A Prayer
This sermon calls for heart softening and renewal, emphasizing God's love and forgiveness, and encouraging listeners to seek a heart that is acceptable to God.
Jack Hayford leads a prayerful sermon focusing on the condition of the heart before God. He acknowledges the various states of the heart - from praising God's goodness to being stained by unworthy thoughts and pride, and the need for softening and renewal. Hayford prays for forgiveness for disobedience, neglect, and resistance to God's ways, asking for a heart that forgives easily, receives God's truth, and is shaped into His image. He seeks deliverance from hardness caused by duty, weariness, enemies, and hurt, desiring a heart softened by God's love and filled with His will and Word.
Text
Lord God, Creator of all, Maker of my heart ... I bring it to You this morning.
My heart ... which at various times has been lifted in praise to You, rejoices over Your goodness and giving to me.
My heart ... which also sometimes cowers in fear before people and problems--when I forget You are bigger than them all--has been stained by mediations unworthy of a child made in Your image. It has been lifted up in pride over attainments accomplished by Your hand alone.
And, Lord, my heart is often hardened as well. I bring my heart to You this day for softening...
... like a child's, softened to forgive quickly, easily, without judgment, prejudice, bitterness, or resentment;
... like a field, softened to receive seeds of Your truth, that the fruit of Your Holy Spirit might be produced through my life;
... like clay, softened, that I might be shaped today more completely into the man or the woman You want me to become.
Forgive my hardness of heart when it results from my own disobedience, neglect, or outright resistance to Your ways.
Deliver me, lest my heart shrink by reason of this dryness and hardening. Flow the rivers of Your life over my heart, and bring it to renewal, O Lord.
And where my heart is hardened simply by the heat of duty, the weariness of work, the attack of enemies, the slings and arrows of the inconsiderate or crude ... at those points, give me a vision of Your heart today, Lord. For although I have wounded Your love by my failures, You have never hardened Your heart against me.
So, dear God, let my heart be softened today in the same way as Yours toward any who have done to me as I have to You. Deliver me from all temptation to smallness or hardness of heart, and fill my life this morning with Your will and Your Word.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14).
Through Christ, our Lord, Amen.
Sermon Outline
- Introduction
- The Hardness of Heart
- The Call to Softness
- The Promise of Renewal
- Conclusion
- Prayer for heart softening and renewal
- Our heart towards others: softness and compassion
- Softening like clay: being shaped into God's image
Key Quotes
“Forgive my hardness of heart when it results from my own disobedience, neglect, or outright resistance to Your ways.” — Jack Hayford
“Let my heart be softened today in the same way as Yours toward any who have done to me as I have to You.” — Jack Hayford
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14).” — Jack Hayford
Application Points
- Recognize areas where your heart may be hardened and seek God's forgiveness and renewal.
- Practice forgiveness and humility, and seek to be shaped into God's image.
- Pray for heart softening and renewal, and ask God to make your heart acceptable to Him.