By Having the Right Focus on the Heart

Have you ever noticed how quickly the passions of the heart can change? Just observe how many times a person’s loves or obsessions change.

Recently I was with my daughter Kjirsti (Picture of Kjirsti) and she generally has 2 passions in life. The first is to be a Princess (Picture of Princesses). I mean I completely understand where she gets that from. How much of marketing and entertainment for young girls is pointed at being a princess (thanks Disney). Her other passion is to be part of the Paw Patrol (picture of Paw Patrol). I get it who wouldn’t want to be an amazing puppy that can rescue the world from all kinds of problems. So in the midst of this conversation we were having someone asked her what she likes to do. And suddenly she launched into a discussion of how she wants to grow up to be a Police Officer (picture of police officer) so she can wear the special shirt that lets her arrest bad people. I didn’t even know she knew what a police officer did, let alone that their shirt means you get to arrest people. Never before had she given any indication that she wanted to be a police officer, but suddenly in a moment she changed the entire career goal she was trying to achieve. I mean a child’s heart changes so quickly.

Or you can observe it on social media all the time. I love social media because it so loudly proclaims for all the world to see the passions of the heart. Have you ever noticed the patterns of passions as revealed on social media. Every January 1 – about the 4^th of January you have all the people who have new found and short-lived passion for health. So as if it doesn’t count they post non-stop about the diet they are on or that they were just at the gym to work out. By March they are posting about 15 desserts that are easy to make in the microwave. In July they are posting about everything bacon wrapped. And by November they share the Facebook live video of them attempting to eat a 7 pound burger. Our passions change quickly and often in the opposite direction of where they used to lie.

I could talk for hours about the ways we see the changing of Passions. From sports teams, to hobbies, to brands we show allegiance to, and even to the way we spend our money.

The problem is that our changes of passion are not just a funny thing for us to sit back and laugh about. The problem is that if our heart is not focused on God our passions can quickly become idols in our life that begin to shape the way we think, act, and live. Soon that simple desire or hobby, becomes our defining point, our point of focus, and soon we are worshipping the created thing instead of the Creator.

This year our churches theme is Growing What God Has Given. Our focus is on taking the things that God has given us the opportunity to steward and using it in an effective way. Our focus is also on growing spiritually in each and every area of our lives.

Today we are concluding a 5 week series on How People Grow! So far we have seen people grow by:

By Having the Right Goal

By Having the Right Authority

By Having the Right Process

By Having the Right Discipline

And today we will be discussing By Having the Right Focus on the Heart!

With that in mind let me encourage you to take your Bibles and turn with me to Psalm 16. That’s page ______ of the front section of the Bible located under the chair in front of you.

Let’s Pray!

Now let me set up Psalm 16, for you.

• Psalm 16 is not precisely about growth but it does give us a picture of the heart of an individual trusting in God alone
• Psalm 16 gives us a very clear picture of what a pure heart is and mentions what a pure heart is not.
• Psalm 16 gives us what a heart that is poised to handle life well without being shaken is.
• So if you want to grow, this is the heart that is the example that we grow unto…

As we go through the text, I will draw your attention to the terminology that refers to 1. our hearts or inner man…and 1. our delights

Psalm 16

1Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You.

2I said to the Lord (Inner man), “You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.” (delights)

[The Psalmist is speaking here words in his inner man…saying, “Lord, you are my Lord and there is no good besides you. He is not talking to other people, this is monolog in his inner man]

3As for the saints who are in the earth, They are the majestic ones

in whom is all my delight. (delights)

4The sorrows of those who have bartered for (or literally run after) another god will be multiplied;

I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood,

Nor will I take their names upon my lips.

[We will talk about what the last two lines about drink offerings and taking their names upon my lips mean in just a moment]

5The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup;

You support my lot.

6The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; (delights)

Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me. (delights)

[The Psalmist uses a metaphor here related to being assigned a particular piece of property. Very simply, Israel’s origins consisted of being wandering nomads with flocks as their livelihood. A wandering nomad with flocks is always in need of a piece of land to feed the flocks and possibly cultivate that land for food and build upon it. When God came to Abraham, the wandering, landless nomad and said, I will give you land….that was an amazing security—What that land represented to Abraham and Israel and frankly us….is a means of secure existence that was secure….If you have land you have secure life……!!!

Thus, in the metaphor of landed property here, what is the Psalmist saying?

“The Lord is my secure existence…He is my inheritance, He is my heritage and He is beautiful…pleasant not the land…..

7I will bless the Lord who has counseled me;

Indeed, in the night my mind (inner man) instructs me

The word for “mind” here is literally “kidneys” and when you think of “kidney’s” you think of your inner most organs. In my understanding, up to this point, Hebrew did not have a word for “mind”. However the concept of the inner man is being referred to here through the use of the word for kidneys’

When the Psalmist speaks of the night here, that is also probably a metaphor for the dark times of life….

The Psalmist is saying that my “inner man” is counseled by the Lord in the dark times of this life…

8I have set the Lord continually before me;

Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

The right hand is the place of strength and power—and because the Lord is the Psalmist’s strength and power, he will not be shaken

9Therefore my heart (inner man) is glad and my glory rejoices; (delight)

Surely my flesh/life also will dwell securely. (my outer man is secure)

And somehow, someway…my outer man will be not be left in the grave….

10For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol;

Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.

Somehow, someway, because God is the delight of my heart, and my life, my secure existence….He

11You will make known to me the path of life;

In Your presence (or before your face) is fullness of joy; (delight, satiation)

In other places of Scripture, we see, God saying that nobody can see His face and live, but the Psalmist is expecting to see God’s face and in that is not death but the fullness of life…what is going on here?

In Your right hand there are pleasures forever. (delight)

Let us look at 4 characteristics of the heart from Psalm 16 that will help us grow!

I. The heart’s description: Your heart is the place of your desires or delights that govern your actions and emotions!

As we read through Psalms 16 I hope you noticed all of the ways the Psalmist described the heart and all of the outworkings of what that means.

A. The heart is the inner man/ immaterial part of man

• Soul (2)

“I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.”” (Psalm 16:2, NASB95)

• In this verse the statement I said to the Lord.
  • Is referring to a conversation the Psalmist is saying inside of Himself.
  • He is speaking truth into his soul.
  • He is telling himself of the goodness of God. There is no good outside of God.
• Mind or Kidneys (7)
  • Now the concept of loving someone with all your kidneys has certainly never caught on in English.
    • Not sure what has taken Hallmark so long to capitalize on this great description.
  • But in Hebrew this would have been in reference to all of the insides of you.
  • In other words every part of me is so saturated in Lord that even in the dark times of my life it will remind me of the counsel of the Lord.
  • My insides, my mind are so in tune with the Lord.
• Heart (9)
  • My heart is not in reference to the beating organ inside of your chest.
  • It is a reference to the center of your living.
  • If the heart doesn’t work then you can’t live.
  • So if my heart is glad and focused on Christ then the rest of me will be as well.
• This phrase bartered after another god introduces a new idea to us.
  • This means to chase after something
  • Literally to want something so bad you will do whatever it takes to get it.
• The majority of us do not tend to struggle with worshipping an idol that has been engraved specifically for us.
  • Most of us do not have our own shrine in which we go to worship some idol.
  • As a result we might be tempted to think that the warning found in this verse is not applicable to us.
• However, we all naturally chase after other gods (mainly our own self-worship)
• Tim Keller in his excellent work Idols of the Heart identifies two main categories of idols that tend to show up in our lives.
  • Far idols
    • Power
    • Approval
    • Comfort
    • Control
  • Near idols
    • Spouse
    • Career
    • Business
    • Ministry
    • Music
• What are the underlying idols that motivate your personal idols?
  • What is the core god inside of you that you run after?
  • How does that core god show up in your life in ways you can clearly see?
• This concept of not pouring out a drink offering refers to not fellowshipping with those idols.
  • “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,” (Titus 2:11–12, NASB95)
    • We must deny these gods that so often we are tempted to pursue.
    • Our problems are we have good relationships and know the names of many other gods….
      • I can call up the god of illicit sexual pleasure by name and have dinner with him any time….
      • I can call up the god of entertainment by name and spend hours with him
      • Oh, you know, the god of my rights, me and him get angry all the time when we don’t get our way
      • Not to mention the god of prestige, me and her go out together all the time and talk about ourselves at church, work, and the community.
      • And, me and the god of possessions have an intimate relationship where he gives me a bunch of new man size toys regularly and I play with them for hours.
      • And the god of relationships, me and him, work together to use people to bring me my identity in life…Me and him use our spouse, our children, our friends to find significance….
• The Psalmist mentions that he will not even take their names upon his lips.
  • Here is a cool textual note from Hebrew.
    • I graduated from Faith Bible Seminary so it is good that I demonstrate a cool textual fact from the original language every once in a while. (Especially since FBS just received their accreditation this month.)
    • I will put the verse back on the screen here for a minute and you can look in your Bible as well.
    • “The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips.” (Psalm 16:4, NASB95)
      • Now if you are reading this text from your Bible it probably has the word ‘god’ in italics.
        • When you see an italicized word like this it means that the word was added in by the translators to make the verse make more sense in the translation between languages.
      • So notice the play within this piece of Hebrew poetry.
        • The last line of this verse says “I will not take their names upon my lips.”
        • So in the original language the author was writing that without using the word ‘god’.
          • He literally was not taking the names of the idols upon his lips even in the writing of this Psalm.
  • How convicting is this?
    • Think about how dangerously close to the very things that stand against the things do we allow ourselves to get.
    • Here the Psalmist is saying I will not even take the name of these idols on my lips and often we entertain these idols or are even entertained by these idols.
    • “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:5, NASB95)
• The result of pursuing idols always ends in sorrow.
• Idols lead you into sorrow. This may show up in different ways in your life.
  • Anger
  • Overwhelming anxiety
  • Paralyzing fear
  • Intense Sorrow
• What do you love the most in life?
• What do you desire most in life?
• Where do you find your hope or security or refuge most when pressures come?
• What do you fear and worry about?
• What do you think you need the most?
• For what do you spend most of your energies trying to obtain?
• What does your world revolve around?
• What angers, distresses, depresses, or worries you the most?
• Whose performance matters the most?
• Whom must you please?
• How do you define success?
• In what person’s acceptance, possession, achievement, “makes you somebody?”
• The Lord is my inheritance and my cup
  • An abundant life.
    • Life, land, and pleasure
• The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places
  • I like where I am
• My heritage is beautiful to me
  • The Lord is my life, not the material things of life.
• In the figurative and literal night his mind instructs him.
  • In the moments you lay awake your mind can instruct in the ways of the Lord.
  • In the midst of the dark seasons of your life your mind can instruct you.
• One of the most fascinating concepts in this passage in the Psalmist’s confidence that somehow, even his flesh, his physical body, will be preserved somehow.
  • So in the greatest “night of the soul”, the greatest darkness of life—“death”…the Psalmist has confidence….
    • He says, “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol nor will you allow your holy one to undergo decay.”
    • How is that possible??
    • How is a heart with this level of “unshakableness” even possible?
  • Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices
    • Friends, isn’t this the kind of heart that we all want?
      • A content, resting, confident, joyful heart….that even in the face of the darkest night of the soul—death, we can have this kind of heart?
      • How is that possible?
• The word presence here actually refers to the face of God.
  • So in the face of God is the fullness of God.
• How do we see the face of God?
  • In Christ
    • “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18, NASB95)
      • We see the glory of God with an unveiled face.
    • “Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them: The Lord bless you, and keep you; The Lord make His face shine on you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.’ “So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them.”” (Numbers 6:22–27, NASB95)
      • May the Lord’s face shine upon you.
    • “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14, NASB95)
      • In the person of Christ we see the glory of God revealed to us.
        • We see the face of God through Jesus “God in flesh” among us.
• The fullness of joy comes from the seeing of the glory of God as revealed in the person and work of Christ.
  • In the unexplainable love of God
    • Christ left heaven to come dwell among us
    • Christ came to live perfect among us
    • Christ came to die for us
    • Christ rose to give us life eternal
    • Christ loved us when we were yet sinners.
    • Christ restored us to a relationship with God.
  • No idol could every compare.
    • Power – we could never have enough power to be able to make ourselves right with God.
    • Approval – we find the ultimate approval in the finished work of Christ. Where His righteousness is applied to us through justification.
    • Comfort – There is no comfort like the confidence that God will not abandon us to Hell, but will instead show us the path of life that brings the fullness of joy.
    • Control – You are never able to make life work like your Creator. Suddenly in Christ we recognize the need to relinquish control, because God is in control.
• In the fraudulent worship of our idols there is a futility to life.
  • You will never be satisfied enough.
  • You will never be happy.
  • You will never be satiated.
  • Someone or something will always disappoint you.
  • Things will anger, discourage, and depress you.
• But in the beauty of Christ life will have purpose.
  • There is contentment in Christ.
  • There is rest in Christ.
  • There is joy in Christ.
  • There is confidence in Christ.
• Only when I am captivated by Christ do all the other treasures and pleasures of the world fade.
  • “How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights. For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.” (Psalm 36:7–9, NASB95)
  • "God doesn’t just give you satisfaction. Rather than merely give you water, he establishes in you a fountain of living water." - Brad Bigney
• A heart that recognizes no other good exists outside of God.
• A heart that chases after no other god.
• A heart that sees its life as God alone.
• A heart that receives God’s Word.
• A heart that trust God in the darkest of night.
• A heart that rejoices in the security offered in Christ

“I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.” (Psalm 16:7, NASB95)

“Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely.” (Psalm 16:9, NASB95)

In Psalm 26:2 the Psalmists uses the same two words and invites the Lord to examine his innermost secret parts….

Psalm 26:2 Examine me, O Lord, and try me; test my mind (“kidneys”—inner most secret part of man) and my heart.

The second element of the heart from this passage is that the…

B. The heart is where your greatest delights/treasures/loves reside

• V2…I have no good besides You.
• V3…They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight
• V6...in pleasant places…is beautiful to me.

Jesus Christ said, in

Matthew 6:21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Here is what that means…. Let me encourage you to jot these categories down as we go through them so you can evaluate your own life.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139:23–24, NASB95)

Look for what a person values

Look for what a person loves

Look for what a person delights in

Look for what a person chases as good

Look for what a person characterizes as beautiful

Look for what a person lives for

Look for what a person treasures

And when you find it…guess what?.... that is when you have found the essence of his heart…where your treasure is…there is your heart….

Now let’s add our last element to the heart’s description

C. The heart is the source of all aspects of life—our thinking, behavior, and emotions

In our passage we see the heart informing the Psalmist’s…

• Thinking: v. 7 “Indeed my mind (‘kidney’s inner man) instructs me”
• Behaving: v. 4 “I shall not pour out their drink offerings”
• Emoting: v. 9 “My heart is glad”

That is why Proverbs 4: 23 says…

Proverbs 4:23 “Watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life”

All of life and its issues come from the heart

Here is the bottom line:

We think what we think,

We do what we do,

and we feel what we feel

because we are loving something,

we are delighting in something, we are treasuring something….

Now, there is nothing like this concept in the world’s understanding of human psychology because they do not have a biblical understanding on man.

In the materialistic, non-supernatural, evolutionary view of mankind, they do not have a place for something like the heart!

And therefore they will have to locate the entirety of why humans do what they do outside of man and not inside of man in his heart.

The world would say you think what you think, feel what you feel, do what you do because of

My Past

My biology

My brain chemicals

My environment

My upbringing

But the bible with its view of man says all issues of life come from your heart…..and what it treasures….

II. The heart’s problem: Your heart is inclined to run after other gods/pleasures which multiply sorrows!

“The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips.” (Psalm 16:4, NASB95)

This verse is quite powerful. Right in the middle of this incredibly encouraging Psalm is a reminder of the wandering nature of the heart to pursue other gods.

Let us notice a few characteristics of the problem of our heart being inclined to run after other gods/pleasures which multiply sorrows.

A. Our heart desires our own personal desires/gods.

those who have bartered for another god (4)

B. We must not worship these other gods.

I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips.”(4)

C. These personal goals/desires will always lead to sorrow.

The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; (4)

Here are some questions written by David Powlison called “X-ray questions” that help us to begin to sift through what is going on in your heart

These idols must never be on our lips and we must not fellowship with them.

When we do not have idols then this leads us to …

III. The heart’s ideal: Your heart can be stable in a world where nothing is.

How would you describe this Psalmist heart?

How would you describe this Psalmists demeanor?

A. Content (not constantly striving)—v. 5-6

“The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.” (Psalm 16:5–6, NASB95)

B. Resting (not running)—v. 7, 9

Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.” (7)

My flesh also will dwell securely.” (9)

C. Confident (not shaking)—v. 9, 10

“For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.” (Psalm 16:10, NASB95)

And even…

D. Joyful (not despairing)—v. 9, 11

“You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” (Psalm 16:11, NASB95)

IV. The heart’s solution: Your heart can only be satisfied with a new greater delight – God!

What is the result of God being our greatest delight?

A. We will see God’s face (11)

In Your presence is fullness of joy; (11)

“The best way to overcome the world is not with morality or self-discipline. Christians overcome the world by seeing the beauty and excellence of Christ. They overcome the world by seeing something more attractive than the world: Christ. – Thomas Chalmers

B. We will have True Life (11)

“You will make known to me the path of life; (11)

“Such is the grasping tendency of the human heart, that it must have something to lay hold of – and which if wrested away without the substitution of another something in its place, would leave a void and a vacancy as painful to the mind, as hunger is to the natural system …. The heart must have something to cling to.” – Thomas Chalmers

What is the result of Having the Right Focus on the Heart?