Psalm 86
When we lived in New Jersey, on the east coast of the US below New York City, we lived next to a nature preserve. Here in Rabat we go jogging in the Hilton forét. In New Jersey, we would run through trails in the forest of the nature preserve. It was really such a beautiful place. A stream ran through the preserve that became a river when there was a big rain. We often saw deer grazing and there were lots of rabbits and squirrels. In the winter when there was snow, we cross-country skied through the trails.
Each fall when I go back to New Jersey, I visit a friend who was my running partner and we take a sentimental run through the trails once again.
There is also an educational center in the nature preserve and they have on display some of the creatures found there. The reason I mention this preserve is that one of the cases contained a two-headed turtle that had been found in one of the ponds.
This was a small turtle that had died. The problem it had was that the turtle often wanted to go in two directions at the same time. Each head saw food and wanted to go in the direction of that food but there was only one body so there was a struggle and the turtle was very inefficient in getting the food it needed. Two-headed turtles do not live very long.
This is a picture of the struggle I face as a Christian. While I donât have two heads, part of my head wants to serve God and be obedient to him. The other part of my head is firmly in the world and insists on my rights, protects my space, wants to posses what is mine.
There is another image I often use to describe my struggle and that is of a man who has fallen off a cliff. Fortunately, on the way down he managed to grab hold of a branch growing out of the cliff and there he hangs. If he lets go of the branch he will plummet to his destruction and so he calls out to God for help. God answers him and tells him to let go of the branch. He carefully takes one hand and puts it in the hand of God. God tells him to let go of the branch and give him both hands, but he will not let go of the branch. God urges him to let go of the branch and find complete freedom but he cannot and there he is suspended with one hand in the hand of God and one hand clinging to the branch growing out of the cliff.
This is the source of all my struggles as a Christian. I am unable to let go of the world and live wholeheartedly for Jesus.
It is because of this struggle in my life that my heart and mind resonated with this verse from Psalm 86:11
Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.
Like a turtle with two heads, a divided heart doesnât know which way to go. It wants to move in two directions at the same time and so it deprives itself of the spiritual food it needs.
We have an advantage over turtles. Turtles with two heads do not survive. They cannot get the food they need and so they die. But because of the grace of God in our lives, even though we are two-headed followers of Jesus, we make progress and grow.
The reality is that we will never, in this life, be one-headed followers of Jesus. We are sinners and our hearts are torn between God and this world. Some of the more dangerous Christians in the world are those who think they have just one head and are pure followers of Jesus. Such Christians are dangerous because they fail to take their sin into account when they make decisions.
We will always struggle, holding on to the branch on the cliff with one hand and to God with the other. But the good news is that as we grow in our Christian faith, we may be able to hold on to the branch more loosely.
Christians who do not give up make progress because of their efforts plus the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. After 34 years of being a follower of Jesus, Iâm not sure I can say that my heart is less divided than it was. But it is clear to me that I put more weight on my head that follows Jesus than my head that seeks the world.
What does an undivided heart look like?
An undivided heart is a heart that is content.
There is a lot of economic diversity in this congregation. There are those who can buy a new car if they need to and those who struggle to find three dirhams to take a bus. There are those who can take vacations in Europe and those who are not able to afford any vacations. I had a close friendship with one man from Nigeria. As a way of helping him, I paid him for taking care of our garden. I relied on him for advice in relating to other sub-Saharan Africans. We went to a restaurant one time and he ate very little of the chicken on his plate. I asked him why he did not eat more and he told me about his normal diet and that he would get sick if he ate so much rich food at one time.
What do you do when you have less than those around you? It is easy to be envious, jealous and covetous. You can become angry and judge those with more as being disobedient for not sharing what they have with you.
An undivided heart is content with what it has because an undivided heart realizes that this world is not the sum total of all life experience. This world is just a prelude to an eternal life that will make our experiences in this world pale in comparison. When we have an undivided heart, we realize that it does not matter how much of the worldâs resources we were able to possess. We realize that when we die our physical death, all that is of this world will be left behind.
When I first came to Morocco in September 1999, while we were here our basement in New Jersey was flooded and many of my treasures were destroyed. In sermons in 2000 from I Peter I reflected on lessons learned from that flood and more recently in my sermons from Ecclesiastes, I have learned to hold on to my possessions more loosely. These sermons helped me to see the futility of being attached to things that I will leave behind when I die.
A week or two ago I referred to a coin collection I have in a safe deposit box in the US. A woman in the church spoke to me of her coin collection, started by her grandfather, and as we talked I realized how much less a hold on me my coin collection has because of the growth in my Christian life over the past five years.
The other side of the coin (to use an unintentional pun) is that an undivided heart does not hold on to wealth as a personal possession. An undivided heart is generous and shares as God directs.
If you have little or if you have a lot, an undivided heart will release you from the hold of the material world and set you free to enjoy the life God has given, to share with others what you have and to be content with what you have.
More than anyone in the Bible but Jesus, Paul stands out to me as one who had an undivided heart and that is revealed by what Paul wrote in his letter to the Philppians:
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
There are not only economic inequalities among us. There are some who are more intelligent than we are, more musically talented than we are, more artistic than we are, more wise than we are. We are not all gifted in the same way.
What do you do if you are leading music and someone comes along who is more talented than you are? What do you do if you are preaching and someone comes along who is a better preacher than you are? What do you do if you are chairman of the board of an organization and someone comes along who can do what you are doing more effectively?
In addition to being pastor of RPF, I am chairman of the board of the Village of Hope and president of lâEglise Protestante. I have thought a lot about this and am ready at any point in time to step aside from those positions and allow someone more qualified than I am to take over. What I most want is to see Godâs work in this country grow and I do not want to let my limitations hold back what God wants to do.
An undivided heart looks to see what God wants to accomplish and does not fight for the earthly reward of being in an important position.
Being content does not mean that you do not work to do the best you can. Being content does not mean you settle for less. But being content means you are at peace with who God made you, at peace with how God is providing for you and at peace with how God is using you.
An undivided heart is a heart that is content. And an undivided heart is a heart that perseveres.
What do you do when you come to this country to work in some sort of service and your efforts do not seem to be appreciated? The truth is that we do not know the sacrifices many of us have made to come and live and work in Morocco. If you look around at the people in our congregation this morning, we know from what country people have come, but we know little about their circumstances and life in their country before they came here. The truth is that we tend to take for granted their presence in our midst.
Life is not easy when you live in a culture different than your own and have to speak a language that is not your own. Some people left a life of ease in their country to come work in Morocco. There are many sacrifices that were made by people to come to this country.
And then in addition to working with your sacrifice being insufficiently appreciated, your efforts to do good are met with obstacle after obstacle. What should be so easy is actually quite difficult. It is not just that you have to learn how to get things accomplished in a foreign culture with a different work ethic, it is difficult working with your colleagues who also came to this country to work.
The truth is that relationships can be more difficult to maintain in this country than back home. There are stresses living in this culture that put strain on relationships. Marriages can suffer. Relationships among colleagues working in a project can suffer.
The goal may be clear about what you want to do, but it can seem that every way you turn, there is another problem to be faced.
So what do you do when you are overworked and underappreciated?
If God called you to come and work here, then what you do is persevere and trust that God who called you will also use your skills and efforts to accomplish what it is he wants you to do.
In the series of books Susan Howatch wrote about Starbridge Cathedral she has a quote I love about the struggle of Christian life.
“Life is open-ended. Human beings are fallible. They crawl forward, then slip back before crawling on again. Catastrophes lurk to ambush them. Tragedies erupt unexpectedly. ‘The whole creation,’ St. Paul wrote, ‘groaneth and travaileth in pain,’ but nothing worthwhile can be created without blood, sweat and tears, and at least we know that our Creator is alongside us, sharing our suffering and never abandoning that enormous struggle to ‘make everything come right.'”
Work does not come easy. This is true in business. But working in a church or charitable organization often makes work more difficult. An undivided heart perseveres because it is focused on obedience to the calling of God in its life.
Paul wrote in Romans 8:18:
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
We persevere because we know our obedience to Godâs call will bring a reward for us in the future.
An undivided heart is a heart that is content and an undivided heart is a heart that perseveres. And an undivided heart is a heart that allows us to carry a candle safely through a storm.
Picture yourself walking through a storm with your hands around the candle flame, protecting that flame from being blown out by the fury of the storm around you. If you stop to think about it, it is impossible to keep a candle lit in such a storm but an undivided heart is able to experience peace in the midst of tremendous turmoil.
Last week I was in the Takkadoum market waiting for the chicken vendor to open up. While I was waiting an argument erupted at one of the stands in the street. A young woman and her father were arguing with a muscular man in his late 20s. The father was not doing a lot. I suspect this was because if he did, the young man would have beaten him up. But the young woman was very aggressive. The argument went on and on and the young manâs friends pulled him back and he began to walk away. But she went after him. The woman was screaming, her head pointed toward him, yelling what I imagine were insults directed at him and then he turned around. He slapped her and she went after him with her nails. Friends pulled them apart and then later the police came and took the young man away in the police van. Thatâs street entertainment and a crowd rushed to see the show.
What happened? Was it an argument over the fair price for something? An insult that was made? I donât know, but this was a picture for me of the storm that is around us every day.
When I drive the streets of Rabat and someone does something terribly obnoxious and I respond by raising my voice and reminding him that he resembles a part of his anatomy covered by pants, I am in the storm. When someone cuts in front of me as I am waiting to make a left hand turn, I immediately begin trying to find a way to get back ahead of him and teach him that it does not pay to be so rude. I get caught up in a revengeful spirit that does not reflect the Jesus who I represent.
In organizations, tensions can exist that put everyone on edge. It seems that if you say one wrong word, an argument will break out.
An undivided heart is able to walk through such storms and be a representative of peace because they are themselves at peace. An undivided heart does not worry about his or her position in the company. An undivided heart allows an insult to slip past without taking offence. An undivided heart does not fight because of being cheated in the marketplace.
The best picture of this is Jesus when he was on the cross being crucified. A great injustice was taking place. He had already been severely beaten. He was in great pain. He was at the extent of his human strength and yet he was at peace and able to take on the suffering of those around him and love them.
He prayed for those who were crucifying him.
âFather, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.â
He offered eternal hope to the thief on the cross next to him.
âI tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.â
When you have an undivided heart, you will be able to bring peace to people in the war around you. You will be able to walk through the stormy conflicts and tensions around you and carry the candle of tranquility safely through.
What can we do to gain an undivided heart?
Hebrews 12
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
An undivided heart is a confessing heart. The writer of Hebrews wrote:
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles
I have been aware lately that I have been too forceful in stating my opinion about how we can be effective witnesses for Jesus in this country. It has become clear to me how we are to love people in this country in the name of Jesus but I have been sharing that with people almost before saying âhello and welcome to this countryâ.
I have great intentions, but my sin prevents me from listening and learning from others and pushes only my point of view. Once again I have to confess my sin and ask God to help me to be more accepting of the way other people choose to operate.
My Christian life has been a continuing struggle to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
As we persevere in our Christian walk, the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin. Friends and family are also very helpful in pointing out ways we could improve. My wife, Annie, is very good at this and in loving way helps me see where I need to grow.
When we become aware and confess our sin, we open up in ourselves room for God to work in us. As we do so, the part of our heart and mind that holds on to God is strengthened.
An undivided heart is a confessing heart and an undivided heart is a seeking heart.
My business card carries this verse from Hebrews 12
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith
There is nothing monotonous about seeking Jesus. Week after week we sing songs about Jesus and the love of God. Why not have a bit more variety? On the few occasions when my parents have heard me preach or when they have read a sermon, they have told me this, âWhy do you have to talk about Jesus all the time?â
I love variety and indeed I crave variety. I hate doing the same thing over and over and over again. But I find myself time and time again being hungry to have more of Jesus. Seeking Jesus day after day is like going to the spring to get water, day after day. Thirsty people do not get tired of drinking water. The vine branch does not get tired of receiving nourishment from the same vine day after day. It takes all it can get and grows and produces lush grapes with the nourishment it receives.
As much as the branch is dependant on the vine, so are we dependant on Jesus. We do not tire of Jesus because Jesus is our lifeline.
This is your lifelong challenge. In your struggle to choose between Jesus and the world, choose Jesus. Do not despair when you fail because you are a sinner saved by grace. Your sinful self will choose the world again and again, but when you fail you can confess your sin and again choose Jesus.
Each day when you wake up, choose Jesus. When you step out into the street, choose Jesus. When you face temptation, when you are insulted, when you are envious, when you are tired and overwhelmed, choose Jesus.
As we prepare to come to the Lordâs Table and once again receive from Jesus his grace and mercy, renew your determination to follow Jesus, to choose Jesus.
