Serving God with a Truthful Heart
In this message given by Pastor Ed Buch in Pure Life’s chapel, he exhorts us to be honest in confessing our sins to God and if necessary to people, so that truth can be in our hearts and we can enjoy unhindered fellowship with God. (from our Podcast Episode #405 - World of Lies: The Painful Fight for Truth)
As we were singing the song Here I Am to Worship a minute ago, a verse came to mind out of John 4. "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:23-24).
If you want to turn with me, I'm actually over in Acts, the end of chapter 4 and into chapter 5. "Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked, for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet; and they distributed them to each as anyone had need. And Joses, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles (which is translated Son of Encouragement), a Levite of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet" (Acts 4:32-37).
Now here's the contrast. "But a certain man named Ananias, with Saphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.' Then Ananias, hearing those words, fell down and breathed his last. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things. And the young men arose and wrapped him up, carried him out, and buried him. Now it was about three hours later when his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter answered her, 'Tell me whether you sold the land for so much?' She said 'Yes, for so much.' Then Peter said to her. ‘How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.' Then immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. And the young men came in and found her dead, and carrying her out, buried her by her husband. So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things" (Acts 5:10-11).
As I was pondering all of this before the Lord this morning, I felt very convicted myself. So even sharing this is hard in many ways. But I could see almost like this continuum of God's will being over here, while my will is over there. And instead of just letting go of my own will and coming over here and saying God's will should prevail, I spend a lot of time trying to do two things. One is trying to redefine God's will into something less than it is. God has a standard of holiness. Glenn Meldrum has preached about that in his first message. Pastor Steve has written a book, "Intoxicated with Babylon," which is essentially about that. God has got a standard of holiness that He expects of us. We spend far too much time trying to take issue with that, and we redefine it into something less than it is so that we can excuse ourselves from it.
The other thing that I spend a lot of time doing is projecting my holiness, my personal holiness, as something higher, or maybe I should say deeper than it is. Essentially, that's lying. If I'm presenting something as different than it is, that's a lie. You know there are different ways to even do that. There are people who are just living in blatant sin sometimes. They're just blatantly breaking God's commands or the rules of this program, and if you confront them about it, they'll just lie to your face. If you say to them, "Did you sell the land for so much?" they’re response is, "Yes, that's how much we sold it for, I gave it all to you." But there's no truth in that statement. It's a lie, a bald-faced lie right at the outset. And there are people like that, but more so I suspect there are those of us who don't tell everything to others that they really ought to know about us personally, or about a situation. We obscure the truth by withholding it.
God is after truth in the inward parts. That takes complete disclosure, not a partial disclosure. I've seen this. For some guys you have to ask him very specific questions to get anything out of him. You can't just say "How are you doing," or "How's your lust problem?" You have to say, “did you do X or did you do Y. If you did, when? How long? How often?” You can't get anything out of him unless you ask the right question that elicits the answer. Even then, it's vague, or brief, with as little information as possible that comes out of Him. That's not truth in the inward parts. Don't kid yourself. If you're playing that game, and that's all it is, it's you who pays the price for that kind of deception. It won't work, it won't help you. Your life won't be a life that God can honor and bless. And you won't have the relationship with God that comes out of truth in the inward parts.
There's another aspect of this that I'd like to say. Husbands, we do this with our wives a lot. We force them to ask us the specific question in order for them to get the information they really should have from us. And we need to stop that. Another thing I've seen is maintaining control of the truth, in a sense, by piecemealing our confessions. We may eventually get around to telling the whole truth, but it comes out in a little nugget here or there, that I never have to face the full consequences of what I did, because I'm controlling the timing and the way that the information is coming out. That again is just defeating, to say the least.
Then there's the side of us that gives false information. It's not just that we obscure the truth. It's that I can present myself at a level of holiness that's higher and deeper than what I've attained. So, I'm giving false information in that respect. Usually that happens in our setting here when you tell the other person what you think they want to hear from you. You know what you should be saying and able to say, so you go ahead and say that. But inside, if you are honest, you would know that it’s not true. That's not the way I really felt, and that's not what was inside my heart in that situation. The problem with all this lying, is it's all about self. It's just protecting self. It's looking out for self. So, you've got self, and you've got God. You've got to deny self, let self be crucified, and let God reign.
This was such as strong and heavy burden after I read this this morning that I felt compelled to share that. We need truth in our inward parts. God is seeking men who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. It's one thing to know something of His love, but to be able to reciprocate that love there has to be truth in the inward parts. And that's what God wants, a complete relationship with you.
