A Change of Heart | Jeremiah 16-17 | Gary Hamrick

all right we're here in Jeremiah chapter 16 let's have a word of Prayer and then we'll dive into our study for today lord thank you for your grace and your love in our lives thank you for just who you are Lord and if you if you never do another thing you've done more than enough already and we just worship you and exalt you and give you thanks pray now you'll bless this time in your word as we study together moving our hearts we pray open our eyes we might see what you would want to teach us today through the pages of scripture we love you and thank you in Jesus name and everybody said amen well since it's been a few weeks on our Sunday morning study in Jeremiah because of the Christmas holidays last week was the Q & A service let me just kind of recap real quickly so we get a running start as to where we are here in chapter 16 Jeremiah is a prophet that God has called to the southern territory of Israel known as the kingdom of Judah when Jeremiah is first called he is probably 17 years of age maybe a 20 no more and by the time that we get here to chapter 16 he's roughly in his mid-30s his ministry will span the reigns of five kings over the course of about forty seven years in total and here in chapter 16 a verse that we won't read but it's verse 2 Jeremiah is actually warned by God not to get married and don't have children because the calamity that is going to come upon the southern kingdom of Judah is going to be so severe that God doesn't want him to have a wife or bring children into this calamity now what is this calamity well the calamity is that God is going to discipline his own people he's going to discipline the Jewish people the people of Judah by allowing the Babylonians a pagan foreign nation that occupies the territory of what today on a map would be Iraq to come and do besieged Jerusalem and to haul away the Jewish people for seventy years of captivity in ancient Babylon or modern Iraq that's what's going to happen that is what actually does happen and why is God doing all this well God actually anticipates that question the people are gonna ask themselves and so this is what God says to Jeremiah to tell him how to answer that question so here in chapter 16 look at your Bibles with me starting at verse 10 the Lord says to him when you tell these people all this and they ask why has the Lord decreed such a great disaster against us what wrong have we done what sin have we committed against the Lord our God then say to them it is because your fathers forsook me declares the Lord and followed other gods and served and worshipped them they forsook me and did not keep my law but you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers see how each of you was following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying me so I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you know your fathers have known and there you will serve other gods day and night for I will show you no favor now I pause there for a moment your attention in other words God is saying you really love worshiping false gods and you love bowing down to these false idols these idols that can't help you fine then I'm gonna bring a foreign nation that worships those false gods and they have all those idols and they're gonna come and they're gonna forcibly remove you they're gonna separate parents from their kids they're gonna take you against your will they're gonna haul you back to Babylon and for 70 years you'll be captive there and you'll be able all day long the worship those false gods and bow down to those false idols you really like all this fine then I'm gonna give you an extra dose an extra measure of your mischief that's what God's basically saying to them it's kind of like how you remember when you're like 12 or 13 and you and you you were caught smoking cigarettes and so your mom said fine you you want to smoke cigarettes great you're gonna smoke the entire pack and she makes you smoke the entire pack remember that anyway back to our story so so that's basically what's going on here gods like great I'm gonna make you smoke the whole pack you mean you you like worshipping these idols fine I'm gonna send you to a place where they do this all day long and you can do it all day long and see how that works out for you now what I love about God amongst many things I love about him in this story here is is that in the midst of this fierce warning God inserts a promise of hope so where we just left off reading they're still in chapter 16 look at verse 14 however he says the days are coming declares the Lord when men will no longer say as surely as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt but they will say as surely as the Lord lives who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had vanished to them for I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers I'm interestingly here God is saying listen in the past I've been known as the God had delivered you after 400 years of slavery in Egypt I was that God who brought you up out of Egypt but going forward he says to them at this time I'm going to be known as the God who delivers you out of the hands of the Babylonians and brings you back after 70 years of captivity and I'll restore to you into the land of your forefathers and the reason I love this is because even before God disciplines them even before he brings the Babylonians he's already announcing his plan of restoration I mean this is a marvelous thing about the character of God how he loves his people so much and he's saying this this is what I'm gonna do to you but I just want to know in advance but I promise you a future and all this is gonna work out for your good to accomplish a greater purpose so listen friends if you feel like the heavy hand of God is disciplining you and nobody enjoys discipline at the time in fact the book of the writer of Hebrews says no discipline seems Pleasant at the time only painful however it produces a harvest of righteousness and of peace for those who've been trained by it and what God has in mind for us is the restoration he even before he announces the discipline that's a loving father he doesn't just whimsically decide yeah I'm gonna flick to you and I hope it works out for you he already has in mind I know I know there's gonna be some uncomfortable days but I have in mind for you a greater purpose and a greater plan and I'm gonna restore you God is the god of restoration and God loves to restore people and God loves to bind up the brokenhearted and God loves to return unto us that which was lost or stolen and God will accomplish his purposes in the process but he is also a God of tremendous restoration now the heart of their problem the people of Judah the heart of their problem was the problem of their heart here in chapter 16 we read it a moment ago but I want to highlight verse 12 if you look in your Bibles at verse 12 he says but you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers see how each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying me the problem is the heart it's always the problem now in the Hebrew which is the original language of the Old Testament the word heart is LaFave or often abbreviated as simply love and it means a few different things in addition to just you know being the organ which sustains life it can mean the use of the word throughout the Bible means the inner being the will the conscience moral character seat of emotion in other words where we where we feel things some of you might be familiar with a ministry called the Bible project they they sketch and they video different introductions to books of the Bible or different concepts or different words and the the Bible project actually did a little video clip on this Hebrew word laughs what does it mean when the Bible talks about the heart and so I thought it was helpful as a little tool and so I'm going to show you this short video clip it's only three minutes long take a look at your video screens for thousands of years every morning and evening Jewish people have prayed these well-known words as a way of expressing their devotion to God they're called the Shema hear o Israel the Lord is our God the Lord is one and that's for you you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart with all of your soul and with all of your strength we're going to look at the fourth key word in this prayer part which in Hebrew is sometimes pronounced Lev or more often in a shorter form Lev now different cultures throughout history have had different conceptions of how the human body works and this is also true of the ancient Israelite writers of the Bible they knew that the heart was an organ in the chest that sustains life there's mention of a heart attack in the Bible navall whose heart died inside of him and he became like stone but the biblical authors talk about the heart in many other ways that might seem strange to modern readers and that's because these Israelites had no concept of the brain or any word for it they imagined that all of the humans intellectual activity takes place in the heart for example you know with your heart in the Bible your heart is where you understand and make connections in the book of Proverbs wisdom dwells in the heart in your heart is what you use to discern between truth and error like Solomon did when he was King so the heart is where you think and make sense of the world and it's where you do more in the Bible the heart is where you feel emotions you feel pain in your heart like Hannah did when she couldn't have any children in fact the phrase a broken heart comes from ancient Biblical Hebrew you also experience fear in your heart your heart can melt or be distressed your heart can even be the press but then on the flip side your heart is where you experience joy in Hebrew to be happy is to be good of heart or to have a heart of joy so the heart is the generator of physical life it's also the center of your intellectual and emotional life and there's more in Biblical Hebrew the heart is where you make choices motivated by your desires so David pen it in his heart to build a temple for God your heart is where your affections are centered they're called the desires of your heart and if you really want something and go after it it's like what Nathan said to David whatever is in your heart so then in the Bible the heart is the center of all parts of human existence as in the well-known proverb guard your heart because from it flows your whole life now the Prophet Jeremiah believed that the human heart was fundamentally bro he said the heart of a human is deceitful above all he reversibly sick who can even understand it he had watched a whole generation turn away from God they started sacrificing their children as if that were a good thing so this is why in the imagination of the Hebrew prophets the only hope for Humanity is the total renewal of the human heart Moses predicted that if Israel was ever going to love their God their heart would need to be circumcised which is a very vivid and surprising metaphor about removing evil and stubbornness from the human heart David after he committed murder and adultery pleads with God to create in me a pure heart the prophet Ezekiel hoped for a day when God would removed the heart of stone and give his people a new heart of soft flesh which is very similar to Jeremiah's hope that God would write the commands of the Torah on the hearts of his people and that brings us all the way back to the Shema every day God's people are called to devote to God their whole body and mind their feelings and their desires their future and their failures this is what it means to love the Lord your God with all of your heart so God challenges the people of Judah in regards to their stubborn heart here in chapter 16 this was not the first place that he challenged them about their stubborn heart a lot of times he even refers to as their stubborn evil heart I'll share a few verses with you Jeremiah chapter 9 verses 13 and 14 the Lord said they have not obeyed me or followed my law instead they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts they have followed the bails which were the false gods of the Canaanites as their fathers taught them also in Jeremiah chapter 11 verses 7 & 8 I warned them again and again saying obey me but they did not listen or pray or pay attention instead they followed the stubbornness of their evil hearts in chapter 13 he says something similar in verse 10 these wicked people who refuse to listen to my words follow the stub of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them and then our verse here in chapter 16 that we've been looking at verse 12 but you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers see how each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying me and then what Jeremiah does is he kind of summarizes all of those verses into what has become one of the most familiar verses in all of the Book of Jeremiah it's in Chapter 17 and it's verse 9 and this is what it says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure who can understand it now in a few other translations I want to I want you to see similarities but also how some of the other words emphasize other aspects in the New King James the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it if you're reading for the ESV it says this the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick who can understand it so in other words whatever Bible version you are reading from the human heart apart from God is deceptive it is wicked it is sick it is beyond cure meaning we can't fix our heart but God can God can fix every broken sick and wicked heart this is why if you're there in your Bibles look at chapter 17 verse 14 this is why Jeremiah says this in chapter 17 verse 14 heal me O Lord and I will be healed save me and I will be saved for you are the one I praise in other words he realizes the problem of the human heart is something that we can't fix there's no remedy ourselves to fix what is broken within our hearts but God can this why Jeremiah says there in verse 14 of chapter 17 heal me and I'll be healed save me and I'll be saved for you were the one I praise okay what he's saying is that God can heal the broken and the sick heart and that God can save us from our sins and that God can transform a person from the inside you see wicked evil behavior is simply the result of a wicked evil heart wicked evil behavior emanates from a wicked evil heart where do you think that things like murder and theft rape sex trafficking and lying and slander and such come from well it comes from the heart this is why Jesus would say in Matthew 15:19 he says for out of the heart come evil thoughts murder adultery sexual immorality theft false testimony slander and that wasn't an all-encompassing list he's just talking about hey listen where do you think evil behavior comes from it comes from an evil heart so if we can just change the heart then we can affect behavior but the problem is that apart from Christianity a lot of other attempts are made at simply modifying behavior and it never really works because it never addresses the core issue which is the heart Jesus even said that the content and quality of our words emanate from the heart in Matthew chapter 12 34 and 35 jesus said for out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks and he adds in the next verse the good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him so in other words what we see happening in terms of behavior is just basically the manifestation of what's going on in the human heart and we can fake things for a while but the true core of a person is the human heart and that is what will dictate what ends up being the behavior of that individual and again besides Christianity however other world religions and social science for that matter will try to do a lot of things to try to curb human behavior with external motivation the Christianity is the only world religion and the only system at all that makes the claim of internal transformation see the rest of the world world religions and social is looking at external motivation how can we adjust or control behavior Christianity asserts internal transformation is is how we change behavior and internal transformation is something that can only happen a miraculously happens through a personal relationship with the Lord see when you look at other world religions many other world religions recognize a problem with human behavior they recognize the problem of the human heart but they offer no real solutions other than trying to say if you just simply devote yourself to a structured system of good works that will curtail your bad behavior or if you punish your body enough then that will curtail bad behavior but that only addresses conduct and not the core it's like try trying to treat only the symptoms but not the disease social science is in the same predicament it's very similar to the way that social scientists try to deal with the complex issues of human behavior through the techniques of behavior modification which is based basically on a system of rewards and Punishment and it only has limited success you could train behavior in a person either through the motivation of great rewards or through the motivation of severe punishments but again it only addresses conduct and not the core of a person you know take for example when you look at at how animal trainers will train ferocious animals or wild beasts you know take Lions for example or elephants and they train them to do tricks and you know in the circus and all this kind of stuff a trainer will typically use the same kind of behavior modification techniques it'll be a reward and Punishment system so it's it's a reward and it's a whip a reward and a whip and it can train their behavior only to a certain degree but the animal must always go back in the cage because you can never change the nature of the animal you can only temporarily modify their behavior through a system of training this is the tragic reason why we heard it even just this week is the tragic reason why sometimes even the best behaved animals who have been trained will attack their trainer or son or an elephant will stamp heed its trainer be and it happened just this week a 22 year old young lady as an intern down at this conservation in North Carolina serving as an intern was cleaning out one of the lion enclosures and the lion got in there mauled her to death so this kind of thing happens why because you can you can modify the behavior to some degree but you can never change the nature of the beast that's why the Beast always has to go back in the cage but with humanity Christianity comes along and makes this bold assertion that through the power of God in a relationship with him he can transform the inside of a person and he can make you a new creature from within that he can radically alter a person's heart and transform the very nature of the individual through a relationship with Jesus Christ this is what the Bible teaches this is the hope of the church amen give God pray they're gonna clock give him praise give him real praise [Applause] this is why Paul the right in second Corinthians 5:17 If any man be in Christ he's a new creation the old has gone the new has come therefore when you get this internal transformation it then affects the external see when you come into relationship with Christ and he transforms your heart it affects how you behave you your behavior changes your speech changes your values change your perspective changes your priorities change because of this internal thing that's going on in your heart and so it affects all aspects of your life let me illustrate it with this true story some of you might be familiar with some church history and different revivals that have happened around the world over over the last few centuries one of which happened in the early 1900s 1904 to 1905 in South Wales was called the great Welsh revival and in a period of one year 1904 to 1905 an estimated 150,000 plus people in South Wales got saved it was just a move of God's Spirit and just God's Spirit just poured out and churches were packed and all areas of social indicators improved when when all these people were radically getting saved economic productivity increased crime decreased jails were empty saloons were empty it was an amazing result the transforming work of Jesus Christ in the lives of these Welsh people but one of the factors that actually decline interestingly was coal production now South Wales in the early 1900's was a coal mining industry that's what they survived on and many tens of thousands of the coal miners got saved during the Great Welsh revival in fact history records how many of them would leave the coal mines after a hard day's work and they'd have church services all through the night and they would just show up with all the black dust all over them and go right into church okay why was coal productivity declining when all the other social indicators were remarkably getting better here's what they discovered the Little Ponies that carried the coal carts out of the mines okay that hauled the coal carts out of the mine no longer responded to the commands of the Welsh coal miners because when these guys got saved they stopped cussing at the ponies and kicking them true story so before they got saved they're like you do blankety-blank they'll bleep and bleep and ponies go gather and they'd haul the coal out of the coal mines and then after these Welsh guys got saved you like Holly live you little pretty creature of God why don't you go hold hold a little coal out for me would you please just call you gentle sweet Jesus I love you so much go ahead just take the coal out of the this I don't know why I have to turn into a Scottish accent but I don't I got saved and a lot of things changed in my life and you have your you have your watch my little pony television show it's a little it's kind of creepy you probably shouldn't watch it go ahead and take the call out for me would ya they weren't gonna be weren't responding because these guys were getting saved it's a remarkable thing what happens when when a heart changes from the inside now having said that don't make any mistake however you get a new heart but you're still in an old body of life and that new heart wants to do different things in your old body of flesh wants to do and therein lies the conflict this was why Paul talks in the New Testament about how I there's a war going on within my members see because before a person comes to faith in Christ and I'm just gonna use this terminology for descriptive purposes they're they're just live in old ways so they have old heart old ways and those things aren't in conflict they're you're just doing what you want to do because you have no real conviction there's no real you know conviction about certain things and so you do whatever you jolly well want to do it's old man old heart you know old ways old heart doing doing what you want to do then a person gets saved and now it's now it's new heart old ways and those things conflict every once in a while and you begin to realize I'm convicted about certain things I didn't used to be convicted about and now I feel this tension in my own life and I and there's things that my flesh wants to do and I know aren't really pleasing to God and so now you're in this conflict eventually one day we we get we maintain Newhart and get new body and so new heart a new body means no more temptation no more struggles no more stress a life of eternity with the Lord in heaven but that's heaven in the meantime as a Christian you've been transformed from the inside but you're still living in the old body it's it's like it's like taking a beat-up car with a rusted frame and you know tires that are dry rot and then shots that are completely wasted but you drop a whole new engine in that car now you got a whole new power all right a whole new power at your disposal but but that engine is still going to be somewhat limited based on the old frame that it is within and so thus the Christian life becomes one of wonderful new joint wonderful new perspective wonderful new values and wonderful new way of thinking and living and and behaving but there will often still be this conflict within where the old the old flesh that were still housed within with all of its desires wants to dominate your new heart and that's why we have to pray as David did in Psalm 51 verse 10 create in me a clean heart O Lord and renew a right spirit within me so we have to still pray those kind of prayers Lord create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me David also pray in Psalm 86 verse 11 give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name I don't want to be duplicitous Lord I don't want to and want to be divided in my life and in my heart give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name five quick things before we go I'm gonna rattle these off real quickly five quick things we need to know about God and our heart for you note-takers here's the first one God searches the heart Jeremiah tells us this in chapter 17 verse 10 I the Lord search the heart also in first chronicles 28:9 the Bible says for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts okay nothing is hidden from God he knows everything concerning every detail of our hearts number two God tests the heart in Proverbs 17 verse 3 it says the crucible for silver and the furnace for gold but the Lord tests the heart now listen to that comparison there you use a crucible for silver use a furnace for gold they are both objects of intense heat because you're refining the silver and the gold so you put it in the crucible you put it in the furnace and the intense heat raises the impurities to the surface so you can skim it off and now you have a more pure substance and in proverbs 17 3 there what the writer of Proverbs is saying is God will sometimes turn up the heat to expose what's in our hearts and God tests the heart you know you you and I don't really know what's in our heart when the day is wonderful everything's perfect everything life's life's firing on all cylinders and the birds are chirping and the flowers are out it's it's when someone cuts you off off in traffic and then you realize what's in your heart it's the little things the little birds that get under your saddle that begin to the irritants and the end and the bigger things where God might test us in larger ways oftentimes what God is doing is for our benefit he's turning up the heat he's allowing situations in our lives to expose what's in our heart so that we can get rid of the impurities the crucible for silver the furnace for gold but God tests the heart this is what he did with the people of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 2 Moses said to the people of Israel remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years to Humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart whether or not you would keep his commands now please note when Moses says that he doesn't mean that God was testing them so that he would know so that God would know was in their hearts he already knows what's in our hearts he was testing them so that they would know what was in their hearts and God will sometimes allow different tests and afflictions and things to come our way in order to expose the deeper issues of our heart that that we need to deal with we need to give to him sometimes we don't realize how bitter we are unforgiving we are angry we are resentful we are until until some something impacts it and triggers it and then and then it comes to the surface well God is dealing with us so responded recognize those things say Lord I know you want to get rid of this in my life so thank you for this test that exposed it number three God knows the heart some 4421 simply says God knows the secrets of the heart nothing is hidden from him number four God values the heart in 1st Samuel 16 verse 7 it says man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart this verse came about because Samuel the Prophet was told by God to go anoint one of the sons of Jesse to be the next king of Israel Samuel shows up at Jesse's house had never met the boys before they were all young adults except for one young little David who was still tending sheep out in the field David's father Jesse didn't even think enough of David to invite him to the Greek meet with Samuel so the seven sons of Jesse first appeared before Samuel and he goes down the line and discerns from the Lord not you not you not you not you not you even though the Bible says all of them were well-built fine young men David was the one this young runt of the family out tending sheep Samuel said we're just gonna sit right here until you bring that other son in that I haven't met yet and when David comes in Samuel knows this is the one who was to be anointed the next king of Israel because God looks at the heart man evaluates a lot of things by outward appearance not God God looks at the heart of an individual and lastly number five God judges and rewards the heart in 1st Corinthians 4:5 it says therefore judge nothing before the appointed time wait till the Lord comes he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts and at that time each will receive his praise from God I find that very interesting that when Paul writes that there in 1st Corinthians 4 he doesn't focus on the judgment of God per se just that God is going to discern the human heart and he's going to see those who love him and follow him and those who don't and the ones who love Him he will praise he will honor and so God sees and God knows and God values and God judges and rewards the heart which is why proverbs 4:23 above all else church guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life amen let's pray together Lord we thank you for this reminder from your word about the importance of our heart their hard being right with you I pray right now Lord that we would regularly seek your face make sure our heart is right with you thank you that you do your transforming work from the inside out but there are still times that we may stumble and give in to the old flesh and so we pray that you would empower us and help us and that as far as it depends on us proverbs 4:23 that we would guard our hearts for is the wellspring of life we thank you Lord for your transforming work of the human heart how you can change a person you can radically change our hearts and we glorify you for that Lord we praise you and thank you together in Jesus name and everybody said amen

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

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Keywords: Gary Hamrick, Cornerstone Chapel, heart, Calvary Chapel

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Length: 34min 52sec (2092 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2019