Action of the Heart 1986

I'd like to begin with a really familiar passage, but what I want to share today is based on easy to remember the number 7 and 14, 7 times 2 is 14 I think, 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14 is going to be really the basic text, but I'm going to start by reading from Luke 18, verse 9. Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing afar off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one comes down a changed man, the other comes down just exactly the way he was when he went up. To say that the tax collector is a changed man is more than to say he has a better attitude now, he has a better outlook on life, not just some psychological, you know, twist or ripple that comes into him.

Something has happened between this man and God. He is justified, he's made right. Now a blessing is upon this tax collector which was not on him when he went up.

There is a hand guiding his life, which was not able to guide him before. There is a strength inside him, there is a protection around him, which is going to continue even if he has to walk through fire, even if he has to go through the door of death itself. This man is now visited and filled with the power of the living God.

He knows it, the demons know it, and every life this man touches from this point on will feel the impact of it. The Pharisee, on the other hand, simply went to church in the worst sense of the word. He did his religious thing and he felt very good about it.

God, I thank you that I'm not like those weirdos. And so nothing really happens. And he goes back, goes down to the temple unchanged.

How come God moved into the one man's life and not in the other when they both went up to the temple, which is the house of prayer, and they both apparently prayed? The Pharisee was a man of action outwardly. He belonged to Victani, he ran three miles a day, and he was a very active man in religious affairs. But inwardly, he was a dud.

Nothing happening inside, he's a block of ice. He's a vacuum. He looks like a human being, and in a sense, of course, he is.

And we're all too much like him. But inside, there's nothing happening, nothing goes on, nothing changes, it remains the same. It's all outward activity, busy, busy, busy, busy, especially in religious things.

The tax collector, on the other hand, has something going inside. Even while he stands afar off and averts his eyes and beats his breast, his heart, his heart is taking off its shoes. His heart is bowing down before the glory of God.

His heart is crying out for mercy. His heart is turning away from its old ways. Whenever God sees motion, action, movement in the heart toward him, immediately there is a response from his side.

Life from God rushes into this man and is changed. Now this parable has been preserved in the New Testament undoubtedly because it's a word from the Lord Jesus to his church, to this church. Basically, this word says, when believers come together to worship and to pray, but nothing really is happening.

Nobody's changing. There is no genuine healing. There may be some pretended healing or some imagined healing, but there is no change.

The redemptive power of God is somehow being frustrated. It's always because they're going at it like the Pharisee. Outward action, but inwardly the block of ice is not melting.

On the other hand, when believers come together to worship and to pray, and they go into action, into motion, inwardly, in the heart, when the heart begins to bow down, the heart starts reaching out to God. The heart worships. The heart takes off its shoes.

There's a turning away from our pride. Then the redemptive power of God, the Holy Spirit, moves in and things actually happen. Lives change.

Eyes open. People are healed. Men and women make a new start.

Sinners, people who are just totally depressed and discouraged, find their way out of their darkness into light. Chains are broken. People begin to find it possible to walk in the will of God.

Now, the action for any kind of revival in our lives, individually or corporately, has to come from God. But that action of God is always going to be there, first of all, if there's some kind of response, some kind of action coming from us, inwardly, in our hearts. Jesus is the action of God.

Jesus is God coming down into our midst and draining off into Himself our sin, our guilt, our self-pity, our childishness, our pettiness, our vanity, our bitterness. And we can go on and on. He takes it all into His heart and dies under the weight of that sin as the atoning Lamb washes it away in His blood and gives us a clean slate, a new beginning.

This same Jesus, who does all that, rises from the dead, first born of the new creation, now comes into our midst, into our midst here. And He breathes over us a welcome from the kingdom, offers us hope, promises us an outpouring of life, but this miracle that He wants to give us even today, specific changes in our lives, you know, barriers that haven't been broken yet, changes that somehow haven't given way, intentions that we really desire, we want to do it but we can't. Those things will start to move.

Something will happen. You'll go out of here changed if, if there's action from our side in our hearts. If the blot of ice in here starts to melt.

2 Chronicles 7, 14. If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now this promise was given by God to Solomon, immediately after Solomon dedicated the temple in Jerusalem.

It took seven years to build this glorious building and it was dedicated to be a house of prayer, a place where people would come and seek the face of God. And God accepted that desire. And so he says now to Solomon, right after the dedication of the temple, Yes, this will indeed be the house of prayer.

It will be so. And I will visit my people there. And when the people turn from me, and when, you know, the land comes under my judgment because they've turned from me, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves here in this house of prayer, and will pray, and will seek my face, and will turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.

Interesting. The parable that Jesus uses centers in the same place, the temple. Centuries and centuries later now, Jesus uses the parable of the rich man and, rather, the Pharisee and the publican going up to the temple, which has now been rebuilt.

And they go up there and it's the house of prayer and God still declares it the house of prayer. And the same promise that's given in 2 Chronicles applies now to the Pharisee and the tax collector. If this man and this man will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear, forgive and heal.

That's exactly what happened in the case of the tax collector. He humbled himself. And he prayed.

And he sought the face of God. And he turned from his wicked ways. That's exactly what did not happen for the Pharisee, the religious man, Mr. Christian.

First of all, he didn't humble himself. And all the rest then began to fall apart. It wasn't really prayer.

It was a monologue. And it wasn't a seeking of the face of God. And he had no wicked ways to turn from.

God, I thank you. I don't have any wicked ways. So nothing happened.

Now it comes down to us. Centuries later, we are, at this moment, in the final temple. And the temple now is Jesus himself.

He is the temple. We are gathered today in the house of prayer. And the house of prayer is not these walls.

Thank God for the walls and the roof over our head, a place to meet. But the temple, the house of prayer, is Jesus. We are gathered in his name now.

And he promises to visit us. See, and things will happen if we come to the temple as the tax collector came. If my people now here, who are called by my name, gathered in my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land, their lives.

Now we're all aware of the needs that we have in our own lives. I'm sure there's not one of us who hasn't come to the need today. Something we know has to change.

Something we know has to somehow become different. We came with needs, and if we haven't become aware of them, may God's Spirit help us to see our needs, our own needs. We also are aware of the fact that we are desperately in need of living bread for the people beyond these walls, so that we don't go out of here today empty-handed, but that our arms are loaded with fresh bread from God to feed the hungry all week long.

These we shall have. All this God will give us. He will make this into a burning and shining light.

This fellowship, part of the rest of his church, a wonderful burning and shining light where people will indeed see God's glory. Things will happen. If we will come like the tax collector and give God some action, if a block of ice will in fact melt, God will move today.

In every one of our lives and all of our lives together. If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, we need to humble ourselves to come down and become children before him. Jesus never stops talking about that.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Humble yourself.

Humble yourself. And that we find so hard to do. I do want changes, and I want things to happen in my life, but don't ask me to do that.

I'm sorry, I'm so accustomed to riding up on this high horse. I wouldn't know what it's like to walk or kneel or fall on my face. I'm stuck to this horse.

Nothing happens until I get off my horse and come down. Now, I don't want to eat that humble pie. You know, I'll eat Whoppers, and I'll eat this kind and that kind, and McBurgers or whatever they are, but don't ask me to eat this humble pie.

Nothing happens in our lives until we do something. It's the first step. Every other change that God desires to bring us begins with the humbling of ourselves, the coming down, bowing ourselves.

Lord, I bow myself before you. I submit to you. I've been going my own way all too long.

Now your way. Oh God, I take off my shoes, I worship, I bow before you. May your will be done.

Not my will, Lord, your will. That's what humbling means. It doesn't mean putting on a show and walking through the doors backwards to prove you're humble.

You know, it means the emptying down of our vanity. We don't have any glory of our own. All we've got to get rid of is vanity.

Vanity is, you know, claiming something for ourselves that isn't even there. And to humble ourselves is to just get rid of that. And we're all set.

May God help us to do that. If my people, who are called by my name, will pray, the Spirit of the Lord is calling this assembly to be a praying people. A people who get up in the morning praying, walk through the day praying, go to bed at night praying, gather together praying, go out into the world praying, all the time praying.

Praying for food for those hungry, laborers for the harvest, you know, restore Jerusalem, build up the church, restore it, O God, give it life. Prayer. You know, and we learn to pray not by going to seminars on prayer, go to them, it's okay, but that's not where it happens.

Or by reading books about prayer. The only way we learn to pray is to pray. Paul, after years and years, says we don't know how to pray as we are.

The Holy Spirit, He's the one who intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, sighs too deep for words. We don't know how to pray, but if you go into your room and you shut the door, go into the backyard, or the basement, or the attic, or wherever you can find to be alone with God, and you start. You speak, you listen, maybe you pace the floor, maybe you're on your knees.

You open to the Psalms. The Psalms are a tremendous help. God gave us the Psalms as a primer for prayer.

Just read the Psalms until you find one that really hits and makes sense to you, and read that thing out loud, and live it, and speak it. Maybe the same Psalm for several months. God will answer us, and He'll help us to pray.

If my people, who are called by my name, will seek my face. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart set unto thee. Thy face, Lord, will I seek.

Psalm 27. It's a matter of desiring to find Him, reaching out to Him with a heart. My heart set unto thee.

I don't even know how to do it. I don't know what words to use. I don't know which way to go.

My heart. I had an experience a week ago yesterday. I was speaking in a church in Pontiac in the morning, Saturday morning, and when the talk was over, a man came up to me, and he said, I don't quite follow the words that you use.

I don't understand what you're talking about. You use words like God, and faith, and forgiveness, and mercy, and judgment, and life, and life. I don't know what you're talking about.

And my first response to that in my heart was, where's this guy coming from? You know, here we are, we're meeting in a church, supposed to be congregational leaders from churches all around Pontiac. And what's he doing? And it was as if the Spirit was telling me, shut up, and listen to this man. And as I listened to this man, it became obvious, this man had a heart that was seeking God with an integrity that is absolutely holy and rare.

And he had been burned, and he was fed up with hypocrisy, and he was, you know, up to his neck with churchianity. And even the words were throwing him off. But this man had a heart that was thirsting after God.

Holy. You know, and it was just really awesome to just talk with him for a few minutes. And you could begin to see, this guy isn't fooling around.

And so I shared, you know, a few things he wasn't sure about, the Apostle Paul, okay, read the Gospel, read the Psalms. And as we talked, you know, even while he seemed so clinical and scientific, you know, tears were rolling down the guy's face. And it was only because here was a man, Lord God, make me like this man, that man, who was seeking the face of God.

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. The house of the Lord being the temple, the assembly under the name of Jesus. To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire, to seek Him in His temple.

And if we do that, we will see Him, we will behold His glory, and His glory will keep us refreshed and alive. If my people, who are called by my name, will turn from their wicked ways, and that really throws us off. Wicked ways? We don't have any wicked ways.

Maybe we're a little mediocre, maybe we're a little half-baked, but we haven't bombed any airplanes, you know, we haven't set fire to anybody's house lately. Wicked ways? Revelation chapter 3, verse 1. To the angel of the church at Sardis write, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works.

You have the name of being alive, and you are dead. Awake and strengthen what remains and is in the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. Now, people, Christians, who all believe that we are saved by grace get offended.

I've not found your works, how come we weren't saved by work, we're saved by grace? Yes, we're saved by grace. But the works that follow, salvation by grace, have to be works of grace and must be wholehearted, and we will be accounted for. Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven.

Not everyone who knows all the doctrines, understands the Bible from inside to outside, but doesn't live it. But he who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven, he's got to do it. And it has to be done with a whole heart.

God isn't picking around to look for little flaws in our behavior. He's looking at the heart. If it's done with a whole heart, it pleases Him.

Even if we make mistakes and flounder and stumble and, you know, all kinds of things, He can forgive and He can straighten that out if it's done with a whole heart. To turn from our wicked ways, our wicked ways, is to turn from our half-heartedness, our mediocrity. Oh, that's good enough.

Nobody will know the difference but God. Today, when we leave this place where we are together here, what a blessed time, we will leave, every one of us, either as the Pharisee or as a tax collector. We will go down to our house, justified, changed, made fresh, new vision, new life, new power, or we'll go down to our house with a block of ice, still a block of ice, where there should be a flame.

The week that lies ahead of us will be a week of life or death, freedom or bondage, depending on whether we respond inwardly to God, whether there's movement here or whether there is stagnation, stagnation inside of God. If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Let's just wait upon the Spirit of God in total silence for a few minutes or a minute or two.