Talking About A New Heart

September 13, 2009 Preacher: Randy Smith Series: Matthew

Scripture: Matthew 12:33–37

Transcript

Talking About A New Heart

Matthew 12:33-37
September 13, 2009  •  Baptism Sunday
Pastor Randy Smith



It has been estimated that from the first "good morning" to the last "good night," the average person engages in 30 conversations a day. Statisticians have estimated that each of us will spend 13 years of our life talking, and every day our words could write a book of 50-60 pages. In a year, if we are just average, we could author 264 books of over 200 pages, just with our words. You can do more than that if you can speak in excess of 300 words per minute as some of you are quite capable of doing! (statistics from John MacArthur - sermon on Matthew 12:22-37).

It has been calculated that the average person speaks about 25,000 words each day. I speak most of mine working at the church. What a reminder that I need to be sensitive to my wife. She is with a baby all day. She starts speaking her 25,000 when I get home at 5:00!

Sure, we all know the power of our words to heal and harm. We also know how just a few misspoken words can get us in a whole lot of trouble. But for the most part, I assume that we'd consider the majority of our speech casual, trivial and without any significance. According to the Bible that belief is untrue. God is listening, and God is recording. Every word we speak carries a tremendous weight in His economy. That thought should awaken all of us!

So this morning as we look forward to our fifteen baptisms in the ocean, I have prepared a short sermon to explain why God takes our words so seriously and to reveal the primary ingredient that is necessary to please Him with our speech.

Our verses in Matthew 12 are couched in an ongoing debate that Jesus was having with the Pharisees. The Pharisees, as you know, were Jesus' chief opponents. They critiqued Him, ridiculed Him and planned to kill Him. They were wicked and in blatant defiance to the will of God. Yet in the eyes the people, they presented themselves as devout, pious and reverent. We call this hypocrisy (cf. Mt. 6:2, 5, 16; 15:7; 22:18; 23:13-15, 23, 25, 27, 29). The people were duped - not Jesus. He saw through the smokescreen because Jesus could see the heart. And what Jesus cares about is the heart.

In verse 33 our Lord said, "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit."

It was not a banner year in the Smith garden. The beans did OK, but the tomatoes were a disappointment. The plants struggled and died off before the season was complete. Yet the weeds had no problem. They flourished! Yet as we were trying to keep our tomato plants alive, we are unable to keep the weeds dead. So why work so hard to keep one that wanted to die and work so hard to remove the other that wanted to live? Because all we cared about in our garden was the quality of fruit the plant produced! Weeds in a garden are considered bad because they produce bad fruit. Tomato plants are considered good because they produce good fruit.

Jesus takes this truism, this metaphor He stated in verse 33 and applies it to people. In the end there are only two kinds of people - those that are good and those that are bad. And the way you can determine to which category you belong is to inspect the fruit you produce. Like the plants, good people will produce good fruit. Bad people will produce bad fruit. And the fruit in this context is our speech.

In our passage, the principle is applied specifically to the Pharisees. Verse 34, "You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good?"

Though undetected by many, the Pharisees by the vile and blasphemous way they spoke about Jesus displayed their evil hearts. Their words were the fruit that revealed what was on the inside. As verse 34 concludes, "For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart."

We must understand this clear biblical principle: Our words are a window to our heart. What makes us who we really are on the inside eventually comes out through that trap door we call the mouth. Often it comes out intentionally. Sometimes it comes out unintentionally - what we common call "a slip of the tongue." Nevertheless what we say eventually reveals our heart which reveals whether we are good or bad in the eyes of God.

I'm sure we have all been around the individual who shows all his cards in no time at all. Within just a few minutes of the conversation he has revealed himself as a foul-mouthed, lying pervert. But too slow are humans to consider what comes out of their own mouths. Why do we find so much ease with critical comments or participating in gossip even if it be ever so subtle or laughing at unwholesome jokes or uttering that word of profanity or snapping in a fit or rage and saying something we regret or revealing our selfishness by dominating a conversation or speaking more often about ourselves? All this comes easy, yet people find difficulty talking about Jesus when given the opportunity. Most just avoid mentioning His name altogether.

If we are honest with ourselves, based solely on our words, we all have a heart that may not be as pure as we'd like to believe. Not necessarily a pleasant thought, but definitely one that God affirms in the Scriptures. As God describes the condition of humanity He says, "Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness" (Rom. 3:13-14). No wonder God says in the book of James, "If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well" (Jas. 3:2). A few verses later we read in James: "No one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison" (Jas. 3:8).

The bad news is that we as humans reveal what is inside by what we say. And based upon what we say, we as humans reveal a heart that does not achieve God's standard. We fall short. And according to verse 36, God is listening, God is recording and God will hold us accountable even for those quickly dismissed "slips of the tongue." "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment." And if God takes into account even those careless words, imagine the volumes of evidence He can pull out on judgment day that speak to our condemnation.

The standard is clearly stated in verse 37. There are only two possibilities. "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." We are not assigned our eternal destines because of our words. We are assigned our eternal destines because of our heart whether it is good or bad. Our words are simply the greatest indication as to the type of heart we possess.

Once again, the Bible takes us to a point whereby all people realize how far they have fallen from God's holy standard. Once again, a careful examination of our own lives in the light of Scripture reveals that we are not right with the Almighty. And once again, God's Word provides the only acceptable remedy for mankind.

Look with me at verse 35: "The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil."

We need a "good treasure" within. Yet the Bible is emphatic that we have wicked hearts. Therefore what we need is a new heart. We need a heart transplant whereby the old spiritual heart is replaced with a new spiritual heart. We like David need a heart after God's own heart. We need to receive that New Covenant promise: "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Eze. 36:26). And how do we get this new heart? We call it regeneration. It happens when we come to God by faith through Jesus Christ. Our hope is not moral reformation of our old heart (Rom. 7:18). Our hope is total transformation of receiving a new heart. That is salvation!

And when we do come to Christ, often we do not change overnight, but as the Holy Spirit begins to work in our new heart, we begin to display attitudes and desires that were much different than before. We now find a delight in obeying God's Word. We now develop a holy hatred for sin. And we now begin to reveal that new heart through our words. No Christian is perfect in what he or she says (Jas. 3:2), but every Christian through his or her speech will reveal a transformed heart. And every Christian gives evidence of the good heart inside by the speech that flows from their mouths.

They speak words of edification and encouragement (Eph. 4:29; 1 Thes. 5:11). They avoid unwholesome speech and complaining (Eph. 4:29; Phil. 2:14). They utter sound doctrine (Tit. 2:11). They are eager to thank and praise and confess Jesus Christ (Col. 3:17; Heb. 13:15).

And what we have before us this morning is an example of exactly that. God has already transformed these fifteen individuals, and they are not ashamed to tell the world. They are eager to speak not of their own accomplishments, but of God's glory in what He has accomplished in their lives. God has given them new hearts. They are now a good plant. And their words that follow in their testimonies are evidence of the fruit that He is bearing through them.


More in Matthew

May 1, 2011

The Great Conclusion

April 24, 2011

Resurrecting Hope (2)

April 17, 2011

The First Prerequisite To Resurrection