constantly connected to the vine, always drawing nutrition from it.  Were the branch to be separated from the vine, you know what would happen.  It would shrivel up and result in certain death for the branch.

   Another analogy God uses in the Bible to depict the intimacy that he desires to have with us is that of the temple.  In I Cor. 6:19 we read: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”  Now if you know anything about the temple in Jerusalem, which was the center and focal point of Jewish worship, you know that God wasn’t just a periodic visitor there.  Rather, he was a permanent resident of it.  His presence was always obvious there, always available.  And what incredibly good news that is for us.  For if our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, then that means that God is never far away from us – not even for one single moment.  He doesn’t just come to us when we come to church on Sun. morning and then depart from us as soon as we leave.  Rather he remains with us constantly.  There never is a time when he is not present within us, regardless of how aware we may be of his presence.

   Then a 3^rd analogy God uses to describe the intimacy he wants to have with us is that of marriage.  In the New Testament Jesus is sometimes depicted as our bridegroom while we who are a part of his Church are his bride.  Now have you ever noticed how married couples who live together a long time eventually begin to sound alike, talk alike, think alike, act alike, and sometimes even look alike?  Well, that’s what happens with us the closer and more intimate we become with God.  We begin to take on his thoughts, his principles, his attitudes, and his views on things.  In fact, that’s really the meaning of the word Christian.  It means “little Christ.”

   Then there’s one more analogy that the Bible uses to describe the intimate relationship God wants to have with us and that is the picture of a shepherd and his sheep.  I don’t know how much you know about sheep, but from what I’ve heard and read, they are not the brightest of animals.  They have a real propensity to get into trouble.  Because of that, the shepherd knows better than to ever leave his flock unattended.  So if you see a flock of sheep coming down the path, you know that a shepherd is nearby.  In the same way, if we see a genuine, bona fide Christian ahead, we know that our Good Shepherd is nearby.  Like David once put it, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou are with me.”

   So just to summarize what we’ve been talking about, God is as near to you as a vine is to a branch, as present within you as he was in the temple, as in love with you as a groom is to his bride, and as devoted to you as a shepherd is to his sheep.  From those pictures, then, we can plainly see that it’s possible for us to have an ongoing, personal, intimate relationship with God in our lives.  At least that’s what he wants, right?  So what’s the problem?  Why don’t we always times experience that kind of relationship and enjoy that high level of intimacy with him?  Well, I hate to say it, but we are the problem.  If we’re completely honest with ourselves we’ll have to admit that because of our strong attachments to the things of this world, we don’t always pursue and we don’t always even desire that kind of intimacy with God.  Because we are sinful human beings, by nature we want nothing to do with God.  So we consciously or unconsciously allow other things to get in the way of having this God-filled heart that we’re talking about this morning – things like extremely busy and overcommitted schedules, excessive and undue worry about the future, sinful lifestyles that leave us distant from God or burdened and sometimes even crippled by guilt.  So what can we do?

   Well, allow me to pass on to you several practical suggestions that author Max Lucado offers in one of his books to help you begin to practice and experience more of the presence of God in your life so that you can have a truly God-filled heart.  Suggestion #1, give God your waking thoughts.  In other words, before you face the day, face your Heavenly Father.  Before you step out of bed, step into his presence and offer him the first seconds of your day, just like David did in Ps. 5:3 where he says: “In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”  Listen to this devotion that appeared in Our Daily Bread some time ago (4/8/02)…

   Then a 2^nd suggestion I have for you is give God your waiting thoughts.  Did you know that much of our lives is spent waiting?  Of course you did because we do so much of it.  But do you have any idea how much time we spend waiting?  According to one article I came across, by the time your life is over, you will have spent the equivalent of 6 months waiting at stoplights, 8 months opening junk mail, a year and a half looking for lost stuff, and a whopping 5 years standing in various lines.  That’s a lot of wasted time, isn’t it?  Unless, of course, you give those waiting moments to God and use that time to commune with him, whispering quiet prayers of thanksgiving and praise for blessings received, or prayers of intercession for those who are hurting or prayers of forgiveness for the times you’ve blown it with God recently.  And I might also add that with today’s I-phones and Smart phones you can now get a free application that includes the Bible in multiple translations.  I did that recently and it’s just nice to know that anytime I find myself in a waiting situation, instead of growing impatient and complaining, I can use it as an opportunity to let God fill my heart with his truths.

   Then thirdly, give God your worried thoughts.  Recently I read that of all things we worry about 40% never happen; 35% are about things that can’t be changed; 15% are about things that turn out better than expected; and 8% are on useless, petty worries.  So instead of wasting all that mental and emotional energy, instead of losing a good night’s sleep over it, just turn it over to God.  After all, he’s going to be up all night anyway and he can certainly handle our worries a whole lot better than we can.

   Then one more suggestion to develop and maintain intimacy with God is this: give him your waning thoughts.  As the day draws to a close, bring it to an end the same way you began it, by talking to God.  Thank him for the good parts of the day.  Commend to his care the hard parts.  Seek his mercy and forgiveness for the bad parts of the day.  Seek his strength and help to do better the next day.  And as you close your eyes to fall asleep, take comfort in what Ps. 121 says, namely, that “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”  And if you fall asleep while you are giving God your waning thoughts, as I do pretty well every night, don’t worry about it.  Don’t feel bad about it.  For what better place to doze off than in the arms of your Heavenly Father?  And what better way to doze off than with a truly God-filled heart?    

 Amen.