Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Living in the not yet: dealing with a stony heart

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Stony HeartIn the absence of a good idea for a title and the fact that the idea is similar, I borrowed the title of an earlier post as the name for this one.

In the earlier post, I focused on the places in Scripture where the lament “how long oh Lord” expresses the longing for things to be other than they currently are.

In reading through the early chapters of Hebrews this morning, I read a verse that describes this situation. The writer of Hebrews writes this about Christ:

 “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.” (Hebrews 2:8, ESV)

This verse tells me that God remains in control and he has given all the world in subjection to Jesus Christ, but we do not see everything operating in subjection to Christ at this time.

It is easy to point the finger at all the trouble in the world as evidence that this verse is true. We have terrorists raining death and destruction on innocent people. We have governments with an anti-religious bias actively persecuting believers. We have disasters both natural and man-made. There is a lot we can look at as evidence that the world is not yet subjected to Christ.

But we must also look inside. If we are honest, we see the seeds of rebellion against Christ in our own hearts. We still struggle against emulating our first parents in their usurping of God’s authority. James tells us:

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1, ESV)

So living in the not yet, we struggle with the pieces of the world (including ourselves) that are not in submission to Christ. That is the bad news.

The good news is that one day Jesus will return and set everything right, including my stony heart.

Can we stop pointing fingers?

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Finger Pointing
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If we read of the failures of the Nation of Israel in the Old Testament without identifying our own, similar failures, we miss an opportunity for growth. The temptation of superficial worship is universal. Israel struggled with it, churches struggle with it, and I struggle with it. Through Isaiah, God said this to the nation of Israel:

“What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the Lord. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats. “When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts? “Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies— I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. “I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them. “So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:11–17, NASB)

The temptation is to feel that if we worship on Sunday (and maybe attend small group), give some money and do our (almost) daily devotions, we have done well. But the problem is that we can do all of this without having our hearts changed and without drawing close to the God we claim to worship. The forms have changed but the tendency toward having hard hearts has not.

Racial tensions have been running high in my country. I assume that the events that have been happening in Ferguson, Missouri are known throughout the world. Based on tidbits of information and our own predispositions, it is tempting to point the finger of blame on a person or group for these events.

But I wonder if things would be different if we, as the church, took seriously the commands at the end of the passage cited above. Have we turned a blind eye to injustice? Have we allowed the ruthless to prevail? Have we done all that we can for widows and orphans?

It has been said that in America, the most racially segregated time is Sunday morning worship. Too often the racial make-up of the local church does not reflect that of the surrounding community. Some of the separation is based on style preferences, but style preference is a lame excuse for the lack of fellowship between believers and congregations.

God said to Israel and is saying to us that it doesn’t matter a whit about the style or intensity of the external forms of worship. It doesn’t matter if we can point to the beautiful church buildings, exuberant worship or motivational preaching. God is not impressed and neither should we be.

God wants our hearts to reflect his heart. What would our world look like if they did? We would probably do less finger pointing and more work to bring healing and reconciliation.

Tune my heart . . .

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praying_handsI love many of the old hymns. The ones I most appreciate are those for which much thought was put into the lyrics. One of my favorite hymns is “Come Thou Fount.” Here are the lyrics:

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 12:1-2 that I need to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. This transformation is what the author of Come Thou Fount has in mind. Phrases like “tune my heart,” “by thy help I’m come” and “bind my wandering heart” speak to the need for God to transform me.

This morning I attended a Men’s breakfast where the speaker talked about prayer. As he was speaking, I thought about this need for transformation and how this should be the first thing for which I pray. Perhaps this is why my favorite prayer recorded in Scripture is, “I believe, help my unbelief.”

Now on to one of my pet peeves. I notice that in the last few years when “Come Thou Fount” is sung in churches the lyrics of the first verse have been changed. Instead of saying “Praise the mount” the lyrics have been changed to “Praise the name.” While this seems innocuous, I think it actually does violence to the meaning of the song. The mount to which the author refers is Mount Calvary, without which the transformation is not possible. If we take the cross out of the song, from where will the transformation come?

It is precisely because Jesus died and rose again that I can have hope to be other than I am. For what could I pray if there was no hope that my sin has been conquered? For what could I pray if Jesus did not rise and demonstrate that sin and death are vanquished? What hope have I without the Cross and the empty tomb?

But he did go to Mount Calvary and the tomb is empty, therefore I can be transformed.

Pursue the reality beyond

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Reality beyondHaving been born at the tail end of the baby boom, I have the dubious distinction of being part of what the psalmist describes as being “a generation that did not prepare its heart” (Psalm 78:8 NASB) or “A generation that did not set its heart aright” (NKJV). The point is that the psalmist laments the lack of intentionality of that generation in following God.

Matthew Henry, in commenting on this Psalm makes the statement, “hypocrisy is the high road to apostasy.” This makes sense to me. If one generation is paying lip service to the Gospel but not living it out, it will make it difficult for the next generation to pay the Gospel any attention at all.

Unfortunately, I have seen this played out. Too often, a church does a good job of preaching grace, but the church culture is one of legalism and works-based acceptance. It is not surprising that such a church has a poor track record for retaining its youth. The pattern is too often repeated where a student leaves for college and drifts away from following Christ, many never to return. The hypocrisy in the practice of the church provided a ready excuse for the claims of Christ to be rejected.

To the generations that follow us “boomers” I offer the advice given in vv. 7-8 of Psalm 78:

“That they should put their confidence in God
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments,
And not be like their fathers,
A stubborn and rebellious generation,
A generation that did not prepare its heart
And whose spirit was not faithful to God.” (Psalm 78:7–8)

Don’t be like the previous generations that willfully ignore God. Don’t give yourself the option of being blind to any reality beyond the physical universe. Don’t summarily reject the God of the Bible without examining the revelation he entailed to us. Don’t let the gap between what my generation says and what we do be an excuse to reject the God we claim to worship.

For my generation, I would also offer the hope that it is never too late to return and see the reality that you’ve been ignoring. I must constantly remind myself that there is a reality beyond the thing that consumes me at the moment. I must, as the psalmist reminds me, “prepare my heart” to be conscious of the eternal. I must not let good things become ultimate things in my life.

 

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