Follow Your Heart

00:00 - Speaker 1
Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture.

00:09 - Speaker 2
Hey, let's talk about the heart of the matter. Well, the matter is the heart itself. We're going to dive in really quick. We're going to talk about the origin of sin and regarding our hearts and how they are. What's the condition of your heart today, let's see? And how they are, what's the condition of your?

00:25 - Speaker 1
heart today. Let's see. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to https://jackhibbs.com slash podcast Today. If this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five-star ratings. To us that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs.

00:55 - Speaker 2
Hey, welcome back to our podcast, the Jack Hibbs Podcast. We are so glad that you guys are with us. I'm supposed to ask you this, this and that is would you please give us a rating and a thumbs up happy face star, whatever that stuff is, I have no idea, but you do. And if you do that for us, then we get bumped up in the algorithms of of all this Apple and YouTube and all of this stuff and it announces that people care about the topics that we're talking about. That's what we want you to help us with. We want to send a message to the big tech world that people care about spiritually related content. So, look, we don't ask you for money. We're not selling any pillows or slippers. I don't have any security systems to sell you, but I would ask you could you please give us that rating, and that takes a second, and by doing that you'd also encourage us.

01:57
Let's talk about the heart. The heart is an absolutely remarkable machine. I like what CS Lewis says. He says that the human machine is the human himself. We have a machine, we have a biological machine, that is, a machine that is running off of an electrical impulse. The heart is doing what it's doing. And when we look at a heart, when we, you know, pull a heart out of the chest, they're all the same human hearts. You can tell some hearts, maybe with age or with abuse, that they might have some anomalies to them, unlike the lungs, if somebody's a smoker, right it's bad. I've seen that in my previous career, before starting this church, I handled, I got to see, touch human lungs, a healthy lung, smoker's lung. I tell you what man you want to have people not smoke. Show them a smoker's lung and they won't smoke. I say all that to say that people get heart transplants. We just had a little baby at our church, three weeks old, got a brand new heart. Baby was three weeks old. You know what happened A three-week-old baby had to die for that baby here at the church to get a brand new heart. And so the heart is a miraculous machine.

03:41
But the Bible tells us in Jeremiah 17, verse 9, I'll read it to you the Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Why are we bringing this up right now is because, listen carefully, this is going to cause a little bit of controversy. I want you to think it through, though. The Bible says man's heart is deceitfully wicked. Jesus said in the New Testament that he never committed himself to man because he knew what was inside man. What was that? He was referring to, he? It is naive for us to say as Christians oh, thank God, I have a new heart. I got a heart transplant. When I accepted Jesus, he gave me a new heart. So my heart's not desperately wicked, my heart's not deceitful. Yes, it is, and so is mine.

04:46
Let me explain. When we were born again, we were given a brand new heart, meaning that our heart was made alive. Spiritually speaking, our heart is made new Now. When you said yes to Jesus, you repented of your sins. You said yes to Jesus Christ, your chest didn't open up and a new heart was put inside and it was stitched up in a second. No, no, no, no. You were given a new heart, meaning that you were under, now, the new control of the Holy Spirit. No, no, no, no. You were given a new heart, meaning that you were under, now, the new control of the Holy Spirit. Previously, you were not in control at all. You were subject to the demands of a wicked and cruel and deceitful heart. But now that you're born again. That deceitfulness is in us, but it's no longer controlling us, because when we have a new heart, look at it this way we have a heart that now goes to war. We have a heart that now fights against evil.

05:38
But here's the point that I want to make in our brief time together. Why is it that Christians still talk in this carnal sense of saying well, I felt in my heart that it was the right thing to do. That is the dumbest thing to say as a Christian? If you're not a Christian, go ahead and keep saying it. But when the Christian says you know, I just felt in my heart, felt in my heart, or I'll just follow my heart on that decision, what in the world are you talking about? Nowhere in the Bible does it say follow your heart. Nowhere in the Bible says that make your decision based on your feeling.

06:29
You are going to crash and burn I don't mean burn. If you're a Christian and you're living like this. You're going to crash and you're going to be all dinged up and then you're going to crash again. You're going to bounce off the guardrails and you're going to flip the car, so to speak, because why? You're living your life off of emotion, because the heart is also the seat of the emotions.

06:51
And so Jesus said it this way. He said watch out, because out of the heart the mouth speaks. So if we had a new heart, we wouldn't have to watch out right, because we would automatically speak the right thing, we would automatically be sanctified and we would never have to worry about persevering in the faith and exercising ourself into godliness and fighting against evil and rebuking the old man of ourself. Are you getting the picture? We are still sinners, you and I. Born again, we're going to heaven, but we're still locked in this body and we still have our sin nature. If you had a new heart, the way that some people are thinking, then you would no longer have a sin nature. Well, guess what?

07:38
Paul the apostle made it very clear in the book of Romans, chapter seven, that he was a man who knew the truth, but he was subject to the demands of his sins and he would struggle back and forth. Paul the Apostle in Romans, chapter 7 is not talking about Paul before he got saved. He's talking about Paul after he got saved. Paul didn't have a struggle before he got saved. Paul did whatever he wanted, but when he got saved.

08:08
He discovered Romans chapter 7, that he is this convoluted mess of emotional spiritual drama. I know to do. Well, he says To do the right thing. I know I should do it, but what do I wind up doing? I wind up doing the bad thing. And then he says the thing that I know that I should do, I don't. The things that I know I should not do, that's the thing I do. And he gives this incredible, almost at times convoluted, description of what it is to be a believer. Translation war, war, war is what you and I are engaged in regarding our individual selves. Why? Because our hearts are desperately wicked and we can't know them. So if you watch some show, podcast, read a book and it says that you are so amazing, you're so spectacular, you're fantastic and there's so many possibilities for you, they're endless. And look, I'm not knocking those things, but all things are possible with Christ, all things are possible in God. But when somebody says you know, follow your heart, it's going to go great, follow your heart, it's going to go great.

09:33
I think I could sum up what Satan said to Eve in the Garden of Eden In that little dialogue there. Read about it. I think I can sum it up like this Satan said to Eve follow your heart Now. She had not yet fallen, right? She was not yet a sinner, by the way. Isn't it interesting?

10:02
When did Eve sin? That's a great theological question, right? When did Eve commit sin? I'm going to pause right now. Fill in the blank. The question is when did Eve sin? The answer is before she ate the fruit. So wait a minute. Doesn't the Bible say on the day that you eat of the fruit, you will die? Yes, of course it does, and it's true. But at some point, before she bit into the fruit, she picked the fruit. Before she picked the fruit, she decided to pick it. Before she decided to pick it, she said yes to the temptation, the. She said yes to the temptation. The moment she said yes to the temptation, she sinned.

10:57
It kind of goes like this when is a horse thief a horse thief? Is it after he steals the horse or is it before he steals the horse? After he steals the horse or is it before he steals the horse? No-transcript. The law would say as soon as the guy drives away with that horse, we got him, we'll nab him.

11:29
Of course, that's how the law thinks. Remember the law says you shall not commit adultery, right? So according to the law, if you don't do it, you're not guilty of it. What does Jesus say? Jesus says you have heard that it has been said you shall not commit adultery. He quoted the law, moses. He agrees with Moses. Jesus says I tell you what, if you look at somebody and lust for them, you've committed adultery. Where did that come from? Because Jesus interpreted the spirit of the law. Here's the answer to the horse question. The reason why someone steals a horse is because they're a horse thief. They're a horse thief, so they make plans to steal the horse. So they make plans to steal the horse. Make sense.

12:29
So Eve sinned when she said I'm going to sin, I'm going to listen to this snake, I'm going to do it and I'm going to pick it myself, I'm going to eat it, and then I'm going to find my husband chase him down and I'm going to eat it. And then I'm going to find my husband chase him down and I'm going to make him eat it. And the human heart has been deceitfully wicked ever since we succumbed to temptation. You don't have to be arrested for murdering somebody, jesus said. All you have to do is hate them and you're guilty of murder, wow. So let's make sure we get away from this one. People, let's stop listening to our heart, let's stop listening to our feelings. We have to govern them, we have to control them through the word of God, the authority of the Bible.

13:21
So when someone says I know the Bible says that I shouldn't cheat on my wife, but my wife hasn't been very nice to me lately and I know God wants me happy, and I think the secretary down the hallway, I think she'll make me happy. So, after all, god wants me happy, right? That's what my heart says. After all, god wants me happy, right? That's what my heart says. Okay, you're self-deceived and you are—I'm trying to think of a nice word but you don't know God. I mean read 1 John, read 2 John. 1 and 2 John.

13:58
You can't know God and do that. And the reason why you do that is because your heart is desperately wicked and deceitful. And I battle with my heart because my heart will still think of things like that and I've got to say, hey, what are you doing, lord? I ask you to forgive me of those thoughts. I ask you, lord, to help me now to rebuke those thoughts. I bring that thought under the captivity of Jesus Christ and Lord, I'm going to get right back up and get back on the path and walk with you now, and you do that every day, until you drop dead or the rapture happens. But don't follow your heart, because your heart is deceitfully, above all things, tricky and it's wicked. No wonder why Jesus came to redeem us, having died on the cross for our sins.

15:03
According to the scriptures, Jesus rose again from the dead. According to the scriptures, jesus rose again from the dead, according to the scriptures, and he ascended back to heaven to be our great high priest of the intercessor, and I love this. The Bible tells us that he's our advocate. That's another name for an attorney. Every time you and I say Lord Jesus, forgive me, it was wrong for me to do that, I confess my sins, our attorney leans over to the father and says I just took care of that argument regarding my child and the father says Got it, thank you, son, for being the intercessor, the mediator, the advocate, the atonement, and so you think about that stuff.

15:54
Stay clear, friends. Stay clear. Watch out for those who say we're good, we're born good, we're naturally good. Man's heart is basically good. You always know someone is not telling the truth when they say you know man's heart is basically good. You always know someone is not telling the truth when they say you know man's heart's basically good. That's an indicator. I think you know what I mean, and so let's stick to the word and let's not wonder what our hearts are feeling. God bless you guys wonder what our hearts are feeling.

16:29 - Speaker 1
God bless you guys.