The Hidden Heart

I have to be honest, after three and a half months or so from being in this pulpit, I'm nervous.

And uh I'm actually nervous every Sunday.

Um I just don't show it on the outside, which is probably a good thing because seeing somebody just shake would not probably not be helpful.

Um we've been joking, you know, in the staff that, you know, last Sunday was the last Sunday in Psalms, and you know, Pastor Greg was saying it's kind of like a DVD, and you know, this Sunday will be the bonus features or the director's cut, and uh I thought that's fine.

I just hope it's not the deleted scenes and the outtakes and the blooper reel.

But uh I did, I'd been thinking for months about what to preach on coming back, and I'd actually landed on Psalm 139 thinking if if it hadn't been taken over the summer, that I would like to preach on this Psalm.

And so I'd encourage you to turn there.

It's on page 521 in your Pew Bible, if you don't have a Bible with you.

And uh, as we remind people uh regularly, if you don't own a Bible, please take that home with you.

Make that your Bible to read and to study.

Uh we would love for you to have it.

We'll replace it before next week.

And so please, uh, at the close of the service, just uh take that Bible with you.

If you'll indulge me, I'm going to read the entire Psalm, Psalm 139.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know me when I sit down and when I rise up.

You discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high, I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your spirit, or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

If I make my bed and shiol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night.

Even the darkness is not dark to you, the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

You saw my unformed substance.

In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God, how vast is the sum of them.

If I were to count them, they are more than the sand.

I awake and I am still with you.

Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God, O men of blood, depart from me.

They speak against you with malicious intent.

Your enemies take your name in vain.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

I hate them with complete hatred, I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my anxious thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

God has been in process over the last year and a half of bringing me on a spiritual journey.

I'm learning more about the gospel, about the Christian life, and about my own heart in these last 18 months than the last 20 years combined.

And what's really shocked me about this journey that God's had me on is that it's more than just an intellectual journey.

I've gone through college and seminary, I've read book after book after book, and over the last year and a half, as God has begun to unfold these realities of the things in my heart, it goes beyond just book learning.

It's not less than that, but it's so much more.

What God's been showing me is the reality of my own heart.

I don't know if it's an encouragement or a discouragement to hear that your pastor is still in process, but it's the truth.

I'm not there yet, I haven't arrived.

I hope as I share some of my journey, the Lord will help you to see your own heart more clearly.

Before we jump into Psalm 139, let me answer a question that is central to what David writes here.

What does the Bible mean by the term heart?

We use that term a lot, and I'll use it this morning, but when the Bible uses the term heart, what does it mean?

Your heart is the seat of your being, your inner life.

Luke Hershey and I were talking, and he reminded me, and these are his words, from your heart flow your passions, patterns, and presuppositions.

You see, he is a good pastor.

They all start with P.

It's your desires, your passion, it is your habits, it's your beliefs.

It includes your intellect, your will, and your emotions.

Your thoughts, your choices, your feelings all flow from your heart.

Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23 says, Keep your heart with all vigilance.

Proverbs 4:23

Guard your heart above all else, it says in another translation, for from it flow the springs of life.

Everything about you flows from your heart.

Your heart is where your deepest passions lie that motivates you to act, to react, to feel, and to respond.

The heart is the root, your behavior is the fruit.

We tend to focus on our behavior and not recognize the motivations of our heart and the passion that drives us.

What you do flows from your heart.

In fact, Jesus said this in Mark chapter 7.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

He says, What comes out of a person is what defiles him.

From within, out of the heart of man, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

Jesus tells us that where our treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And so when we look at what we treasure, it gives us a glimpse of what is motivating us, what is inside in our hearts.

We usually don't know where our heart is.

We do things sometimes and wonder, where did that come from?

Why did I say that?

Why did I do that?

Why did I lash out?

Why did I give in to that temptation?

Why am I even tempted?

Why do I do the things that I do?

There's something beneath my actions.

There are motivations flowing from my heart.

We have both godly desires and sinful desires in our hearts.

Often when we do something that shocks others or shocks ourselves, we say, I don't know why I did that.

That's not me.

But the Bible says that is you.

In fact, that is the real you, that is the deepest part of you.

What we learn here in the Psalm is the God who knows you, the God who knows all, can reveal your heart to you if you ask.

That's what we're going to see in this passage today.

The God who knows all can reveal your heart to you if you ask.

This morning we'll unfold three truths from Psalm 139.

First, God knows your heart.

Second, you don't know your heart.

And lastly, the Spirit can enable you to know your heart.

So let's overview the first 22 verses and see this first truth.

God knows your heart.

If you have your Bible open, look with me.

I'm not going to read most of the verses, but I want you to look section by section.

God knows your heart.

Look at verses 1 through 6.

We are reminded God knows you intimately, your activities, your words, your thoughts.

There's something in our human hearts that we want to be known by others.

But there's something in our hearts that fears being known by others.

We think to ourselves, if you you love me because you don't know me, but if you knew me, you wouldn't love me.

And we think that not only about people, we think that about God.

But God knows everything about you and He loves you completely.

The psalmist says, You search me and know me when I sit and when I rise, wherever I go, whatever I do, you know the thoughts that are in my mind before I even speak them.

You know them.

You are acquainted with me completely.

And that's what he reminds us in verses one through six.

But not only does God know our thoughts, not only does he know our heart, he knows our circumstances.

Look at it in verses 7 through 12.

He goes on and he reminds us that there's no place that we can go from God's presence.

The psalmist isn't assuming that we would want to leave God's presence, although we might feel that way when we've done something wrong.

But the reality is that God knows and he is with us wherever we are.

There's not a place that we can go from one side of the world to another, as high as we go or as low as we go, no matter what happens, as dark as life may seem to us, God is with us.

God knows your circumstances.

He saw all of them because he was right there beside you.

He's there to guide and protect.

God says, I am still with you, I have never abandoned you.

God knows everything about you and He loves you, and He says, I have never abandoned you, I am with you always.

But God also knows your frame.

Look at verses 13 through 18.

This beautiful and eloquent passage on the reality that God has personally put you together.

God knit you together in your mother's womb.

Before your mother even knew that she was pregnant, God already knew you full well.

God knows how weak and frail you are.

He knows that you are but dust.

He knows how prone to sin you are, how prone to temptation you are, how prone to fear and to wander you are.

He knows us full well.

He knows the purpose of our life, he knows the end from the beginning.

He knows every one of our days because he is the one who oversees and maps it out.

God knows the motivation of your heart.

That's what this psalm began with.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

When Samuel was sent to look for the next king after God had rejected Saul, he goes to the house of Jesse, and Samuel is looking at the sons, and the Lord says this to him after he was going through each of the sons.

The Lord says, Do not look at his appearance or the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.

For the Lord sees not as man sees, man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

God doesn't just look at our actions, he looks at the motivations of our hearts.

Maybe you're like me.

Sometimes when I pray, I'm very careful about the words I say and how I say them.

And as I begin to reflect on that, I think maybe I'm doing that because I think if I say my prayers exactly the right way, God might not really know what's going on in my heart.

That if I phrase them, if I'm too raw with God, if I'm too direct with God, I need to coach what I'm saying in a way that somehow God might not really see what's going on in the depth of my heart.

I'm afraid to address the ugliness in my heart or admit my sin, even though He already knows it.

Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me.

God isn't on a fishing expedition to find out what's going on in my heart.

Everything about me is fully known by God before I was even born.

God knows us completely.

But we have a problem.

We don't know our hearts.

You don't know your heart, and I don't know my heart left to myself.

A half century ago, C.S.

Lewis made this comment in Mere Christianity.

He says, When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten, the most obvious one is some sin against charity, against love.

I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed.

And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected, I was caught off guard.

I had no time to collect myself.

He goes on to say a little later, though, surely what a man does when he's taken off his guard is the best evidence of what sort of man he is.

Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth.

If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly.

But the suddenness does not create the rats, it only prevents them from hiding.

In the same way, the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man.

It only shows me that what an ill-tempered man I already am.

The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily, they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.

Apparently, the rats of resentment and vindictiveness are always there in the cellar of my soul.

Now, the cellar is out of reach of my conscious will.

I can, to some extent, control my acts.

I have no direct control over my temperament.

In other words, what's going on in my heart?

And Lewis is right.

We sometimes get a glimpse of something sinful or ugly in our lives, and we wonder, where did that come from?

We don't see or don't want to admit that that came from our hearts.

Look at what David prays in the beginning of verse 23.

He says, Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Why does David pray that?

Why do we need to pray that?

David prayed that because his heart was a mystery to him.

And the fact is, it's a mystery to us.

Why do I do the things that I do?

What motivates me from deep inside to act and react, to respond and think and feel the way that I do.

The Bible tells us we've been made genuinely new creatures in Christ, but we still have indwelling sin.

Paul says in Romans chapter 7, for I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very things that I hate.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

We don't like this.

We don't like the fact that a mature Christian like the Apostle Paul still struggles with temptation and sin.

In fact, many people come to that passage and they try to explain it away to say, surely Paul wasn't explaining his present life, even though he's using all present tense verbs.

He was talking about when he was a young Christian or his life before he was a Christian.

We try to explain it away, but Paul says this is his present reality, and I can relate.

Paul doesn't say I used to be the worst sinner, but that was in the past.

What he says is, right now, I am the foremost of sinners.

Surely he doesn't think he's the worst guy in the room.

He's the great apostle Paul.

He must be exaggerating to teach us a lesson.

Surely he can't truly think that, but that's exactly what he says.

And he doesn't say it in past tense, he says right now.

I'm the worst of sinners, the foremost of sinners.

But we struggle believing that.

Most of us struggle believing what Paul says about himself because we're unaware of the depth of sin in our own hearts.

If someone hurts me or offends me, what's my reaction?

Maybe inwardly I'm seething and some hurtful comment flashes across my mind.

That doesn't happen to pastors.

You know, if you knew what was in the heart of your elders and your pastors, we'd we'd have a vote next week, but then nobody would qualify.

But here's the thing: something flashes in my mind.

There's this reaction that wells up from within me.

But I don't say anything and I don't react.

And so I think, boy, I did, I did pretty, I did pretty well.

I did a good job.

I feel pretty good about myself.

I practice self-control.

That's one of the fruits of the spirit, is it not?

I didn't let them have a peace of my mind.

I must be pretty spiritual to have not reacted like others will, like others might.

But I never stopped to ask myself, why did those words flash in my mind in the first place?

I never stopped to even question that just having those thoughts reveals that something isn't right in my heart.

I never could figure out how verses 17 through 22 fit in with the rest of this chapter.

It seems like a like this odd inclusion, like this non-sequitur.

It just seems to slip in somehow, and it it always struck me as odd, but it makes perfect sense.

David could see the sins of others.

He could see, he could look out and see the sinfulness of others.

He could see the wickedness of wicked men who rebel against God, who shake their fist at God and live in open rebellion and sin.

He could see the ones who revile God, who blaspheme God in their words and in their actions.

And he wanted to have the same reaction that God has in that.

The reaction of hatred towards the sinners in their sin.

But David didn't want to stop there.

It's very easy to look out in this world, to open the newspaper and say, this world's a mess.

Look at what's going on in Bismarck and Washington.

Look at what's going on in Chicago and San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York.

Look at the headlines.

It's always bad news.

And we can look out and we can see how sinful this world is.

But David didn't want to stop there.

He wanted to see his own sin.

And that's where verses 22 and 23 come in.

David hated the evil in others, but he wanted to see the evil in his own heart.

God knows our hearts.

We don't know our hearts.

But what we see in these last two verses is that the Spirit can enable you to know your heart.

What we're talking about here isn't just introspection.

We are willfully blind to the depths of indwelling sin in our own heart.

When we look at ourselves, we have the tendency to minimize, to rationalize, to normalize, to justify, to excuse or deny our behavior.

Basically, we intentionally deceive ourselves.

But what David is writing here, what the psalmist says, is this is not just introspection.

This is not going alone and just in some psychological way unpacking yourself.

In fact, if we do that, apart from the Spirit, if we do that and we happen to get a glimpse of ourselves, if we happen to actually see the depths of depravity in our hearts, it will lead us to despair.

Paul talks about a worldly grief that produces death.

Left to ourselves, apart from grace, the only thing that we can do is despair if we get a glimpse of our own hearts.

Sometimes we think if we beat ourselves up emotionally, then things will be okay.

If we punish ourselves enough, then we'll be acceptable to God and He will forgive us.

But more often than not, we don't get a real glimpse of our hearts, which leads to pride.

If you try introspection and you don't see what's there, you start to feel pretty good about yourself.

In fact, you start to think that you're a little bit above others.

You're a little bit further along.

And that was the problem of the Pharisees.

The Pharisee standing by himself prayed this God, I thank you, I'm not like other men.

Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week, I give a tithe of all that I get.

How could he say that?

He can say that because he looked at himself and he didn't see what was there.

He didn't see his own sin.

This is not introspection what the psalmist is saying here.

This is spirit-enabled seeing.

These verses are a dangerous prayer, and they're dangerous because if we pray them, God may just answer.

Paul says, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.

In my own life, God is revealing two sinful tendencies that motivate much of my behavior: insecurity and pride.

On the surface, that may seem like a contradiction, but really they're intimately interconnected.

I'm afraid that you might not like me if you know me, so I hide.

I pretend to be somebody I'm not.

I try to cover up my weaknesses and keep from being exposed.

I may use my words or my intellect to hide my insecurities.

Insecurity stirs in my heart a desire to protect and defend myself so I react or attack.

And so insecurity is something that's a motivator.

Why am I afraid to see for you to see who I am?

Well, pride is also at work.

Well, how does that work?

I think a lot more of myself, and I want you to think well of me also.

And if you saw who I really am, then you wouldn't think as much of me.

And so pride keeps me from being seen and letting myself be known.

I can't let you see who I really am, or else you will think less of me.

I need to keep up appearances and maintain my image.

Pride motivates me to say things to sound smarter than I am.

And it's only the Holy Spirit that can lead us to a place of repentance.

The Spirit leads us to a repentant faith.

Genuine repentance isn't introspection and it's not beating ourselves up.

True repentance doesn't leave us groveling in our sin.

It is neither self-punishment nor self-promotion.

It is neither groveling like a beggar in hopes God might forgive us or standing tall like a Pharisee.

It is neither despair or self-delight.

It does not lead to condemnation nor condescension towards others.

Jack Miller said years ago, a pastor out east, we have to face the fact that we're worse than we think we are.

In fact, he said, cheer up.

You're worse than you think you are.

True repentance is not just being broken over the consequences of my sin.

True repentance is being broken over the pain my sin has caused God and others.

That is what it means to see our hurtful ways when he says, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me.

True repentance says, Lord, first let me see the log in my own eye before worrying about the speck of sawdust in my brother's eye.

True repentance is a change in attitude that results in a change in direction.

It's a change in the posture of your heart towards God and towards sin.

True repentance is a gift of grace that results in rejoicing.

Look at how the psalm ends.

Lead me in the way everlasting.

And we know in so much of a fuller sense than David even did of what that means, because what that leads us to is the gospel.

God enables us to see our sin for what it really is, but God also enables us to see the beauty of the cross.

It leads to grace.

Ultimately, it leads to worship.

Jack Miller also said, cheer up.

The gospel is far greater than you can imagine.

And we need to hold to both of those realities.

Cheer up.

I'm much worse than I think I am, but cheer up, the gospel is greater than I can even imagine.

God, how could you like a mess like me?

That's the gospel.

That is the message of the gospel.

If I weren't a mess, I wouldn't need Jesus.

The Christian life is the life of repentant faith.

I'm a mess.

God loves me.

God's at work in my life.

I'll be a mess until the day I die.

Praise God for Jesus.

God, you know my heart.

God, I don't know my heart.

Holy Spirit, reveal my heart to me.

Would you join me as I lead us in prayer?

Father God.

We want to pray this dangerous prayer.

Lord, you know our hearts.

You know us full well.

Nothing is hidden from you.

You have been with us from the beginning.

You'll be with us to the end.

You're the one who made us.

Lord, I don't know my heart.

I don't know the deep motivations and longings and passions.

The desires for you that are good, but I so often fulfill in ways that are sinful.

I don't want to see myself for who I really am, and so I hide.

I make excuses.

I don't want to face the reality that I'm worse than I think I am.

But Holy Spirit, reveal my heart to me.

I don't want this to just be introspection that leads to despair or pride.

I want your Holy Spirit to shine the light on me so that I can see the log that's in my eye.

And then be in a place to help someone else with the speck of sawdust in theirs.

And so we pray as a psalmist does.

Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts.

And see if there be any grievous way in me.

And lead me in the way everlasting.

Lord, may this drive us daily to the cross.

To your loving arms.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.