Hard or Blood Washed: What's Your Heart Condition?

Hard or Blood Washed?: What's Your Heart Condition?

Zechariah 7:4-14

I. Introduction
-What is good preaching?
1. Presentation of truth
2. Application of truth (partly my job, but partly yours)
3. The "rubber has to meet the road."
4. James 1:22 "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."
-Point: Christian truth is designed to lead us to God, not serve as a substitute for God.
-Point: Live by the Word!
1. Christian= Christ like
2. What is Christ like? We only know from the Word!
3. You can't be sure of a lot of things, but you can be sure of the Word!
-Live the Word no matter what!
1. Regardless of personal cost.
2. ...who tells you otherwise.
3. ...what the world is advising
-Stay true to Christ & His Word!

II. Scripture Background
-We will be in Zechariah today.
-Israelites have just come out of Babylonian captivity.
-Haggai calls the ppl of God to rebuild the temple.
-Zechariah's call is to rebuild the covenant w/ God.

III. Scripture

IV. Back to Right
-For the ppl of Israel things were returning to the way they should be.
-B/c of previous sin they had been taken into captivity under the Babylonians (and others).
1. Ezekiel, Daniel, and others during this time.
2. But that was drawing to a close.
-They were in a ‘rebuilding' time in their lives.
-One thing they had neglected was God.
1. In difficulty God gets moved to the back burner.
2. Too busy? Skip church, devotions, etc.
-Haggai the prophet came to encourage them to rebuild the temple.
1. It was the center of worship.
2. Where God's name dwelt.
-Note: Restoring religious imagery does not restore relationship.
1. Wearing a cross around your neck does not mean you know Christ.
2. Having Christian decor around your home does not mean you know Christ.
-Note: Neither does going to back to church.
1. It had been a long time since they had been in church.
2. But re-building/ going back wasn't going to change them spiritually.
-But it was a step in the right direction.
1. Looking to get right?
2. Seek the presence of God.
3. You won't find Him in your sinfulness or same ways!

VII. Full Restoration
-But a full restoration needed to take place!
-A restoration that went beyond religious practice!
1. ...beyond habit & even actions.
2. ...beyond surface.
-A restoration of the heart.
-No one comes to God through an automatic or unconscious process.
-Being born-again is an intentional, purposeful step you take.
1. Ppl are not accidently born-again.
2. They do become Christians by mistake or chance.
3. There is a drawing of the Holy Spirit and our response of obedience.
-Point: If you don't seek Christ with all your heart, you won't find Him.
-The path of least resistance does not lead to God!
1. Loving enemies, denying self, fasting, crucifying the flesh, etc.
2. The way of Christ is taking up your cross.
-God's desire was to restore not only a proper lifestyle to His ppl, but also a right heart/desires/etc!

VIII. The Problem
-The Heart!
-God had sought to direct their path, but they had rejected it.
1. They had "stopped up their ears" (lit- ears grown heavy)
2. They had "pulled away their shoulder" (stubbornness)
-v. 10 says God warned them against devising "evil in their heart[s]"
-v. 12a "They made their hearts {diamond hard}, lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets."
1. Hearts were...
2. ESV- diamond hard
3. KJV- as adamant stone
4. NIV- hard as flint
5. HCSB- like a rock
-You can leave here the same as you arrived this morning by hardening your heart.
1. You can pray, read Scripture, go to church, sing praise, etc. and never change by hardening your heart.
2. What a tragedy that would be
-What are you going to do?
-Side Note: A Good worship= when someone softens their heart and is obedient to Him.

IX. Something More
-Innate w/in us is the need to kneel in reverence before something bigger than ourselves.
1. ...to live for/worship something beyond ourselves.
2. ...seek to understand what more there is.
-Note: People do not walk away from God b/c they do not want God– but b/c they have found something they want more than God.
1. No one wants to go to Hell!
2. Few would say they hate God!
3. Few would actually work against God.
4. But many have found something they value more than God.
-You can harden your heart, but hear this: Until you love him w/ your heart... you will never know Him in all His fullness!
-Not love enough to go to church, but to be the church.
1. Not... seem Christian, but to be Christian.
2. Not... do good, but be good
3. Not... portray holiness, but to live out holiness.
-A heart that loves God invites cleansing!
1. Of habits, of sins, of desires, of things contrary to the Word & His Spirit!
2. A Cleansing from Him!

X. Israel's Fate?
-In between chapters condensed version....
1. Hear the promise of a Messiah named Jesus.
2. Foreshadowing
-Ch. 8:13 "And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong."
-Ch. 9:9 "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."
-Ch. 10:9 "Though I scattered them [Israelites] among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me, and with their children they shall live and return."
-Ch. 11:17a "Woe to my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock!" [to me the preacher; desert = does not care for the flock but for their own welfare]
-Ch. 12:10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn."
-And when the ppl finally come to a place of mourning [hearts softened & pliable]
1. Repentant hearts willing to obey Him!
2. Hearts inviting God to dwell in them!
-Ch. 13:1 "On that day there shall be a fountain [Jesus' blood] opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness."

VIII. Conclusion
-Ill. Spirit vs. GPS
1. "Make a U-turn." when you miss your road.
2. Eventually it will re-figure a new route from your current position to the original location.
-Maybe you have missed a number of turns you should have made.
1. The Spirit has been saying: "Make a U-turn."
2. But your heart was diamond hard; you stopped up your ears, you pulled away your shoulder.
-And at some point you realized you were lost.
-This morning, if you will be obedient, God can re-figure a path to wholeness from where you are at right now.

Response: "There is a Fountain"

Don't Look Back: Lingering in Destruction

Don't Look Back: Lingering in Destruction

Genesis 19:1-8, 11-29

I. Introduction
-The difficulty of the Christian life is the allurement w/ things of this world.
1. Call it distractions.
2. Call it temptations.
-A Worldly Allurement
1. insidious infection
2. Plague in the church today
-A cancerous growth w/ only one solution- cleansing of the Holy Spirit.
-Resist temptation
1. It will come.
2. It destroys.
-No victory w/out resistance.
-Learn from others, like Lot...

II. Scripture

III. Sodom
-Infamous city (w/ Gomorrah)
-A city wiped out of existence
-Root of our word: sodomite
1. Known for it's perverse sexual sin
2. known for it's intense wickedness
-Query: Why was Lot able to settle in Sodom?

IV. Our World
-Our world will be destroyed too.
-God's grace & mercy move/transition to His truth & judgement.
-Don't think God will ignore sin forever.
-There will be a day of judgement.
-This world is headed for destruction... don't be on that train!
-No one wants to, but some may find themselves on that path...

V. Appeasement
-It begins with a policy of appeasement.
-Ill. Lot's appeasement...
1. Men of Sodom surround house.
2. Lot offers daughters instead of rape of male visitors.
3. Appease sodomites & God!?
-A mixed morality
1. The world might accept some of God's morality.
2. As Christians we are to accept all of God's morality.
-You cannot be a Christian & practice appeasement.
1. Jesus says: You cannot serve two masters.
2. Elijah: "Choose this day whom you will serve."
-The church embraces God's Word... it is the standard for truth, morality, and living!
1. We accept nothing less.
2. We cannot choose a partial obedience.

VI. Lingering
-v. 16 "But he lingered."
-Too many Christians are lingering in destructive ways.
-God has provided a way out.
1. ...a way of redemption.
2. ...a way of salvation.
3. And all out of his mercy!
-Take God's way!
-Ill. Eve & Serpent
1. Her defeat came not when she bit into the fruit.
2. Defeat came when she debated w/ the devil.
-The angels grabbed Lot's hand and ran them out of the city.
-Problem of Lot wanting Zoar
1. Lot didn't want to leave!
2. There was still a love of Sodom in his heart!
-Zoar means ‘little' in Hebrew.
1. It's the little things that destroy us.
2. The little habits that the world encourages.
3. The little things we say, do, or think.
-Song of Solomon 2:15 "Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom."

VII. Our Defeat
-Too many Christians lead defeated lives today, not b/c they are murderers or rapists.
1. But b/c their hearts are still in love w/ this present age.
2. Their affections are tied up in the temporary.
-What is so valuable in this world that you are willing to pay w/ your soul?
-What worldly possession, attitude, or action has merit enough to equate to eternity?
-Some of you think b/c the preacher doesn't know about your sin that God doesn't know.
-Don't take my ignorance to be blindness on God's part.
1. He does know!
2. God is aware of your lingering in Sodom.
3. He is aware of your appeasement.

VIII. Abraham & Lot
-Lot's uncle was Abraham
-There are some similarities between the two.
-But they are not the same!
-Note the difference...
-The promise, possibility, & lingering.
-Lot never had a direct encounter w/ God.
1. The blessings he enjoyed were only b/c of his association w/ Abraham.
-Many in the church today enjoy the blessings of being a part of a Spirit filled church... but have never known it personally.

IX. Looking Back
-v. 26
-Jesus said: "No man who puts His hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God."
-Revelation 2:4 "But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first."

-Sodom is calling.
1. You have left Sodom.
2. But there is something that still entices you about that place.
-And now you find yourself looking back.
-Ill. Ppl go to the altar.
1. First thing they do is tell God what they won't give him.
2. Get up and declare they've given everything to God, but...
-We expect a great revival & movement of the Holy Spirit w/out being fully committed to Him.
1. God won't work miracles in your life if you are lingering in Sodom.
2. You won't know all He could do if you are abiding in little sins.
3. You'll never see what God has in store for you if you are looking back!

X. Conclusion
-"Run and never look back."
1. Don't stop. Don't hesitate.
2. Don't look back!
-Make a decision today that your life is wholly dependant upon God's will.
-Commit all to Him.
-Resolve to bring all of your life under His Lordship.
-Determine to correct anything in your life that does not promote the Holiness of God to dwell in your richly!
-Will you make up your mind to serve Christ with all this morning?

Response: "I Am Resolved"