Commune With Your Own Heart

Psalm 73:25,26

“Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is

None upon earth that I desire besides thee.

My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the

Strength of my heart and my portion forever”

            Psalm 73 is a psalm that I am sure that most of us know. If we do not know it by number then we, at least, most likely know it by content. It is a Psalm written by Asaph, as is indicated by the preface to the Psalm “A Psalm of Asaph”. Asaph is a man that had faced some hard times in his life, and he is faced with a problem that most of us have been faced with before. We do not know exactly what it was that was making his life hard, but when he viewed the lives of those who were ungodly he says that “my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped”. Asaph had come upon some struggles in his life. And as he viewed his life he felt that he had desired to do the will of God and live Godly but trials still came. We have all been in this place. We know what it is like to try as hard as you can for something good. You try to feed your family and you work as hard as you can and no matter how hard you try it just sometimes comes up short. Then you look at someone else, someone who has no desire for good. Their only desire is for self pleasure and self indulgence. They have no thoughts of God or anything good. But when you examine their lives they have an abundance of all they could ever need. A jealous heart rages inside of us. We can say with Asaph “my steps had well nigh slipped”. It is as if he was walking along, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and glanced over to see this dirty rotten scoundrel living a life of ease. The sight is so shocking to him that he almost trips over his feet.

            Here is Asaph, struggling and fighting for all that he can get. And there is the wicked with “more than heart could wish”. “That’s not fair!” Says Asaph. To think of this was so unbearable that it hurt Asaph to his soul. When his mind turns to the prosperity of the wicked and to his own struggles by comparison all he can say is “it was too painful for me”. It is so painful to his heart that he cannot even think of it. But when he stopped and considered the Lord God he was pricked in his reins and his heart was grieved. When he thought about what lays beyond this world for the ungodly their temporary pleasures pale in comparison to the terrors and torments that await them. Asaph cries out “how ignorant and foolish am I!” He realized that he had been jealous of the wicked when all the wicked have been gaining was an eternity of punishment. This makes Asaph think about who he is and what is important to him. He looks at his own priorities and at what is important in this life to see how what he should be living like. When he comes to his senses he cries out to God “whom have I in Heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth besides thee.”

            That is my challenge for all of us here tonight. I believe that it is good for all of us to look at ourselves and think about who we really are. What are passions, what are our desires? The title for my sermon is “Commune with your own heart”. I get this from a phrase in Psalm 4:4 where David says “Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still”. This is an aspect of Christian life that is not present in our world today. There are not enough Christians who everyday examine their own lives. They just live their lives, and if they consider anything it is the sin of another. And all they think about that is “look how sinful they are”. As Jonathan Edwards we should say that we are “Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better.” We need to think about our lives, and what is important to us. One of the greatest philosophers to ever live is a man by the name of Socrates. While Socrates held some views and ideas that I would not believe he is known for a quote that I think everyone should know. “The unexamined life is not worth living”. According to Socrates if you are living a life but you don’t ever stop and think about what you are doing or why you are really doing something then you are living a life not worth living. I once read series of sermons by a Puritan pastor named Thomas Manton on meditation. It was a ten sermon series on the verse “and Isaac went out to the field to meditate at evening time” Gen. 24:63. I would highly recommend that series to everyone here. I would actually recommend anything he has ever written to anyone. But in one of his sermons he spoke of the importance of meditating on different things. Meditating on God Himself, or on Christ, or on Scripture, but he also stressed the importance of meditating on your own life.

            The reason I bring this up, is that he had a quote that pricked me to my heart. A quote that I thought explained my life and I think defines the world in which we live. “You would think it strange of two men that conversed every day for forty or fifty years, and all this while they did not know one another; yet this is the case between us and our souls; we live a long time in this world and are strangers to ourselves.”. I fear that we, and myself included have become strangers to ourselves. We just live our lives without even a passing glance for why we do anything. So tonight, I plan to just go over a few verses of scripture out of Psalm 73 and ask yourself “is this true of me?” Let us not be strangers to ourselves anymore.

            I would like to begin on discussion with verse 26. “my flesh and my heart faileth”. If we are all honest with ourselves then we know that this is true. This statement is true of every single one of us here tonight. We are weak and feeble creatures. Even when we feel like we are strong we are easily overcome by the smallest thing. The strongest of us all is brought down by the tiniest bacteria. Asaph responds to the weakness of himself, not by saying “but I will try harder and will succeed”. No, he correctly examines his life, finds himself weak and says “but God is the strength of my heart”. With God he is weak no more. With God all things become possible. When he views his life and all he is left to do is trust God for who He is and place no trust within himself he can say with Paul “when I am weak, then I am strong”. But how is it that Asaph says of God that He is his strength? What exactly does it mean for God to be the strength of my heart? For the next couple minutes I want to just view a couple aspects of our life in which God is our strength.

            The first manner in which God is our strength is in times of suffering. We often become sorrowful in our suffering. And it is true that it is hard not to when life becomes tough. But all we must do is trust the promises that God has given us. Do we believe that God is trustworthy? Do we truly believe that He is faithful to His word? If this is true then we know for certain that all things turn out for good. Or as George Mueller would say, God will not withhold any good thing from us. There was a day when Mueller’s wife had become deadly sick. And as they heard the diagnosis Mueller says that “My heart was nigh to be broken on account of the depth of my affection”. He cared deeply for his wife but as she passed he found comfort in the promises of God. This is how he remembers the passing of his wife. “The last portion of scripture which I read to my precious wife was this: ‘The Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord will give grace and glory, no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.’ Now, if we have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have received grace, we are partakers of grace, and to all such he will give glory also. I said to myself, with regard to the latter part, ‘no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly’—I am in myself a poor worthless sinner, but I have been saved by the blood of Christ; and I do not live in sin, I walk uprightly before God. Therefore, if it is really good for me, my darling wife will be raised up again; sick as she is. God will restore her again. But if she is not restored again, then it would not be a good thing for me. And so my heart was at rest. I was satisfied with God. And all this springs, as I have often said before, from taking God at his word, believing what he says”. That is one of the most amazing statements I have ever read. It is almost unfathomable the amount of faith he had in God. But all he had done is know that God is trustworthy and then place his trust in the promises of God.

            Not only is God strength for us in a time of suffering because of His promises but also because of His character. We know that God is all wise in all that He does. And we know that God is in control of all of our lives. Scripture tells us that God does whatsoever He pleases. God has purchased us by the blood of Christ, how can we not believe that He means us good in our lives. William Cowper is a man that is none for have deep depression in his life. From what I read and have heard our worst days are but cloudy skies to his tormenting storms. But when he brought himself to look upon Christ and His care and compassion, he wrote one of the most precious hymns of all time.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

            I truly believe that we do not even have a clue of the mountainous pains and sorrows we have been blessed enough to not go through because God saw it better for us to suffer a mole hill of woe for a day. When hard times come, we can find strength in the knowledge that God Himself controls the world. Even though life is hard now, we have no way of knowing now the blessings that are meant by are trials. The psalmist says “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” His pain and sufferings were of little comparison to the blessings he had received because of them. We may not know why trials come to our lives, but we know God and He loves us.

            Another manner in which God is our strength is against temptations. And just as with suffering God has given us promises against temptations. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” I Corinthians 10:13. God has promised us that we will never be tempted to a level that we will not be able to overcome. We know that the more we strive to live Godly the more the Devil will try to tempt us and bring us down. If he can make us sin then the world will no longer view us differently than themselves. And our fellowship with God will not be what it was. But, when temptations come, we can know in our hearts that this temptation is not more than we can bear. The promises of God are a blessing that we do not enjoy all that we should. We know so little of God’s word that the promises he has given us lay buried in mystery to us. But if we only knew all of His words for us, then would hearts be much strengthened. As Thomas Manton says “The Lord might have done us good, and given us never a promise; but love concealed would not have been so much for our comfort.” God did not have to give us promises, but He does because He loves us.

            We can also be strengthened during our times of temptation through the words of Christ. Just as we had mentioned about Satan trying to diminish or bring down those who are striving to be like God we have this discussion between Christ and Peter. Peter is a man, while he was quick to speak and slow to listen, who definitely tried his hardest to live for God. Satan had then decided to bring his attack to Peter. I truly believe that just as Peter was tempted, Satan, when he sees our lives when we are striving to live Godly asks permission to “sift us like wheat”. I do not doubt for a minute that it is true, that when I am living in a Godly manner that Satan comes to God and says “I want to test Rickie, and I want to sift him like wheat, let’s find out what he is really made of”. But I am comforted by the fact that I know that Christ can say to me just as he did to Peter so many years ago “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not”. What strength this is to my heart, that when those strong temptations come into my life and I feel that I must succumb I know that Christ Himself is praying to the Father that my faith will not fail. What a great encouragement this should be to us.

            God is also the strength of our heart when it comes to making decisions when we may not know the outcome of them. There is an idea among a lot of believers today that Christians are not risk takers. I find that statement hard to believe. Do I believe that Christians will do something that God does not know the outcome of? No, of course not, but that is not my definition of risk. My definition of risk is doing something when we do not know if the outcome will potentially harm us to some degree. If we truly looked at the history of the Christian faith we would say without a doubt that Christians have been, are and always will be risk takers. Let’s first look at an example of this with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Nebuchadnezzar had built himself an idol to be worshiped. And he commanded that everyone must worship and bow down to this idol. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were strong in their convictions of worshipping no God but God alone. When faced with death by the fiery furnace or bowing down to this idol they replied “if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.” Daniel 3:17. And we might point out that they said that they would be delivered, and that is true. But their next statement was “But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up”. They did not know what would happen. They had faith that God would restore them, but even if he didn’t, then they would still not bow.

            There is another similar story with Esther. I will not go into all the details, but there had been a decree against the Jews. And Esther knew that the only way that they could be spared was for her to go into the presence of the king which she was not allowed to do. But when faced with this decision her only reply was “I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish”. What amazing strength she must have had in her heart to do such a thing! She knew she was breaking the law, and by all right the king could have her killed for doing so, but she simply says “if I perish, I perish”. One other example I can think of is from a missionary by the name of Adoniram Judson. He had decided that he wanted to be a missionary and had decided that he wanted His, I believe, to be wife at the time to come with him. So he decided it would be best if he wrote her Father and asked for permission. The letter he wrote is absolutely amazing. Imagine yourself being these two young people about to embark on this mission or being her father deciding if she can go. The letter reads.

            "I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world? Whether you can consent to her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life? Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death? Can you consent to all this, for the sake of Him who left His heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with a crown of righteousness brightened by the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?"

            Reading a letter like this will instantly make us question what is important to us. Here this man has to make a decision about his daughter whom he loves with all his heart. But others may never hear the word of God if she does not go, so he says yes. But this letter is absolutely astounding. These two young people did not know what awaited them, but they knew there was a chance that something bad could happen. If they can risk so much for God can we not risk a little? We do not tell others about Christ for fear of what others might say. We do not confront each other about sins with care and compassion, we do not confession our own sins in fear of what others might think. We do not tithe even slightly more for fear that we cannot survive with a little less. If we only do those things we know without a doubt that we will have success in, where are we placing our trust? We place our trust in ourselves too often, but God is supposed to be the strength of our heart. Let us be risk takers for His glory!

            One last manner in which God is the strength of our heart is during times of facing our own death. Or we could say during times of extreme persecution. We might think it strange to say, but I do believe that Christians should never fear death. We should be able to say under any circumstances, along with Paul, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Even when on the brink of death we have strength, but why? Paul says that absolutely nothing can ever separate us from the love of God. And in Romans 8:37 says that “we are more than conquerors”. I am sure that almost all of us have heard these words before, but do we really know what it means. I believe what that phrase means is that we need not fear, because the world’s greatest enemy no longer has his greatest weapon to use against us. The worst thing that Satan had done to the world was introduce sin into it, and with sin also death. But we have become more than conquerors because Satan’s greatest weapon is our greatest gift. Satan with all his might and with all his power can only do one thing to us in the end, he can kill our bodies, and when death comes we find the culmination of our joy. God is the strength of my heart because He is our portion forever! We need not fear what man, or Satan or anyone can do to us, this life is but for a moment but God is our everlasting portion whom we will enjoy more and more for all eternity. When we treasure God as we should then we will find a strength in our heart that is without comparison in this world.

            God is to be our portion both now and forever. He is to be our portion now on Earth. I will only use two measures of expressing why this is so. God is to be our portion because of quantity. Christ tells us not to lay up our treasures on Earth where moth and rust destroy but to lay them up in Heaven where it can never be taken from us. God is from everlasting to everlasting. Scripture tells us that Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. We should not treasure those things of earth because we know they are finite. Even those things which we love with all our heart can leave us or change. But when we have God we gain a precious treasure that will never leave us or forsake us. When Robert Murray McCheyne had lost his brother it troubled him deeply. But he wrote 11 years later “This day, eleven years ago, I lost my loved and loving brother, and began to seek a Brother who cannot die.”We know no matter what situation ever happens or occurs we will have God with us. Christ told His church in the great commission “I am with you always”. We should listen to the words of John Paton who was a missionary to the New Hebrides. He was reflecting upon a time that the savages had turned on him and chased him through the woods until he climbed a tree. They could not find him but began shooting through the trees hoping to hit him. He wrote, “If thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone, in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a Friend that will not fail you then?” We have a friend from everlasting to everlasting, a blessed and gracious God in whom there is no shadow of turning. He is forever pure, and forever perfect and forever ours.

            But not only is God better than all earth could ever offer because He is infinite but because of His quality. God is absolutely perfect and holy in every way. One of the most thought provoking statements I have ever read is from one of the first philosophers. His name was Perminedes and his most famous quote is “Whatever is, is”. You might think that is a pretty obvious statement but when it is really considered it is absolutely amazing. When you see a tree you are not seeing some abstract idea in your mind, but you are seeing something that is in actual existence. This creation is just that, it is a creation. We are not simply abstract ideas in the mind of God. Everything, all of this around us, and we ourselves, actually exist! God was not satisfied to have this in His thoughts but wanted creation in reality. All this exist because God had a desire to display His glory and we have given the benefit of it. As Thomas Manton says of creation “God was happy enough without us, and had a fulness and sufficiency of happiness within himself, only he would have us to participate of his goodness.” God knew the greatness of His glory and had a desire to display and give us the opportunity to dwell in that glory. Before there was a creation God had a desire to give us joy in His glory. As Manton again says “His love was towards us before the world was, and we shall reap the fruits of it, when the world shall be no more."

            We often turn from God to these things of the world because we some good in them that we find pleasure in them. But as Augustine once said “he loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.” The blessings that God has given us we often prefer to God Himself. How could we ever do such a thing as this, God has given us these blessings and we forget him. James tells us that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.” Yet we do not stop to think about it. We see a sunset and enjoy a sunset and that’s all there is. But God has given us the ability to enjoy beauty. The glory of God bursts forth all around, and God has given us this amazing ability to find this creation beautiful.  I remember growing up something that my dad always used to tell me. And if you ask any of my siblings this, my dad asked me this all the time. We would be driving down the road and we would see a deer and dad would say “who knows why God made deer”. And the answer of course was always “for our pleasure”. But now that I am older and more versed in scripture I know that God has made everything not for our pleasure but for His own glory. But the most amazing fact is this, that God has made us in such a way that the glory of God gives us the most joy! We were made to find this world absolutely amazing, and we were made to glorify God, and when we dwell in the wonderful glory of God we find the fullness of all joy.

            And how we can test ourselves to know if we are desire God as we should? We simply need to understand what Asaph means when he says “Whom have I in heaven but thee?” What do you desire most? It would not be strange for almost all Christians to agree that they look forward to Heaven more than anything. But what about Heaven do we desire? There are many blessings in Heaven. We will be reunited with all the lost loved ones who have gone on before. There are those great saints of old we will finally see. We think of David, Solomon, Peter, Paul and Moses. The beautiful streets of gold and the glassy sea. It will be a time when all will be sin free and we never have to worry about pain and suffering ever again. The blessings of heaven are endless. But what do you really desire about Heaven? I am reminded of verse of scripture that I often quote. It is from Hebrews 11 speaking about the Heroes of Faith. And Abraham was called to go to the promise land. And Abraham went, and when he got there he did the most amazing thing. Scripture tells us that he pitched a tent. If it were us we would go and build a house or even a city with walls to claim it for our own. If Abraham made it to Heaven and had those most amazing blessings we could ever fathom in this life, I believe with all my heart, that if he got there and God was not there he would have pitched a tent. Abraham longed for a city where God was, that was his hope and his desire. Only in God will we find our true satisfaction. Nothing, whether on Earth or in Heaven, will give us true and lasting joy. But in God we not only find our true happiness, but an ever increasing joy. When we see God we will truly know what Thomas Watson meant when he said “The more we enjoy God, the more we are ravished with delight”. We will forever grow in knowledge of God and will forever strive for that knowledge because it is there and only there that will find our souls satisfaction.

            If you are anything like me these stories of the amazing heroes of faith are both inspirational and discouraging. They are inspirational because it shows us how we should live our lives. But I believe we can also say with Thomas Manton when he reads the amazing stories of faith in scripture “Either these histories are not true, or our hearts are much unlike theirs”. We believe these stories are true, and it makes us ashamed at how we live our lives. Certainly their hearts are not like ours. Tonight I just ask that right now we would look to ourselves and see if we are actually living a life with God as our portion and strength. Commune with your own heart and see where God measures in the list of your priorities. The first step to cherishing God and treasuring God for who he is, is to not be strangers to ourselves. Find those things in your life that you have put before God and remove them. Let us plead and pray that we could truly say in our hearts “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.”

            I would like to end tonight by singing one of my favorite hymns. I am His and He is Mine. And while we sing this song I want to think about what we have spoken about. In the first verse let us simply praise God for His wonderful salvation. In the second verse let us realize how we should find joy in the wondrous outburst of God’s glory that is revealed in creation. Also, that this creation should ultimately lead us to God Himself. The third verse let us know that we should never fear, for we are more than conquerors in God who is our strength. And last let is praise God that has given us Himself for our portion and joy forever and ever.

Loved with everlasting love, led by grace that love to know;
Gracious Spirit from above, Thou hast taught me it is so!
O this full and perfect peace! O this transport all divine!
In a love which cannot cease, I am His, and He is mine.
In a love which cannot cease, I am His, and He is mine.

Heav’n above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green!
Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen;
Birds with gladder songs o’erflow, flowers with deeper beauties shine,
Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.
Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.

Things that once were wild alarms cannot now disturb my rest;
Closed in everlasting arms, pillowed on the loving breast.
O to lie forever here, doubt and care and self resign,
While He whispers in my ear, I am His, and He is mine.
While He whispers in my ear, I am His, and He is mine.

His forever, only His; Who the Lord and me shall part?
Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the loving heart!
Heav’n and earth may fade and flee, firstborn light in gloom decline;
But while God and I shall be, I am His, and He is mine.
But while God and I shall be, I am His, and He is mine.