10/23/11 - Pentecost 19 - Matthew 21:28-32

A CHANGE OF HEART

God’s Heart Never Changes

Did Jesus love Judas - the disciple who betrayed him? Yes! Jesus had a soft spot in his heart for Judas Iscariot and gave him countless opportunities to repent of his sins before it was too late. Even after Judas had done the unthinkable and handed Jesus over to his enemies, the Lord continued to love this disciple up until the moment he died. Did the Lord love Adam and Eve even after they disobeyed him and gave up perfection for a bite of fruit? Yes! The Lord’s heart went out to this first couple of his creation and he immediately came down to this earth so that he could offer them the promise of a Savior. Did Jesus love his Jewish countrymen who not only rejected him but who even tried to kill him on numerous occasions for claiming that he was the Christ? Yes! His heart ached for those people so much that he once said, “How I have longed to gather you together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” Did the Lord love his Old Testament people of Israel even after they had refused to listen to him and had forgotten his Word so many times that they were punished with an invading army and thrown into exile in Babylon? Yes! We just read in the book of Ezekiel that the Lord’s heart yearned for his people as he continued to send prophets to them so that they would not die in their sins but “repent and live.”
Does the Lord love you even after you have done unmentionable things against his clear Word, even after you have said some very inappropriate words unbecoming of a Christian, even after you have thought absolutely disgusting things that would make most people blush? Yes! Your Lord’s heart has not lost an ounce of affection for you throughout all these years you have lived on this earth. No sin, no mistake, no fault, no rebellious attitude or guilt-ridden conscience has changed the heart of your God for you. He loves you just as much now as he did when he was hanging on that cross. He loves you just as much now as he did when he hand-crafted you in your mother’s womb. He loves you just as much now as he did on the day of your baptism. God’s heart never changes. Nothing we do can make him love us more. And nothing we do can ever make him love us less.

Matthew’s Heart

The apostle Matthew was well aware of this never-changing heart of his Lord. He had once been a tax collector, after all, and he probably wasn’t used to being liked by many people. Because a tax collector in that 1st century culture was a Jewish IRS agent who worked for the Roman government, collecting taxes from his fellow citizens on behalf of a nation they didn’t like very much. In fact, tax collectors were apparently supposed to collect more than what people owed so that they could make a living themselves. Matthew was undoubtedly hated by many of his own people. But Jesus loved Matthew and opened his heart to him. And so it is not surprising that Matthew recorded for us these particular words of Christ in his gospel account. Listen closely: “There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”
Matthew, as a tax collector, was included in that “first son” of the parable, the one who had initially refused to listen to his Father but then had a change of heart and obeyed. Matthew understood the grace of his God and the mercy that he had shown him. The heart of the Lord had reached out to him through the Word, changed his heart and drew him away from sin and to his Savior. And throughout his life Matthew undoubtedly learned to appreciate even more the unchanging heart of his Lord - because it had changed him.

A Change of Heart

The Lord’s heart never changes, but our hearts do, don’t they? We like something one minute and we dislike it the next. We have an opinion in this direction one day and think just the opposite the day following. Even in the spiritual realm our hearts fluctuate to the extreme. We are very forgiving and compassionate to a person one moment, but the next time around we are anything but. We strive to keep the Lord’s laws and commands with every bit of energy we have for an entire morning, but for the entire next week his directives never even cross our minds. We firmly trust in what he promises and completely depend on his love in one situation, but when something else comes around we doubt and we worry and we second guess what he has said to us in his Word all along. Our hearts are up and down, side to side, strong and weak; never stable, always changing. Especially when it comes to repentance. We are really really sorry for our sins at times, but then at other times we just shake our heads and shrug our shoulders and don’t think much about them. We take our sins seriously when we have to deal with those feelings of guilt, but we tend to just brush those sins off if our conscience isn’t really affected by those sins that we have committed so many times before that it’s just second nature now.
Our hearts change for the worse all the time every day and so sometimes we need a change of heart for the better. A change of heart that is affected by God and his Word. Sometimes we need the Lord to change our hearts for us because we can’t do it ourselves. We need him to convict our hearts, to grab our hearts with his law, and to shake our hearts until he convinces us of the seriousness of our sins. Sometimes we need his Word to force us to reconsider what we have done and said and thought and admit that it’s ugly and repulsive and sickening, that it’s not OK, that it’s not an “Oh well, I’m sure the Lord understands, it’s not that big of a deal.” Sin is a big deal. Sin is damaging. That’s why we publically confess our sins together every single Sunday morning. Do you remember what we said together today? “Merciful Father in heaven, I am altogether sinful from birth. In countless ways I have sinned against you and do not deserve to be called your child. But trusting in Jesus, my Savior, I pray: Have mercy on me according to your unfailing love. Cleanse me from my sin, and take away my guilt.” This is a serious confession of sins, isn’t it? It’s serious repentance: a change of heart, an admission of our guilt and a trust in God’s mercy. And it is important for us to do that not only weekly as a congregation, but daily as individual Christians. Of course, it’s even more important to hear God’s response to our repentance. This is God’s response that we heard this morning:

A Forgiven Heart

“God, our heavenly Father, has forgiven all your sins. By the perfect life and innocent death of our Lord Jesus Christ, he has removed your guilt forever. You are his own dear child. May God give you strength to live according to his will.” Some more powerful words! And if I may be so bold: the single most important part of any worship service is the confession of sins and the announcement of forgiveness. But you are forgiven again! Every time! Each week you are the first son in the parable. A Christian who has sinned. A Christian who has done wrong. A Christian who has sometimes brushed off those sins and has occasionally forgotten about the seriousness of their consequences. But your heart has been changed. And so has mine. You heart has been forgiven. And so has mine. Your heart has been saved. And so has mine. We have entered the kingdom of God along with those tax collectors and prostitutes at the end of Jesus’ parable by believing in Jesus as our Savior. The Lord does not hold our past actions against us; he doesn’t even hold our future sins against us because of the incredible patience of our God, his love, and his compassion. And why would he do such a thing? Because his heart never changes.
And so we’re right back to where we started: God’s heart never changes. We need a change of heart at times, we need our hearts to be worked over and worked through, but the Lord’s heart is constantly full of love and mercy and forgiveness - and that will never change. And that’s why we are forgiven: not because of repentance but because of his love. Repentance doesn’t produce forgiveness; forgiveness produces repentance. We already know what he has done, we believe in what he has sacrificed, and so we are moved to confess our sins to him and cling to his promises. Repentance is not a prerequisite of being a Christian, it’s a product of being a Christian. Christian’s repent: humbly but joyfully, solemnly but eagerly. Because we know what’s coming after we confess our sins! And we can’t wait for his love! We can’t get enough of his forgiveness! And he can’t get enough of forgiving us again. It’s kind of a nice setup, isn’t it? We need; God gives. We fall; he picks us up. We turn away; he turns us back.
The psalm we sang today was Psalm 25. And like many of the psalms in Scripture it was written by King David - a man who needed a change of heart at times. You remember what he did: He slept with another man’s wife and then ordered her husband to be placed in the front lines of the battle formation so that he would be killed and never find out that David had gotten his wife pregnant. And for almost a year David never repented of his sins; he brushed them off; he ignored their consequences. Until that day a prophet of the Lord confronted him with his sin and changed his heart. Psalm 25 is one of those psalms that displays David’s sorrow over sin and his trust in God’s mercy. David wrote things like: “Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD… For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great… Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins.” David was sincerely sorry for all of the things that he had done. He was heartbroken because of the way he had treated his Lord. And just like Matthew he could have been compared to that first son in the parable: he had certainly sinned in many different ways, but he had a change of heart because the Lord’s Word had affected that change. David repented of his sins, believed in God’s forgiveness, and was saved.
The Lord’s heart has changed our hearts too, hasn’t it? The Lord has done the same things for us as he did for Matthew and David: He has worked faith in our hearts to believe in his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb. He has turned our hearts away from the control of our sinful nature. He has pulled our hearts closer to him. He has shielded our hearts from many of the dangerous attacks of the devil himself. He has assured our hearts that we will one day be in heaven with him forever. The unchanging heart of the Lord has done amazing things for us! He has changed our hearts through his Word for the better in every way! And he will continue to do that. Every time you come into contact with his powerful Word your heart will be affected. And through that Word you will continue to grow in your knowledge of him and your changed heart will overflow with affection for everything that he has done.
Amen.

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore!” - Jude 24-25

10/16/11 - Pentecost 18 - Jonah 4:5-11

SUFFER WITH THEM

The Word “Compassion”

A general rule of thumb that pastors-in-training learn in their multiple classes on writing sermons and delivering them is this: Before you preach to others, preach to yourself. And we are told this because if the law of the holy God convicts the preacher’s heart with specific accusations in Scripture then, chances are, that same pointed law will convict the hearts of others. And if the gospel of the loving God consoles the preacher’s heart with specific promises in Scripture then, chances are, that same comforting gospel will console the hearts of others as well. And if there ever was a sermon text or an overall worship theme that I needed to preach to myself before I preached it to anyone else, it’s a portion of Scripture like Jonah 4:5-11 because it has to do with compassion. I really struggle with compassion. I have a hard time understanding why someone can’t just buck up and do what needs to be done or why someone can’t just stop feeling sorry for themselves or why someone can’t just get over what has happened to them and move on. I especially have a hard time showing compassion to my kids. I expect a lot out of them; I expect that they should always act like Christians should act and, of course, that’s not always the case! And so I end up saying things like, “You’re going to be fine,” “Get a hold of yourself,” “Stop crying and deal with it!” Deal with it. Those words imply that I want them to be a little more independent; I want them to figure out a way to control their emotions and cope with this problem on their own without making a big scene about it. And although I may have a loving desire for the wellbeing of my children and I want them to be the best they can be, that’s not an attitude of compassion. Compassion is not standing back and saying, “Figure it out.” Compassion is not expecting that a person can or even should find a solution to their own problems without involving you. Compassion isn’t quick; it’s long and drawn out and messy.
Our English word compassion comes from a Latin word which is taken from a Greek word. And that Greek word has found its way into our language too as “sympathy.” And so sympathy and compassion actually come from the same root word and they both originally meant the same thing: “to suffer with.” At its core the main thought behind compassion is “to suffer with.” That’s a strong word, isn’t it? To suffer with. And so compassion is not just a warm feeling, it is an action word. When you see someone who has a problem, when you know of someone who is weighed down with troubles, when you live with someone who has come across some difficulty of their own making, having compassion on them means you don’t just feel sorry for them and you don’t just hope that things will get better for them, you actually “suffer with” them. You get down in the trenches where they are at. You take some of that burden on your shoulders. You get so involved in helping them that you know exactly what it is that they are going through. No wonder I’m so bad at showing compassion! It takes a lot of effort! It takes a whole lot of time! It takes sacrifice. And I’m kind of a selfish person and I don’t usually like making the effort or taking time or sacrificing something unless it benefits me in some way.

A Bad Example

I sound a lot like Jonah, don’t I? The prophet Jonah is usually remembered as the man who tried to run away from God, boarded a ship in the opposite direction of Nineveh, was thrown overboard during a storm, was swallowed by a large fish, sat in its belly for three days, prayed to the Lord for forgiveness, and then was spat back out on dry land. But the rest of the story of Jonah isn’t any more flattering to his character than the first part! Because after he finally did preach the word of God to the city as the Lord had told him to do and the Lord spared those people, Jonah was angry! He was physically upset that God had sent him all the way to the land of Assyria only to spare the people whom Jonah thought deserved to die. And so the Lord had to teach Jonah a little something about compassion: Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?” “I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.” But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

A Just-as-Bad Example

It’s not always easy to have compassion on someone you don’t like. Jonah did not like the Assyrians who lived in the capital city of Nineveh. They were a rival nation; they were not part of the people of Israel; not to mention that they lived a long way from Jonah’s hometown and he had to travel 700 some miles just to get there. He didn’t want to have compassion on these people. He wanted to see some fireworks! He wanted to see God unleash his wrath on these people that had indirectly made Jonah’s life so miserable as of late. In fact, Jonah was more concerned about the withered plant than he was an entire city of souls. Why? Because the plant affected his life and the future of the Ninevites never would.
Compassion for those we don’t like comes hard for us too sometimes. Why? Because we aren’t directly affected by their problems if we stand far enough back. If we distance ourselves enough than we won’t have to help them. We might not even have ever have to hear their complaints again if we walk in the other direction. Because the last thing we want to do is get involved since involvement means that we would have to stop what we are doing and we would have to give up some of our precious time and we would have to commit ourselves physically, emotionally, and psychologically to this person for an undetermined amount of time in who-knows-how-many ways. And why would we ever want to do something like that for a person we don’t get along with? Why would we ever want to “suffer with” someone who we find insufferable? Why would we want to “suffer with” a person like that? Here’s why: Because your dear Savior Jesus “suffered with” you.

The Best Example

That loving attitude, that compassion, is on display right here in the book of Jonah, isn’t it? As the Lord speaks to his reluctant prophet about compassion, the Lord’s own compassion for the Ninevites is undeniable. “Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” The Lord genuinely cared about the people of that Assyrian capital. He wanted them to be saved. And remember: the Assyrians were the very ones who would soon destroy the northern kingdom of Israel and take God’s people into exile only 60 years later! Just six decades after Jonah’s trip to that nation, the armies under their control ransacked the people of God and treated them with unspeakable cruelty. This was the nation that the Lord was concerned about! This was the nation that he had compassion on! This was the nation that he would one day “suffer with” when he came to this earth himself. And he suffered with them in the same way he suffered with you: he because a human being on this earth to live and to die in your place.
While he was on this earth Jesus took on every pain and every difficulty and every temptation that any of us will ever experience. He was in the trenches with us. He was in the dirt and the mud. He got down on his knees and hoisted our troubles on his shoulders and carried them for us. He felt what you feel; he dealt with what you deal with. He experienced every pain and human sorrow that you undergo. He didn’t just stand back and say, “Get over it.” Or “Buck up and do what needs to be done.” Or “Deal with it.” No, he took it upon himself to deal with it. But Jesus really went above and beyond what compassion is according to that basic definition. He didn’t just “suffer with” you; he suffered for you. He went through what you could not. He experienced the direct attacks of Satan himself and the entire army of evil angels. Jesus put up with multiple religious sects trying to trick him and trap him in his words. Jesus underwent persecution everywhere he went and an intense hatred from people that he would call his fellow citizens from a common race. Jesus even experienced a full throttle torture in hell on the cross when his Father left him there to be tortured all alone. Jesus suffered all of these things for you so that you won’t ever have to. And he did that for people he didn’t even have to like. He suffered for the insufferable. He died for those who caused him to die. What a gracious God we have! What a loving God we have! What a compassionate God we have.

Compassion in Action

Now, are you going to be able to put this same kind of compassion into action? Yes, yes you will. Maybe not to the full extent that the Lord has for you and maybe not as in depth as you would like to at times, but the Lord of all compassion will fill your hearts with that same deep desire to “suffer with” others so that you will do those kinds of things that put others first above yourself. It will be a process; it will be a project. It will take a lot of prayer and a lot of time in God’s Word and a lot of messing things up on our part and a lot of forgiveness on the Lord’s part. But the Lord will help you through it and he will continue to give you the strength and the patience to do it well.
Practically speaking, how are you going to put it into practice? Try this: pick out one person - just one person - today that you don’t really like, someone you couldn’t possibly have compassion on, and pray that the Lord will move your heart to have compassion on them. Ask the Lord who suffered for you to help you “suffer with” them. Pray that his name is praised, his love is displayed, and his grace is shared through your actions. You might not get anything out of it. You might not get thanked, you might not be appreciated, you might not even be taken seriously. But that’s OK. Because compassion isn’t looking for something back. Compassion gives. Compassion sacrifices. Compassion suffers. Suffer with them, my dear brother and sisters. Suffer with them. Just as Christ has suffered for you.
Amen.

“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” - Psalm 68:19