Warm-hearted in a Cold-hearted World - Part 2 | Beth Moore

living proof with beth moore is sponsored by the friends and partners of living proof ministries we're going to act like we think we're just going to we're going to live it out what we're that it's going to come out in the decisions we make and the behaviors we have it's just the way it is and so the reason we continue to feel those same old ways about those same old things is because we continue to operate out of that same old person hard hearts cause ignorant minds we can take it to the bank and it's one reason why that we don't want to be a people or a person an individual that just says you know my heart has really grown hard there and we just go on with it if our hearts have grown hard there what happens with a hard heart is it gives us an ignorant mind so we're not even thinking with wisdom we're not even thinking with the intelligence that god would give the sound mind because the hard heart causes an ignorant mind you can trust your heart heart to do two things i can trust my heart heart to do two things and that is lie to me and make me ignorant being ignorant means that i can be absolutely positive this is what i believe and it'd be completely wrong because a hard heart causes an ignorant mind now in our scripture reading tonight so this is where we've been we've been in ephesians 4 we started 17 we went all the way to the second verse of chapter 5 in ephesians and then we also read matthew 24 12 and i don't think i read 13 but i'm going to right now let me read it to you it says this because lawlessness i'm going to read now out of the csv lawlessness will multiply or increase the love of many will grow cold but the one who endures to the end will be saved i want you to see with me that we have seen a mention of three different descriptions of the heart the one in matthew by inference the other two just straight out so matthew 24 12 my inference talks about a cold heart when our love is grown cold ephesians 4 18 talks about a hard heart and ephesians 4 32 talks about a tender heart now i felt i find matthew 24 12 so compelling because in in those two verses in matthew chapter 24 verses 10 through 12 so three verses 10 through 12 listen to how many many's there are in the passage some some by inference that are going along with the and listen to what i mean it says in matthew 24 10-12 that many will fall away and this is the further and further it gets um in the kingdom calendar the closer it gets to the time when a christ will return and he will set up his kingdom that the further and further we get into that uh kingdom calendar we don't know where we are in it we don't know all we can do is read signs just like the word of god says but here are some descriptions that he gives listen to the word many listen for that key word then many will fall away many will betray one another many will hate one another many false prophets will arise many will be led astray and then it says and because of lawlessness being increased the love of many will grow cold and the niv says most will grow cold here's the thing that i have to face in those passages that if it's the many then that's the default if i'm not going to be one of the many that falls away that betrays that hates that becomes a false prophet that gets led astray if it's going to be many and i don't be i don't want to be one of them i have to be deliberate and i have to be conscious that i want to be among some not the many the exceptions will be very much on purpose because if we don't guard our hearts by natural default they are going to grow cold because the world will grow harder and harder and harder so will we be part of the many like most people in houston texas and the surrounding areas i have just air allergies just regular not anything really huge but somebody had recommended to me some number of years ago you really ought to get claritin d because it will it will really help all of that and she said but you have to go to the pharmacy and get it you can't just get it off the shelf and so i did that i went and stood at the pharmacy counter i asked showed my driver's license to get it and i don't know what you do with that that you need to show your driver's license for but i don't think i've ever done it because nothing weird has ever happened to me except that i just try to try to deal with my allergies but when i went back the second time so i'd taken it i guess for a couple of weeks and so i was finally out of it and then i went back to get it a second time and and you know they say that you can ask the pharmacist questions and so i asked if i could ask the pharmacist a question and i said you know what the only thing is i i it makes me drowsy i said do do you hear that a lot and and she looked at me this was the uh pharmacist she looked at me completely deadpan i mean completely deadpan monotone just monotone nothing about her voice she looked at me just like this she was obviously not having a fun day she looked at me just like this and she said it makes one in a million drowsy or you wanted a million and i said no no i'm not one in a million and you know it never made me drowsy after that never ever because you know i kept thinking every time i would think i was driving you're not drowsy because are you one in a million you don't want in a million are you one in a million no you're not one in a million but what i'm going to tell you is it may be that it's one in a million that hangs in there and keeps a tender heart in a very very cold world let me tell you it's not just because we're sinful that our hearts end up getting hard and cold is because it's so rough out there so much bad news so relentless that as a pure defense we will start covering that heart i was so intrigued i didn't i didn't come prepared to tell you all this but i'm remembering it so i i hope i remember it uh just right but i did some study at uh some point on what it means to guard our hearts because of course the proverbs say that from the heart comes the overflow of the life so guard it guard the heart and then i found out that that word the form of that same word was used for god maintaining his love and i had assumed that when you guard your heart you're really careful who you love when god is guarding his heart so that he continues to maintain his love it was a little bit of a game changer to me because i i mean there's we want to guard our hearts about who we give our our affections to certainly intimacy but i'm talking about isn't that an interesting twist on it that the guarding of the heart would be that we stay warm-hearted in a very cold world that our love that we maintain the ability to love from a tender place that that's what it means most of all i was thinking for us in christ that a cold heart comes one primary way and that's distance from the sun don't you believe it's true it's an interesting thing remember where the niv says in matthew 24 12 because of the increase of wickedness where other translations like the esv and also the csv say because of lawlessness hearts will grow cold and you know our first natural thought is to think in terms of civic law like stop at a red light don't speed on the freeway don't do the following things that are parts of the law of the city the county the nation but that was not primarily what that meant in his wording in the new testament lawlessness in scripture primarily refers to lawlessness with god's law divine law of which he said two things are paramount everything else hinges on those which commandment is the greatest love the lord your god with all your heart soul mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself such an interesting thing that when we think of lawlessness we're not thinking in terms of those laws very very intriguing that jesus in matthew 23 28 accused the most morally scrupulous scribes and pharisees specifically of lawlessness it says it this way and i'm quoting now matthew 23 28 in the same way on the outside you seem righteous to people but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness we can be devoted to the diligent study of the word of god 12 hours a day and him still look at us and go you are completely lawless we keep every single rule except the law of love so how on earth do we keep a tender heart be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another as god in christ forgave you i found this is kind of a side note it's not really where we're headed but it's worth saying because if you're like me one of the biggest things you've ever struggled with in your entire life is forgiving someone that has brought you a great deal of harm and pain and i found in my years of journeying with god that when for the life of me i cannot get to forgiveness when i just i mean i'll pray it and i just never do move into it i still feel all of those same things i get back around them and feel those same things but i found over and over again if i will ask god to give me compassion for that person it is the key that unlocks the forgiveness if i can just enter in to their own brokenness their own pain their own ailing forgiveness comes so much easier i was thinking to myself it is highly possible that the leading cause of forgiveness is compassion we live in a world of so much clamor and chaos so much noise so many voices talking at the same time and often over one another we don't always know who to listen to we're becoming more and more conditioned to just look at short quick clips of scripture that may bless us but they cannot feed us and they don't transform us but for those of us in christ we know who we want to hear from we want to hear from god himself we want eternal words that are etched in holy concrete yet animated with the holy spirit of the living god come with my daughter melissa and me to these wonderful pages watch the words and the phrases and the verses come to life and cultivate fresh perspectives of what god has in mind for your calling pour over the fruit of the spirit right there in context and find out what it means to keep in step with the spirit be transformed by what it means to be free in christ learn the difference between obedience and legalism he has called all of us to the sacred pages for leadership for clarity for hope for love i didn't go looking for galatians galatians came looking for me i wonder if galatians is looking for you join me for the online experience at bethmoore.org [Applause] it doesn't matter where you are from if you will give the time and space to this event this weekend if you will lend your heart to it and you'll really pay attention then it's going to come right back around because some of the things we're talking about simply could not be more practical we're going to be talking about divine power that god exerts on the behalf of people just like you and me and we're going to see god do something that we could not have thought to ask him lord we want all that you have for us every little thing come join us what we're studying tonight in the scriptures applies to any circumstance all generations all cultures ephesians 4 17 through 5 2 matthew 24 12 and 13. everything we're talking about all cultures will never outlive the application of the word of god never outlive the life of the spirit in the word of god will never last longer than there is life in the scriptures but i'd be remiss not to apply the concept to our present crises a pandemic where we've never been before and other places that we have been and cannot seem to fully get out of tony evans puts it like this the racial problem is an unresolved dilemma of america why why i was reading an article here recently just a few days ago by david french and it's entitled american racism we've got so very far to go i'm quoting david french now while we write and print millions of words about race in america why is it still so hard to have a truly respectful decent and humble dialogue about perhaps the most complicated and contentious issue in american life it's a huge topic but let's start with what i believe is a true principle of human nature a maxim called miles law and here is miles law where you stand depends on where you sit we were so often born into where we sit and so i mean just put whatever issue any any big issue put it in the middle of it any actual importance and imagine if it's in the center here how differently it would look to you depending upon where you sit even if you were single you might see that differently than someone who was married or or divorced a single mother sitting from right over here a special needs individual or a helper to someone with special needs a an urban family sitting right here looking at the issue a rural family same issue sun seems to rise and set on it with a whole different shadow poverty stricken uh the prosperous sit in two completely different places and so of course two completely different stands wrongly accused looks at the court like this while the assumed innocent looks at it like this this one is positive it's like this this one's still banging their fists on the table no it looks like this where we stand has everything to do with where we sit the powerful here the powerless there the ones who are seen the ones who were overlooked the ones who struggle with mental illness and among those the ones who have access to help and those who do not how different would it be if we were sitting somewhere else how differently would a situation look in the united states of america any other country but let's talk about our own if someone were brown or if someone or black or if someone was white where you stand has everything to do with where we sit we cannot have co-passion if we will not go sit with people if we will not enter in with them to where they sit so that we can see it from their point of view we'll never have compassion if we do not share one another's suffering and share one another's faith we will still sit across the aisle from one another going it's like this and they'll go it's like this who is it you're judging where do they sit i have a feeling it's a whole different place from where you sit whole different place from where i sit where you stand has everything to do with where we sit i got to tell you something and with this all begin to wrap it up what has happened to us i'm not i'm not cynical about the church i love the church i am like consumed it is it's my passion in my sleep i can dream about it i love the body of christ i love the church i even loved the local church it saved my life it saved my life but somehow somewhere along the way we traded going for staying we were people told by jesus go i mean it's a great commission go go therefore into the whole world make disciples and baptize go disciple people go into the world go into the world but we trade our going for staying and and we are the scent but the scent is staying and when the scent stay the spirit goes if if we are staying church the spirit's going to go if we're not trained up where we have that mentality that we are sent out that we gather to scatter and we gather to scatter and we gather to scatter my pastor says that to us continually in our church good so glad you're here now we scatter in the name of jesus we feel so lost because we've lost our mission but we have been thoroughly indoctrinated in self-gain in the church indoctrinate discipled in the church for self-gain preaching a gospel that has called us to self-giving and we wonder why we are not compelled and we wonder why we are miserable he said therefore as imitators of god as dearly left children walk in love as christ loved us and gave himself for us walk like him love and give enter in to the passion and the pain of another enter into their plight sit with them walk with them and it will change the way we stand jesus said go but we have restyled the great commission into a safe commission and it's become come in other words oh we want divorce diversity but we want it to be here in a narrative that we get to take control of so what we're saying is come no he said he said go no no come we want you we want you but we want you here in our narrative i want you you who are different to me come sit with me and he said no i said go and you have made your great commission come jesus went he went where the samaritan woman would show up he went to the house of zacchaeus and matthew despised tax collectors he went even to the pharisees house for dinner he went to mary and martha's when they were grief-stricken over the loss of lazarus he went across the sea of galilee to what the scripture calls the other side and that's where he ran into very purposely the demoniac with a legion of demons this most beautiful ending that narrative you'd find it in mark chapter five because it ends with the demoniac clothed it says and in his right mind sitting out of his mind every restraint that had been put on him he had broken lived in the tombs in a place of death there he is in his right mind closed and of all strange things sitting and i can tell you this because of where he sat when he got back up to his feet [Music] he had a whole different place to stand because he sat with jesus join me for the online experience of now that faith has come releasing september 15th at bethmoore.org thank you so much for watching today it is our joy to serve you at living proof ministries we do not take a single one of you for granted click subscribe so that you don't miss a moment of our time together in scripture you

Channel: Living Proof Ministries with Beth Moore

Views: 30,602

Rating: 4.860384 out of 5

Keywords: kindness, Cold-hearted, Warm-hearted, Cold-hearted World, Ephesians, Ephesians 4:32, Racism, Beth Moore, Women's Ministry, Women's speaker, women's teacher

Id: 5WlSBrvovug

Length: 27min 22sec (1642 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020