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I'd like you to open your Bible and turn to 2 Corinthians 16, verse 9, as we set the stage

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for this theme, The Heart That Is God's.

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Brother, a familiar verse from the Old Testament.

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It says, For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth, that He may

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strongly support those whose heart is completely His.

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God of course does not literally have eyes in the sense of physical eyes like we have

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in our bodies, for God is Spirit.

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But what is said here is intended to communicate to us that God sees everywhere and that He

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searches, He probes to find those hearts which are completely His so that He may strongly

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support them.

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What does it mean to have a heart that is completely His?

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I think we notice from the text that such hearts apparently are few, at least few in

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comparison to the population of the world, because the Lord, it says, is moving throughout

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the earth seeking those kinds of hearts.

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The text also suggests to us that such hearts will know His strong support.

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An interesting thought.

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This Hebrew word means to grow firm or to strengthen.

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And then by way of application it's used with the meaning to encourage or to grasp something

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or to secure it.

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It is used for the securing of stakes, for a tent.

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It is used in a negative sense of the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus.

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It is used in a positive sense regarding David's loyal band of men.

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In 1 Corinthians 11, 10 it says that they strongly supported him in his reign.

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So they were there as loyal supporters, as those who helped him secure and hold on to

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his kingdom.

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And so it says here that the Lord strongly supports those whose heart is completely His.

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I believe that seeking to cultivate such a heart is the goal of all of God's children.

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The heart that is God's may be described perhaps in a number of ways, but tonight I'm going

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to choose three adjectives to describe that heart.

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These are qualities that I believe are essential in the heart that could be described as the

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heart that is God's, that belongs to Him.

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I believe that first of all a heart that is God's is a broken heart.

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David seems to speak to this when he prays as he does in Psalm 51.

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And I would invite you to turn there.

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In Psalm 51 verse 17, after pouring out his heart to God in confession of his great sin

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with Bathsheba, he says the sacrifices of God are a broken heart, a broken and contrite

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heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

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A broken heart.

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David had sinned, he had sinned grievously against Bathsheba, against her husband whom

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he murdered or had murdered.

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He sinned against the nation of Israel, but above everything else, above everyone else,

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he sinned against God.

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To restore fellowship required more than offering an obligatory sacrifice in a perfunctory manner.

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Just performing a ritual was not enough to restore him to fellowship.

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His heart had to be right.

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And so he says what he does.

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The sacrifices that God really seeks are those of a broken and contrite heart.

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A soul without heart is but empty religion.

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That is why Isaiah preached the word of God to the people and said, these people draw

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near to me with their lips, but they are far from me in their hearts.

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And Jesus quoted those words in referring to Israel of his day.

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He said, you say good things about me, you go through the motions, but you are far from

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me in your hearts.

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And Jesus went on to say, you've made the word of God void because of the traditions

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of men that you have followed.

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The opposite of a broken heart, of course, is a heart that is hardened or proud, which

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is insensitive or perhaps independent of God.

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A heart that does not feel the awfulness of sin.

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And I would submit to you tonight that we are growing up in a world where sin is thought

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very lightly of, where when one sins all one has to do is quickly confess it in almost

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a superficial way and run on.

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Where is the broken heart for sin?

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I believe that kind of brokenness before God, that kind of awareness, indeed that kind of

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contrition before God is needed if one's heart is to be his.

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This broken heart is described in the Beatitudes which the Lord Jesus gave in the Gospel of

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Matthew.

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Remember how he says it?

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Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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What is he saying?

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He is saying those who recognize their spiritual bankruptcy, blessed are they, theirs is the

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kingdom of heaven.

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And then immediately he says, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

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What kind of mourning is this?

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It is a mourning for sin.

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It is a godly mourning that leads one to a deep repentance.

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That is brokenheartedness.

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When one's heart is to be God, I believe it must begin here.

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Warren Wiersbe said, we must beware of an easy and comfortable dealing with our sins.

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It was this surface dealing with sin that cost King Saul his crown.

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Do you remember how that happened in 1 Samuel 15?

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He was commanded by the Lord to attack the Amalekites and totally wipe them out.

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Every person, every animal was to be killed under the judgment of God.

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Saul did not do that.

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He kept some of the sheep.

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And then came the time when Samuel arrived to check up on the army and to find out what

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had happened in the attack.

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When he asked how it went, Saul said it went well.

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Samuel said, then what is this sound I hear?

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This bleeding of the sheep.

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Immediately Saul lied.

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He was not willing to have a brokenness about his disobedience.

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He lied to try to cover it up.

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But Samuel pressed him further.

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So Saul's next attempt to skirt brokenheartedness was making an excuse by blaming the others.

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He said, well, yeah, there are some sheep here, but you see the people kept those.

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It was they who suggested it.

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And yet Samuel probed.

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And then the next step was that Saul used religion to try to defend his sin.

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He said, well, yes, we did keep some sheep, but you see we wanted to offer sacrifices

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to God.

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That's why we kept the sheep.

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It's for a religious purpose.

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And that's when Samuel said obedience is better than sacrifice.

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And the final step of that sin and Saul's failure to deal with it came when he said

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to Samuel, well, please preserve me in front of the people.

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Don't do anything that would ruin my reputation with them.

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You see, there is a man who refused to allow his heart to be broken by his disobedience

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to God.

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Because of that, God removed the kingdom from him.

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Oh, yes, it's true.

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Saul said, I've sinned, I've sinned, but it was too late then.

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Samuel said to him, because you've rejected the Lord, the Lord has rejected you as the

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king over his people and will seek a man after his own heart.

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What kind of a man is that?

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A man whose heart can be broken with its sin, its sinfulness.

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Saul was not that kind of man.

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I believe that what we need today, folks, is an honest, deep, brokenheartedness for

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our sinfulness.

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Instead of trying to cover it up or excuse it or lie about it, rather to open ourselves

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up to God and pour it all out to him.

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Brokenness.

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Now, that does not mean that we should wallow in our guilt or fixate on self-reproach, either.

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That is the other extreme.

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That seems to be the extreme that David did follow in the death of Absalom.

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Do you remember that?

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We studied it a few weeks ago.

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Absalom revolted against his father.

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To make a long story short, the revolt was short-circuited.

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And Absalom, over David's request, was killed by Joab.

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When word came to David, David lamented.

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I mean, he didn't just lament, he greatly lamented.

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He wept.

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He went to his room and he there wailed loud words of lamentation and mourning for his

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son Absalom.

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David's grief on that occasion was an unnatural grief.

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You know why that was?

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He grieved out of a guilty heart because he knew he had failed with his son Absalom.

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And therefore his grief was unnatural.

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He wallowed in his guilt.

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And Joab finally had to go to him and say, get yourself straightened up or you're going

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to lose the kingdom.

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You see, Saul lost the kingdom because of a superficial dealing with sin.

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David almost lost it himself because he wallowed in the guilt and the death of his son.

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What I am talking about tonight is the kind of brokenness that David mentions in Psalm

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51.

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It involves a thorough dealing with sin, a confession before God in which we say the

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same thing about what we've done that God says about it.

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But it's more than just brokenheartedness about what we've done.

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It's brokenheartedness about what we are, that we are still sinners.

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That though we are the saints of God called in Christ Jesus, sin still dwells in us.

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David's honesty is revealed in his self-exposure in Psalm 51.

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Notice that he not only speaks about what he's done, but in verse 5 he goes deeper

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than that.

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He says, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me.

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And so he is broken not only about his deeds, but he is broken about what he is.

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He says, I was a sinner by birth.

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He goes on in verse 6 to suggest that his innermost being is affected.

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He says, thou dost desire truth in the innermost being and in the hidden part thou wilt make

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me know wisdom.

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Why does David say that?

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Because he had not been truthful in his innermost being.

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He had lied in scheme to cover up his sin.

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Again in verse 8, he says, make me to hear joy and gladness.

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Why does he say that?

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Well, he goes on to say, my bones have been broken.

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In other words, his emotional capacities had been impacted by his sin.

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And he's just opening all of this up before God.

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In verse 10 he says, create in me a clean heart.

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You see, he's not just broken about the sin he committed, he's broken because he is a

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dirty man inside.

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And he cries out almost in desperation, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast

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spirit within me.

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In the book The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers, an unknown author, at

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least unknown to me, writes this prayer.

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I believe that this man, whoever he is now with the Lord, of course, expresses something

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of the brokenness that you and I need to seek as we follow in the direction of our hearts

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becoming wholly his.

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O Lord, no day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in Thy sight.

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Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart.

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Praise has been often praiseless sound.

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My best services are filthy rags.

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Blessed Jesus, let me find a covert in Thy appeasing wounds.

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Though my sins rise to heaven, Thy merits soar above them.

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Though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell, Thy righteousness exalts me to Thy throne.

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All things in me call for rejection.

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All things in Thee plead my acceptance.

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I appeal from the throne of perfect justice to Thy throne of boundless grace.

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Grant me to hear Thy voice assuring me that by Thy stripes I am healed, that Thou was

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bruised for my iniquities, that Thou hast been made sin for me, that I might be righteous

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in Thee, that my grievous sins, my manifold sins, are all forgiven, buried in the ocean

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of Thy concealing blood.

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I am guilty but pardoned, lost but saved, wandering but found, sinning but cleansed.

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Give me perpetual brokenheartedness.

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Keep me always clinging to Thy cross.

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We would rather talk about self-actualization and self-realization.

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We would rather talk about self-esteem and how to build our egos.

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We would rather deal with those things that make us feel great as human beings.

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But I believe the real need of our hour in evangelical Christianity is for brokenheartedness

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over our sins and our sin, what we do and what we are.

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If we are going to have a heart that is wholly His, I believe it begins there with brokenness.

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But it doesn't stop there.

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I believe a heart that is wholly God's is also a burdened heart.

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In other words, it is a heart that knows God well enough to know what burdens Him.

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It is a heart that is able to feel the hurts and the needs of others around us.

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I understand that Pastor Cramer preached on this last week and that there was a great

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response in many lives.

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I rejoice in that and thus I'm not going to dwell on it tonight.

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But I believe that our hearts need to know God well enough to be burdened by that which

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burdens Him.

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As God looks down upon your office where you work, what are those burdens to Him?

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You say, well, it's the people who cuss and the people who smoke and the language they

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use.

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Undoubtedly those things do grieve God.

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But look beyond that.

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What about that secretary who sits out there in the outer office and who is dying inside

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because of a husband who is unfaithful to her?

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Do you think God's burdened for her?

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Are you?

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Or what about that person who is terribly guilty, overloaded because of involvements

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that have been wicked and sinful, a lifestyle that is beginning to eat away at the very

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core of his existence?

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You say, well, he deserves every bit of it.

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That may be true.

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But do you care for his hurts?

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I believe God does.

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Aren't we more prone to agree with God regarding judging people than we are to feel with God

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His compassion?

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I believe a heart that is God's heart is a heart that gets burdened.

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Not just with the obvious things or the superficial things, but with those needs that are crying

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out deep within the people who are all around us.

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People in your small church, in that Sunday school class, in your growth group.

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A burdened heart is God's heart.

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This is the heart that Paul expresses in 2 Corinthians 11 when he goes through the whole

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list of things that he had suffered in serving Christ.

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And then he says, above all of this, there is the care of the churches upon me daily.

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What is Paul saying there?

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He is saying, I am burdened with the problems of the churches.

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Paul is there revealing a heart that beats like God's heart.

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For God's heart is burdened for His people.

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Paul in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 says, I am like a nursing mother, gentle with you

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and yet terribly burdened for you in your spiritual infancy.

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Do you feel that way over anybody?

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So much more easy, isn't it, to be busy?

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It's easier to be self-interested because all of us have our own problems.

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Would it help if we remember that God is the one who bears our burdens, our burdens, Psalm

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68, 19?

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Perhaps the reason that it says that God bears our burdens is so that we then can fulfill

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what is commanded of us in Galatians 6.2, bear one another's burdens.

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Let's become less absorbed with the problems that all of us have individually and begin

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to look out at those around us and reach out a heart of compassion to embrace those who

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are struggling nearby.

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I heard someone say one time, you can tell what a person is like if you will simply observe

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what it is that makes them laugh, what makes them angry, and what makes them weep.

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That will tell you their character.

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What makes you weep?

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A heart that is God's heart is a burdened heart.

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Too easily do we flee from burdens.

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We say, I don't have time for this.

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I'm carrying a load already.

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But a heart that is like God's heart is not too busy and not too burdened yet, but that

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it can't reach out to someone else.

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God seeks a heart that is completely His so that He may strongly support that person.

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That person is one who has a broken heart for his own sins.

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He has a burdened heart for others.

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But thirdly, he is one who has a believing heart.

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A heart that is full of faith in his Lord.

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Turn with me to the Gospel of Luke for just a moment and look at some words of the Lord

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Jesus.

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How these words could describe me so often.

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Luke 24, Jesus is inquiring of the two men walking on the pathway away from Jerusalem

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toward Emmaus.

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Inquiring of them of the recent events in Jerusalem.

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They explain to him, in verse 24 they conclude, some of those who were with us went to the

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tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said, but him they did not see.

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He said to them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets

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have spoken.

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That phrase, slow of heart to believe, do you ever feel that that describes you?

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If we are honest, I think all of us have to confess that we are so slow of heart to really

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trust God.

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And yet it says in Hebrews 11 that without faith it is impossible to please God.

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What does it mean to believe?

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Well, you say it means to commit yourself, to entrust, and it does.

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And of course, when we come to God for salvation, it involves that initial step of faith when

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we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

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It means we entrust ourselves, the keeping of our souls, the cleansing of our souls to

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Him.

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We commit ourselves to Him.

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But the kind of believing heart I'm talking about is not the one that takes only that

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initial step, it is the following steps.

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It is the heart that goes on then in the walk of faith.

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The Scriptures say the just shall live by faith, not just get saved by faith, but shall

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live day in and day out by faith.

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What kind of faith is that?

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It would seem that faith needs a working definition.

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And I suppose that there could be a number of definitions that you could suggest tonight,

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but one that I would suggest as a working definition of faith is this.

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It is simply doing what God says despite what my feelings say.

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If you go to Hebrews 11, the great hall of faith, and run down the list of those Old

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Testament saints who walked with God by faith, you find that time after time, faith to them

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was simply doing what God says to do despite what their feelings said to them.

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Often we see faith as some kind of an emotion that has to be charged up or built up in us.

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But faith is not very far from obedience.

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It's doing what God says despite what our feelings say to us.

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A heart that is God's heart is a heart that responds to Him in faith.

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It's a heart that says, Lord, I will do that.

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I don't see how it can happen.

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I don't see the outcome of it.

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It seems mysterious to me, but at Your word, I will step out a believing heart.

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I'd like to go back to 2 Chronicles 16 again and look at the verse that we began with in

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its context.

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2 Chronicles 16.

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The verse was spoken to King Asa, one of the good and godly kings of Judah.

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It was spoken by one of the prophets of the Lord named Hanani.

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If you study the reign of Asa, you will find that he was indeed a godly man.

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In the beginning of his reign, he began to tear down those places built to idols throughout

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the land of Judah.

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He even set aside his own mother, who is called here the Queen Mother, because of her affinity

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with idolatry.

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He took her out of her office as the Queen Mother.

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He was not afraid to even reach into his own family to cleanse the land from ungodliness.

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He was a man who knew what it was in early battles to trust God, and God gave him amazing

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victories.

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But as he got older, his faith dwindled.

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By the time we come to chapter 16, he is a man who has reigned a number of years.

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It says, in the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign, Baasha, king of Israel, came up against

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Judah and fortified Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming into Asa,

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king of Judah.

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So the land of Judah was put under siege by the northern kingdom of the Jews called Israel.

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Baasha brought out silver and gold from the treasuries of the house of the Lord and the

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king's house and sent them to Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying,

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"'Let there be a treaty between you and me, as between my father and your father.

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Behold, I have sent you silver and gold.

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Go, break your treaty with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he will withdraw from me.'

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Ben-Hadad did that.

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He made the treaty with Asa.

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He said, great, you've paid me enough.

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I'll go break my treaty with the other king so that he will leave you alone.'

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And Asa then, it says in verse six, brought all Judah and they carried away the stones

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of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building, and with them he fortified

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Geba and Mizpah.

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It says, at that time, Hanani the seer came to Asa, king of Judah, and said to him, "'Because

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you have relied on the king of Aram and have not relied on the Lord your God, therefore

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the army of the king of Aram has escaped out of your hand.

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Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim an immense army with very many chariots and horsemen?

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Yet because you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand.'"

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He's referring to a previous battle.

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He says, "'For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth.

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They may strongly support those whose heart is completely his.

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You have acted foolishly in this.

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Indeed, from now on, you will surely have wars.'

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Then Asa was angry with the seer and put him in prison, for he was enraged at him for this,

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and Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time."

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He says, the rest of the acts are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

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In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet.

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His disease was severe, yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord but the physicians.

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So Asa slept with his fathers.

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What do we see here?

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We see a man who began well in his walk with God.

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But as the years went by and as he began to be more experienced in his reign and as his

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power grew, he became more and more self-sufficient and independent of God.

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So by the time just three years before his death, when the challenge came, instead of

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believing in the Lord, he turned to human instruments for his victory.

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And even when God apparently struck him with this disease in his feet because of his unbelief,

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he would not repent, be brokenhearted about it.

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He would not believe in the Lord.

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He turned to the physicians and he died.

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How sad.

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This certainly is a negative example of what we're talking about, a believing heart.

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Yet Hannah and I have spoken to him the truth.

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God is seeking the person who will believe him.

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A more positive example is found in chapter twenty in the person of Jehoshaphat.

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Some of his enemies came against him, it says in verse one.

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And some came and reported Jehoshaphat, verse two.

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A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea, out of Aram and behold, they

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are in Hazesan Tamar, that is in Getty.

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And Jehoshaphat was afraid and turned his attention to seek the Lord and proclaimed

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Judah fast throughout all Judah.

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So they gathered to seek the Lord.

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They even came from all the cities of Judah to seek the Lord.

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And then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the

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Lord before the new court and said, O Lord, the God of our fathers, art thou not God in

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the heavens?

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And art thou not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations?

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Power and might are in thy hand so that no one can stand against thee.

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Is thou not our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel and

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give it to the descendants of Abraham thy friend forever?

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They lived in it and have built thee a sanctuary there for thy name.

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And then he says in verse ten, behold, the sons of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir whom

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thou didst not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, behold, how

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they have – they are rewarding us by coming to drive us out from thy possession.

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Then he says in verse twelve, O our God, wilt thou not judge them for we are powerless before

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this great multitude who are coming against us?

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Nor do we know what to do but our eyes are on thee.

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Do you see the difference?

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Here is the kind of heart that God was seeking in Asa.

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In this good and godly King Jehoshaphat there is a believing heart.

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He says to the Lord, our eyes are upon you.

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We are overwhelmed by our adversaries.

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And then it says that a prophet was raised up in the midst of the people to speak to

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him and he said in verse fifteen, listen all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and

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King Jehoshaphat, thus says the Lord to you, do not fear or be dismayed because of this

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great multitude for the battle is not yours but God's.

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Tomorrow go down against them.

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He tells them where to go.

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He says in verse seventeen, you need not fight in this battle.

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Station yourselves, stand and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.

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Do not fear or be dismayed.

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Tomorrow go out to face them for the Lord is with you.

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They worship the Lord because of that promise and the next day God gave them supernaturally

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the victory, supernaturally.

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That is the kind of heart that God seeks, the heart that will believe him.

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Doubt sees the obstacles.

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Faith sees the way.

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Doubt sees the darkest night.

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Faith sees the day.

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Doubt dreads to take a step.

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Faith soars on high.

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Doubt questions who believes.

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Faith answers, I.

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Do you believe God tonight?

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What is the adversary that's coming into your life?

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What is the challenge that seems to be overwhelming the little ship where you are?

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Will you say to the Lord, I believe you?

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Will you turn from your schemes?

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Faith is living without scheming.

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Will you turn from those human instruments and say to the Lord, Lord I trust in you.

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I don't understand what's taking place.

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I am mystified by all of this, but I believe you.

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We've only scratched the surface on the heart that is holy God's.

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I want you to know that though it's thousands of years later, a little less than 3,000 years

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later since these words were spoken in 2 Chronicles 16, God is still throughout the whole earth

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looking for the one whose heart is holy his.

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The one that is broken, the one that is burdened, the one that is believing.

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The reason that he seeks that heart is that he might be strong in his support of that

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person.

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Let's develop the kind of heart that we've studied tonight.

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The secret of blessing with God is not in our plans, it's not in our resources, it's

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not to be found in personality, it's not in popularity or gifts or abilities.

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The secret of blessing with God is not in numbers or clout or might or money or ingenuity

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or hard work.

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The secret of blessing with God is developing a heart that is holy his.

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Our heavenly Father, I pray tonight that these feeble words spoken even with a heart under

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conviction would nonetheless cause all of us who are yours to seek to develop the heart

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that is holy, completely, perfectly yours.

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To break our hearts with our sins.

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Delivers from the kind of cheap, easy grace that we hear taught in so many places.

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The superficial kind of repentance and confession, which is not godly and does not produce a

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change, delivers from those and brings us constantly to the cross and to brokenness.

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And Lord, I pray that you will burden us with those things that really matter.

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Give us hearts that are able to feel, deliver us from and forgive us of hearts that are

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insensitive, hearts that are too busy, hearts that are too self-centered.

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Burden us with those things that burden your heart.

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And then Lord, teach us what it is to believe you.

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And in those circumstances where each of us is facing a battle tonight, I pray that we

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will be able to respond in deep-seated faith in the promises of God.

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Lead us in that direction.

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Make us a holy people.

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In Jesus' name, amen.