How Do I Reclaim My Heart?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Charlie writes in to ask a sobering question.

00:00:07.400 | Pastor John, what can a person do

00:00:08.880 | to restore the softness of their conscience?

00:00:11.600 | I once had a softer conscience

00:00:13.280 | towards impurity, injustice, and sin in general.

00:00:17.220 | I desire to restore my heart to a sensitive state,

00:00:19.880 | but feel as though time and the world

00:00:21.560 | have made it very calloused.

00:00:23.820 | I want sin to bother me more.

00:00:26.080 | How can one gain back a tender and sensitive heart

00:00:28.840 | towards these things?

00:00:30.880 | - I love the spirit of that question.

00:00:34.000 | It's a beautiful longing,

00:00:36.240 | and it points in a frightening way

00:00:39.380 | to a really clear biblical reality,

00:00:41.760 | namely that believers can drift

00:00:44.480 | into calloused, hard, indifferent frames of heart.

00:00:49.480 | Basically, Charlie, I think,

00:00:51.200 | is asking how to reclaim his heart

00:00:56.040 | when Hebrews 3, 12 to 13 has begun to happen.

00:00:59.720 | Here's what that says.

00:01:01.200 | Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you

00:01:03.840 | an evil, unbelieving heart,

00:01:05.920 | leading you to fall away from the living God,

00:01:07.680 | but exhort one another every day,

00:01:09.320 | as long as it is called a day,

00:01:10.660 | that none of you may be hardened,

00:01:13.400 | none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

00:01:17.200 | So we're hardened by sin's deceit,

00:01:23.240 | and Charlie has described it clearly.

00:01:25.280 | He said, "I once had a softer conscience

00:01:29.680 | "toward impurity and justice, sin in general.

00:01:32.660 | "I want it back.

00:01:33.840 | "I want to restore that sensitivity

00:01:37.000 | "so that I won't be callous.

00:01:39.660 | "I want sin to bother me more.

00:01:42.660 | "How can I gain back a tender, sensitive heart?"

00:01:47.200 | And that's exactly what Hebrews 3, 13 says.

00:01:51.840 | We can lose, we can become hardened

00:01:55.640 | by the deceitfulness of sin.

00:01:58.320 | So I'm very, very thankful that God has arrested Charlie

00:02:03.320 | before it's too late, which he clearly has

00:02:06.120 | in the way he's asking that question.

00:02:07.960 | The key in this text is pretty clear.

00:02:13.180 | Sin is deceitful.

00:02:16.000 | Don't be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

00:02:19.660 | It lies to us.

00:02:20.580 | It tells us that there's no problem

00:02:22.760 | with doing wrong, thinking wrong,

00:02:24.800 | watching wrong, speaking wrong.

00:02:26.960 | It lies to us.

00:02:28.960 | And the solution to the hardening effect

00:02:30.960 | of those lies is truth.

00:02:32.940 | The opposite of being deceived is being shown the truth,

00:02:38.060 | seeing and loving the truth.

00:02:40.080 | So here's what I would suggest to Charlie.

00:02:44.920 | Number one, these are from my experience

00:02:47.560 | and from the Bible.

00:02:48.680 | Number one, get a copy of Jonathan Edwards' book,

00:02:53.560 | "The Religious Affections."

00:02:55.580 | You get paperback, and I would suggest,

00:02:58.840 | not a paraphrase, but the original wording.

00:03:01.760 | "No book had a greater impact on making me hate my sin

00:03:06.760 | and long for holiness as much as that book."

00:03:10.180 | There may be other books that do it better

00:03:11.880 | for different people, but in 1971, '72,

00:03:16.660 | sitting in a rocking chair on Sunday evenings,

00:03:19.200 | reading that book very slowly,

00:03:20.720 | was a unforgettably devastating and glorious experience

00:03:25.720 | of being filled with the horrors of sin

00:03:28.880 | and the glories of holiness and the desire for the latter.

00:03:32.520 | Number two, recently I read Stephen Westerholm's

00:03:37.520 | new little book, "Justification Reconsidered,"

00:03:39.600 | and there's a chapter in there

00:03:40.920 | on the depth and seriousness of sin,

00:03:42.900 | and it had a very similar effect.

00:03:44.600 | So if you want a shorter, small thing,

00:03:47.560 | that little chapter on Paul's view

00:03:51.620 | of the exceeding sinfulness of sin,

00:03:54.440 | in other words, we just need help

00:03:55.840 | from the Westerholms and the Edwardses of the world

00:03:58.480 | who have thought deeply and seen deeply about these things.

00:04:01.620 | We need to be confronted with truth about sin

00:04:06.280 | so that it wallops us like it may not be walloping us

00:04:10.660 | when we are reading the Bible for ourselves

00:04:12.820 | because we've got some kind of blinders on

00:04:15.520 | that these guys may break through.

00:04:17.280 | Number three, on the other side,

00:04:21.800 | God uses beautiful portraits of purity and holiness

00:04:26.760 | to fill us with a longing for goodness

00:04:30.080 | and a tenderizing, a melting sense

00:04:34.240 | of how wonderful it would be to be a kind

00:04:39.240 | and godly and tenderhearted person.

00:04:41.280 | So here I would say, get Jonathan Edwards,

00:04:46.280 | "Heaven is a World of Love."

00:04:49.040 | It's the last chapter of "Charity and Its Fruits,"

00:04:53.240 | which is an exposition of 1 Corinthians 13.

00:04:57.000 | And the whole book might have the same effect,

00:04:59.560 | but for me, that chapter was one of the most glorious

00:05:03.080 | and beautiful descriptions of holiness and goodness

00:05:06.740 | and beauty and what God is for us

00:05:10.040 | and what we can be in Him.

00:05:13.120 | I was just blown away reading that with my wife years ago.

00:05:17.540 | Number four, pray that God would deliver you.

00:05:21.140 | And so underline the word pray.

00:05:22.920 | Pray that God would deliver you from hardness

00:05:27.360 | and make you tender.

00:05:28.920 | Believe it or not, Charlie, I have on my phone

00:05:33.920 | an app called Do in which I can set reminders for me.

00:05:37.760 | And I have a reminder set for every single day,

00:05:41.760 | the verse, "Be kind to one another,

00:05:44.600 | "tenderhearted, forgiving one another."

00:05:47.040 | And I chose that verse as a daily reminder.

00:05:49.800 | It's been there for weeks because of the word tenderhearted,

00:05:53.000 | because I felt like you.

00:05:53.920 | I don't want to grow calloused or hard towards God,

00:05:58.280 | towards my daughter, towards my wife,

00:05:59.600 | towards my kids, towards anybody.

00:06:01.140 | I want to be a tenderhearted man with a steel of spine,

00:06:05.800 | but a heart of warmth and kindness and patience.

00:06:09.920 | And so join me in daily prayer reminders

00:06:14.820 | to go hard after God in asking Him to do that miracle.

00:06:18.660 | Number five, surround yourselves with those

00:06:21.560 | who are sensitive to sin and who love holiness.

00:06:24.640 | That's the point in the text, isn't it?

00:06:27.600 | Exhort one another every day as long as it is called today,

00:06:30.280 | lest there be this hard heart in you.

00:06:32.200 | So evidently community is helpful.

00:06:35.160 | And a text that doesn't get quoted very often

00:06:37.480 | because I think we tend to think

00:06:39.280 | it might be a little bit moralistic.

00:06:41.240 | First Corinthians 15, 33, Paul said,

00:06:44.600 | "Bad company corrupts good morals."

00:06:48.600 | And I read it in Greek this morning

00:06:50.200 | just to make sure I had it.

00:06:51.320 | And it's interesting that it is talking about,

00:06:56.320 | when it says good morals, it's kind morals, kindness.

00:07:01.420 | It corrupts kindness.

00:07:04.480 | And so I would say, I don't know who you're hanging out with

00:07:08.400 | but a lot of Christians I think are trying to be missional

00:07:12.560 | by hanging out with worldly people.

00:07:14.880 | And it turns out they're not being missional,

00:07:16.840 | they're being malleable.

00:07:18.300 | You didn't convert them, they conformed you.

00:07:23.760 | And so now you're loving all the same things they love

00:07:26.280 | because you were watching all the same movies

00:07:28.360 | and hearing all the same stories

00:07:29.920 | and using all the same language.

00:07:31.320 | And suddenly you realized,

00:07:32.720 | I guess I wasn't being as missional as I thought I was.

00:07:35.520 | And I was just enjoying myself with ungodly people

00:07:38.360 | and I have absorbed their values.

00:07:41.320 | And if that's the case, you probably need some new friends

00:07:44.480 | who are loving holiness and loving or hating sin.

00:07:49.480 | Last piece of counsel.

00:07:53.120 | Be in a worshiping community where every Sunday

00:07:58.080 | you stand with God's people in heartfelt praise

00:08:01.620 | to God for His mercy.

00:08:02.920 | Focus on the beautiful love of Jesus for you in worship.

00:08:06.840 | In particular, say with Paul, sing with Paul.

00:08:10.160 | He loved me and gave himself for me.

00:08:13.680 | I close with this because it's been my experience

00:08:18.040 | in all my pastoral ministry that to stand

00:08:20.240 | and let the singing of the people cascade over me

00:08:23.560 | while I join them in it,

00:08:24.720 | it has been melting and softening to my soul,

00:08:28.860 | my heart, like few things have been.

00:08:31.960 | - Thank you, Pastor John.

00:08:32.960 | And thank you, Charlie, for the humble question.

00:08:35.200 | If you have a question for Pastor John,

00:08:36.520 | please email it into us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:08:41.000 | And there were a couple of book recommendations

00:08:42.740 | in this podcast.

00:08:43.640 | First, an old book by Jonathan Edwards

00:08:45.580 | titled "Charity and Its Fruits."

00:08:47.760 | Most recently, that book has been edited by Kyle Strobel

00:08:50.380 | and released in 2012 by Crossway

00:08:52.520 | under the title "Charity and Its Fruits,

00:08:54.880 | Living in the Light of God's Love."

00:08:57.200 | Also, Pastor John mentioned a new little book,

00:08:59.280 | "Justification Reconsidered" by Stephen Westerholm.

00:09:02.720 | Both books can be found online.

00:09:05.240 | Well, can a sovereign God ever be surprised?

00:09:07.720 | That's the question tomorrow,

00:09:08.920 | and it comes from a curious little passage

00:09:10.380 | in Jeremiah 19, verses four and five.

00:09:13.180 | Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:09:14.520 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:09:17.120 | (upbeat music)

00:09:19.700 | (upbeat music)

00:09:22.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Reclaim My Heart?

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