Unfettered Heart 1976

I'd like to read one verse from Luke 21, 34. But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that they come upon you suddenly like a snare. And that's exactly what's happening in many, many cases.

The day is coming upon us, and if our eyes were open, if we were really sensitive to what was going on, we would see what's taking place, see? But because we're not, all of a sudden one day we're going to wake up and boom, there it is. In so many ways, and not to get melodramatic, there are people who make problems out of Bible prophecy, and every new book on Bible prophecy that comes along, they gobble it down and still their eyes are shut. But in fact, Luke 21 and Matthew 24 are unfolding before our eyes.

And the hand of God is doing such magnificent things on the earth right now in the midst of the desolation, and yet, how many times we look right at it and see nothing. We peer directly into the face of the God of all mercy and remain unmoved because our hearts are weighed down. There was a man who for many, many years walked around with a heart of stone.

His life was barren and without joy, and he conveyed an atmosphere of hardness everywhere he went, until one day he was invited into a house where he met a king who worked upon him the miracle of his life, he gave him a heart of flesh for that heart of stone. When that man left that house, for the first time in his life there was a kindness that was not his own. Moving out from him, moreover, there was a lightheartedness that he had never known.

His heart was light, it wasn't stone anymore. The first person, of course, to recognize this in him was his wife, then his family. They just couldn't believe how wonderfully he had been changed.

His friends were so moved by the change in this man's life that they began to tremble with a fear of God. And so this went on for quite a number of months. But what perversity was it that caused this man to do a very strange thing one day? He's walking along the road and he sees a stone that fascinates him.

Perhaps it's an agate. He picks it up and puts it right on top of his heart. And of course, it weighs down that heart.

And his wife says to him, is there something wrong, dear? You don't seem quite so lighthearted anymore. Oh no, everything's fine. He doesn't want to admit to her the ridiculous thing he has just done.

Or perhaps he doesn't even understand what's taking place in him. Now, the man is just getting accustomed to waking up again in the morning, every morning with a heavy heart, going to work with that burden coming down on him, when he does another foolish thing. One Sunday afternoon, he's walking along the side of a mountain and he sees in a rock formation this lovely piece of gold-colored rock sticking out, and he must have it.

He works all afternoon with his pick, trying to get that thing loose, and finally he succeeds. And he takes that piece of rock and puts it right down on top of the other rock on top of his heart. Now, here's a man who's been given a heart of flesh for a heart of stone.

But now he weighs this heart of flesh down so that he's so heavy and so burdened and so weary inside that this heart of flesh, which was given to him by God, can no longer function. In fact, under the weight that's upon it, it begins to take on the nature of the rocks above it. So what happened to that carefree, childlike, joyful heart that you had when you first came to know the Lord? Did you not receive when you came to Jesus a heart of flesh for that heart of stone? Then why all that heaviness and that confusion and that hardness and that anxiety? You had peace.

What did you do with it? Where did it go? But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness in the cares of this life. It's entirely possible for that new heart which God has given you to be weighed down once more so that it's so heavy under that weight that you can't think, you can't decide, you can't think of God, you can't function. For instance, what happens to that heart of flesh which God gave you when you lay upon it the stone of dissipation? Oh, but I don't dissipate.

I go to bed early every night. Now dissipation doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to stay up all night gambling or that you're going to pour your life down the sewer. Dissipation is simply the spending of your life on things that are trivial.

That's what dissipation is, pouring out your time and your energy on nonsense. You can dissipate yourself on the Sears catalog, on your childhood memories, you know, when you were an Eagle Scout, or you can dissipate yourself on your favorite hobby that just consumes everything, or your great ambition, or your pet peeve. See, and when you allow yourself to dissipate your energy and your thought on things like this, is it not true that your heart becomes heavy, so heavy that you just can't even, you're just tired? And indeed, there are people who come in here week after week to the services and the Bible studies whose hearts are so weighed down, so spent, so numb from the vanity they're into, that they can't possibly lift them up before God's throne and worship Him.

Nor will they be able to until they pull off their heart, the stone of dissipation, and lay it aside. Your heart can also be weighed down with a stone of drunkenness. And right away, everybody says, ha, ha, ha, that's not my problem, I don't get drunk.

Drunkenness, stop and think, what is it? Drunkenness is a means of escaping reality, and I don't care if a man says, oh yeah, but I just have a chemical addiction to it, it doesn't make any difference. The main addiction is spiritual, I don't care what any doctor says, all due respect to the medical profession, I'm not trying to practice medicine here, don't sue me. But, you know, what you're doing when you're, you know, when you're drinking excessively, or when you're taking dope, or when you're just getting yourself high on your own ego, your own dreams, you're trying to escape the burden of reality.

But the burden of unreality is a million times heavier. For instance, for 50 cents, maybe the price is going up, I don't know, you can buy a ticket, a lottery ticket, and for that price of 50 cents, you can dream about all you're going to do with all that money you're going to win. But every time you buy yourself a dream for 50 cents, you're putting another stone on your heart.

And every time you take one of those little escapes, with that pretend person who does everything right, not like your husband, but this pretend person who does everything right, not like your wife, this pretend person who does everything right, and just caters to you all the time, you're putting another stone on your heart, and every time you dream of what you'd like to do to your boss, like to kick him in the mud, or see him catch the flu and never recover, you know, be honest, you know, you're putting another rock on your heart. See, some of us right now in this room right now are drunk with wine. And others of us in this room are in a stupor of unreality from another story.

But it doesn't matter one way or the other in this sense, see that we will not be able as long as we're in this unreal state to lift up our hearts in worship or praise or thanksgiving or service, nor will we be able to hear God's voice. And who of us has to be proved, proved, shown that the cares of this life are weighing down our hearts? Now granted, if the roof leaks, it has to be fixed. If your battery isn't working anymore, you either have to charge it or get another one.

You have to pay your bills. You have to get straightened out when there's a misunderstanding with your neighbor. Surely, wherever we have an obligation, we're responsible.

But do we have to carry these cares right next to our hearts? And do we have to so better ourselves with obligations, financial and otherwise, to the point where we can think of nothing else? When we're walking through lives, our lives, bend over like that woman, you know, who has a spirit of infirmity for 18 years under the weight of our cares, is it not possible that we've loaded ourselves down with a bunch of cares that are utterly unnecessary? There are some of us that are walking around under the weight of such cares of this life that we haven't thought a godly thought in months. Nor will we be able to until we take that stone and throw it aside. And when Jesus says, take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down, he says this because it's possible now, he has made it possible for you to throw off those weights.

There's no reason why you should walk around under those rocks. You can lift up your heart, push those things aside, breathe freely again, stand straight again and have peace. You can.

And you can do it this morning, if you will. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, and that cloud of witnesses, if you want to check it out, is in Hebrews 11, a catalog of people, witnesses of people who lived without that burden on their hearts, lived by faith. Let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

You lay aside the weight of dissipation by beginning the day with Jesus Christ. It's not only to the, quote, unsaved that Jesus says, come up to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. But he also says this to these believers who are walking around under tons of weight.

Come to me every day. Start the day with me. Start the day with Jesus.

And you won't dissipate that day. Get your mind on him. Focus it on him.

See him. So many of us still in this church, I'm quite sure, think of daily prayer as their duty. Oh, I know.

I really should do it. And they still don't. It's not your duty, it's your joy.

It's the doorway to life. Do you consider it your duty to eat breakfast? Don't you enjoy that toast with jam on it, you know, and that cup of coffee in the morning? Don't you enjoy it? Is it your duty? Is it your duty to take a bath after a month? It is your duty, for sure. But every day or whenever you do it, you know, isn't it isn't it a pleasure, you know, to get clean again, you know, and be refreshed? How much more is this the case, you know, to come into the presence of our Lord and drink in his life and to be made fresh and clean and new again every day? You do that.

You won't dissipate that day. You won't. The only reason you're not doing it is because you still don't see its value.

May God help us all to see its value. Lay aside the weight of drunkenness by facing reality at the cross of Jesus Christ. The place where the unreal world opens into the world of reality is Calvary.

Nowhere else. You want to know what God is like? Look at the sunset. That won't tell you tell you beautiful things about God, but you will not understand what God is like by merely looking at the sunset or listening to the waves crash or watching the snowfall.

Beautiful testimonies to God's reality only when you have first found out what God is like and the place where you discover what God is like is when you're on your knees in front of the cross and seeing the God of all mercy giving his his best treasure, all that he has, his only begotten son to redeem you there, all your illusions about God are dissipated and removed and and you discover that God, above all other things that could describe God, is good, is merciful, is kind. That's what he's like. He's not a tyrant.

He's not out to see how miserable he can make your life. And when you begin to see that at Calvary, you then, in the light of God's mercy, also begin to see yourself. In reality, instead of these ridiculous fantasies we have about ourselves, both negative and positive, and you begin to realize that all you are is another sinner, a sinner who needs to be redeemed and refreshed and renewed in the forgiveness of God every day and every hour.

You don't have to be some kind of big shot anymore, and that becomes your life. And then when you begin to see what you are in the light of Calvary, you begin to see your brothers and sisters, human beings out there in the world, in the light of Calvary. For what they are no longer things to be manipulated, fools to be made light of, enemies to be hated, but they are also wounded, sick, troubled people just like you and me, for whom Jesus died and to whom he offers healing.

When we start to face reality at the cross, we no longer have to get drunk and there won't be a drunk in this place of any kind on alcohol or anything else. The minute we're willing to truly face reality. Finally, you throw off the stone, the burden of the cares of this life by seeking first the kingdom of God.

Now, before you leave this place today again, ask yourself, what is your goal? Where are you headed? You know, what do you have your heart attached to? What do you cling to? What's your treasure? And if you discover that what you're chasing after is really vanity, if you discover that you're really bound by money and the things it buys, do what Matthew did that day. Matthew just got up when Jesus called him from his tax office and left. You know, Matthew said to himself, if I stop and think about this, I'm not going to do it.

I'm not going to stop and think about I'm going to do it. He did it. You do the same.

Get up out of your tax office, whatever it is that you're into and throw your life, body, mind, spirit, past, present and future at the feet of Jesus. Now, today, right now, before you leave here, that doesn't mean you won't have any cares anymore and you still have to pay your bills. You know, you still have to get your car fixed if you have one, you know, buy yourself a pair of shoes once in a while.

But as you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, your heart will be light and all the things you need will be added to you. The hand of God is doing things on this earth at this hour that is causing that are things that are causing even the hardened atheists to stop and think. And while the hardened atheists over here are stopping and thinking and they are here are the little believers so wrapped up in their petty lives that they can't even see what God is doing.

So weighed down by the their dissipation and their drunkenness and their petty cares. That they aren't even responding to God's voice. May God tell us all of us here right now in the name of his son to lay aside these weights from our hearts that we might lift up to him today unfettered, unburdened, free, glad, joyful hearts that we may worship him and thank him and praise him and serve him today and every day that we may stand before Jesus, not only on the last day, but every day until the end comes.

But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life. And that they come upon you suddenly like a snare for it will come upon all who dwell upon the face of the whole earth. But watch at all times praying that you may be have the strength to pass safely through these things which will take place.

And to stand before the son of man. Let's pray. Help us again, Lord God, to get our eyes off brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so and put our eyes on the thing that you're showing us in our own hearts.

Lord God, help us to repent before you and to unburden ourselves of those things that have really cluttered us. Help us to make the move that you want us to make this day. Help us to turn away from those things that are nothing but nonsense.

Help us to truly be your children. Deliver us from the fear of man and fill us with your peace. Now we ask your special blessing upon sister Anne and we pray that you'll answer the cry of her heart.

And Lord God, anybody, anybody among us who feels the need to do what Anne's doing before the service ends, help them to make that move if that's what you would have them do. Lord God, we thank you and praise you for your mercy and we thank you and praise you for your mercy upon sister Anne. And we pray that your peace will just flood her right now and fill her with your joy.

We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.