The Heart of the Matter: Is it the sacrifice, obedience, or intent that’s important?

Last week we dived into Mark 7 where Jesus rebuked the religious leaders for placing man’s tradition before God. He told them it wasn’t what went into the body but what came out of the heart that really mattered. God has the advantage of knowing our hearts. Of knowing our intentions, even at times when we do not.

If we read further in 1 Samuel, the very chapter after the Lord rebukes and turns away from King Saul, we find Samuel traveling to the house of Jesse. One by one Jesse parades his sons infront of Samuel and each time Samuel sees a handsome leader before him and thinks surely this is the next king of Israel. And it’s important that this follows Saul’s rebuke of “obedience is better then sacrifice” because we begin to see that obedience to God is a heart matter. It’s what seperates obedience to tradition from obedience to God. The Lord says of Jesse’s son in 1 Samuel 16: 7 “Don’t be impressed by¹³ his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. God does not view things the way men do. ¹⁴ People look on the outward appearance, ¹⁵ but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Later, even though King David commits horrendous sins (adultery, rape, murder, and turning a blind eye to his own children), he is still attributed with being a man after God’s own heart. Man sees the outside, God sees the heart. David never once elevates himself before God, even when he messed up, he sought reconciliation and he grieved his sins (not his being caught). He was human after all, and he failed. But King David stand in contrast to Saul. Saul’s excuse to sin was always that he feared the people while David humbly repented with out concern of what others thought. King David’s intention was to please God (not to seek power or save face amongst his subjects) and God honored that. King David is bracketed in Scripture, first in 1 Samuel 13:14 where it says of the future king who will replace Saul “the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart” and then later in Acts 13:22 “And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’”

So my question is how do we begin to see others the way God sees them. Let’s go back to Mark 7.

“For it is from within—from our hearts—that evil intentions emerge; promiscuity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, obscenity, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evils come from within and make us impure.” (Mark 7: 14-15, The First Egalitarian Translation)

Mark 7 points out what comes from us when our intentions are evil, when they are self-seeking. Every single item on that list hurts someone. Promiscuity is self-seeking pleasure, murder adultery and theft rob something from another human being ( sister or brother in Christ) that does not belong to us.

One of my favorite books is the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. In it Baba tells his son, “There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft… When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.”

I love this quote because it is simplyfing something we have made so difficult. Sin steals and destroys from another. It steals and destroys from the very people God has called us to love. Every single person put on this earth was created by our God and if we are living with a heart after God’s heart then we should be doing everything in our power to care for one another. Each of the items listed in Mark 7:21-23 harm and rob another of good.

While Mark 7 tells us the things that come from a defiled heart, Psalm 15 gives us the positive side of a heart after God’s. Let’s look at it.

Who has the right to enter your tent Yahweh,

or to live on your holy mountain?

Those who conduct themselves with integrity

and work for justice

who speak the truth from their heart

and do not use their tongues for slander,

who do not wrong their neighbors

and cast no discredit on their friends,

who look with contempt on the corrupt

but honor those who revere Yahweh,

who always keep their promises

even when it hurts,

who don’t demand interest on loans

and cannot be bribed to exploit the innocent.

If people do these things,

nothing can ever shake them.

(Psalm 15, The First Egalitarian Translation)

So what does it look like to live a life where our heart’s intent is to love and honor God. It’s loving others. It’s speaking up for those who can’t speak for themselves, it’s loving our neighbors, it’s not spreading slander or gossip, it’s working for a better world, helping the sick and the poor, it’s getting our hands dirty and making a difference, it’s being men and women of integrity even when it hurts. And it’s forgiving those who are on this journey with us even when their actions and words don’t line up with our understanding of what good is.

When your significant other leaves the the toilet seat up in the middle of the night just remember he wasn’t secretly plotting your icey plunge at o’dark hundred. When your SO burns dinner the idea wasn’t to kill you, there are much simpler ways to make that happen. It is easy to become offended when others do not see the world as we do, when they become overly vocal or beligerent in their beliefs, when there outward actions feel as if they are personal attacks… we have to remember that we can not see their heart. They are a work in progress just like each and everyone of us. We only see the outside. God sees the heart. Our focus should be less on the outward actions of others (like the Pharisees who were so concerned with the disciples unwashed hands) and more concerned with our own hearts and motivations.

We can only change the world one heart at a time. And that heart starts with our own. It’s a hard place to stand to chose to not be offended, to take a stand for good even when we are not understood. But no one ever said following Christ would be easy.

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