Heart of Jesus series: A Heart like God

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 2/25/18

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^NRS Ephesians 4:23  ²³ and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, ²⁴ and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

^NRS Luke 16:13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." ¹⁴ The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. ¹⁵ So he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God. ¹⁶ "The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force. ¹⁷ But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped.

We begin today a seven part series on the Heart of Jesus. My hope is that this series will help us learn what drives Jesus as our Lord and Savior, what it is that God ultimately wants us to know and how we can begin to have that same heart in our own lives. The scripture today shares a reminder to us that we must become someone different than we are, that we need to realize that there is one driving force in the universe that is more important than anything else we understand. I read the other day that science and religion are finally coming toward a common understanding, releasing the harmful animosity that has longed plagued that relationship. That the cosmos was created in a single moment and that all life is connected across the creation and spectrum of the universe. Is it so hard to comprehend that we are all connected by this thread called creation? That we share in this life giving existence with all of creation, the birds of the air, the animals, the plants and the trees. That life force known by the American Indian as the spirit or Great Spirit flows through each of us every moment of our lives.

Luke’s Gospel proclaims that the law and the prophets were in effect until John came proclaiming the day of the Lord. From that moment on the Kingdom of God has been proclaimed. Jesus said to us that He came not to break the Law and the Prophets but came to fulfill it. So what does that mean? Jesus came into the world that we might understand what creation is supposed to look like, act like and live with interaction with the rest of creation. Jesus came to show us what the law looks like lived out in loving God and loving neighbor. God’s heart is so loving that God created us to be with one another. We subverted the idea of relationship and we keep on subverting it every day. But God did not intend it that way and Jesus came to replace the law and prophet understanding of His day with the original intent of creation. That is so important let me say it a different way. God intended Adam and Eve to not rule the world through dominance and control, but rather to steward creation with love, compassion and nurturing.

So what does Jesus heart look like? We get glimpses in the Gospels with His healings, His teachings and His example. He is constantly in prayer and connection with the world around Him. God is no further than the last second of breath that He inhaled and exhaled. That may seem difficult to understand so let me try and help us with this. Jesus spent His living moments in complete connection with God. He did that through prayer and keeping His senses open to that presence. We struggle today with that concept because we have placed Jesus in a historical box. We look at His picture and think He truly looked like that when we have no true idea of what He looked like. We paint mental images of Jesus, how He acted and how He loved based on printed words, paintings and stories. We focus on the Jesus that was rather than an ever present spirit that is with us in this moment. I often share that being called by God and we are all called by God is a tugging of the soul rather than a burning bush or neon light. If we desire to feel God, to share the heart of God, then we need to listen to the silence for the still small voice of God. My good friend Rick Griffith, whom I loved dearly as a brother and friend, used to constantly tell me to shut up, to listen and to enjoy the silence where God is speaking. He was known for his uncanny ability to know when you were having a bad day and he would call. He would often say, I felt tugged to call you today. How are things? I have felt that tugging often in my life but only when I push back the noise of the world and allow my senses to connect with the greater consciousness that is God. That may be tough to understand and I would love to spend more time explaining it so if you have an interest see me.

I believe that is what is meant by being renewed in the spirit that Paul talks about in Ephesians. We will clothe ourselves with a new mind. In the first century the mind and all that controlled the human existence was thought to originate not in the brain but in the heart. Maybe in the truth of things, they knew more than we understand now. Yes all thought, all motor skill function and all bodily control function from the brain. But the brain is most often led by emotion which I believe originates in that thing we call heart. Our capacity if you will to understand the world through our love for it and those in it. God’s heart is truly passionate and emotional. How do I know? Because Jesus showed us that heart each and every day of His physical life. I also believe that if we are open to the tugging we will experience Jesus every day of our lives.

I think this proclamation, I call it that because it is more than simply words on a page, about two masters is to get our attention and focus us on the truth of life itself. We cannot serve both a loving God and a love for materialism, possession and wealth. We can have both. Let me repeat that. God never said you have to be poor and impoverished to love God. It all depends on where your heart is. If your heart is that God is center and first in all that, you do, you will direct your life, your actions and deeds to the things that are important in creation. If your heart is on success, improving your looks for vanity reasons, buying the newest car or house so that others might see you differently than I would say God is not first and you are trying to serve two masters. We spend our whole lives moving toward a point in time. Whether we admit it or not, we focus on trying to get it all in before we reach that final breath moment. But in doing so, we often forget to stop and smell the roses as Mac Davis used to sing about so many years ago. Creation is all around us and it is the heart of creation that speaks to us in a sunrise or sunset, when we take the moment to enjoy the fluttering of the hummingbird and the song of the morning as birds, plants and the air take on the beginning of the day. It is interesting to watch the sunrise in a place where you can experience all the senses at once, the sounds, the view, the smells and the temperature change just at dawn to truly experience creation. If you have not done it in a while or maybe some of you have never done it, please take the time and let your heart feel like God’s heart for a moment embracing a new beginning in the dawn. Maybe in that moment you can realize the truth of not trying to serve two masters. Letting God tug at your heart is a great way to experience God in an intimate way. If we are to have a heart like Jesus then we must open ourselves to the possibility of loving creation around us.

So I have been talking about experiencing more than text book learning. I believe that the new clothing is about experiencing God in a way that emits more emotion than book knowledge. I truly believe that the new clothing we take on is in fact God surrounding us with love. My devotion time in the morning is so important to me that when I miss it my whole day seems unbalanced. Jesus has a heart like God. It is a heart that is in complete connection with all of creation. Jesus focused on making sure that everything He did was in keeping with that heart. If we desire to have the same heart, we need to allow God to transform us. Instead of spending all our waking moments in the noise of the world, both sound and visual noise, then we will miss God. Anatomy of Peace suggests that every time we are faced with a decision or choice, we can make the right one and have a heart of peace or the wrong one and have a heart of war. When we make the wrong decision, we immediately begin to justify why we made that decision and most often, we have allowed the people around us to become objects rather than people. If you find yourself thinking that you are better than, entitled to, worse than or I need to be seen as, then your heart is probably in a state of war. My hope is that Sydenstricker can become a place where our hearts are constantly striving to be at peace and we treat one another like people not objects. I believe that this lesson is that Jesus has a heart of peace and is in connection with you and me. I feel the tug, can you?