Aligning Our Hearts: The True Quest for God

"But here's the thing that so often comes forth when we go on a noble quest, on a venture forth. Into the unknown. Their very motivations revealed their true hearts. And one by one, they became distracted or consumed by their ideas. We think of Sir Gawain, whose hunger for fame led him astray into endless battles that had no end." [00:01:22]

"And yet there was one knight, Sir Galahad, the one knight whose heart sought only the grail itself. And he was the one who came closest to finding it. For him, the grail wasn't about power. It wasn't about illusions of grandeur. It wasn't about glory and fame. It was about transformation. It was about coming close to the very thing. That the grail was all about in the first instance. It was Jesus." [00:01:58]

"Shifting to the late 20th century, after the post-war boom subsided, society became more economically stable. And the holy grail shifted from external achievement to personal fulfillment. And so the late 20th century saw the rise of individualism, the self-help movement, people increasingly seeking self-actualization, finding one's true self became the goal. And now we find ourselves in the 21st century, and there's one word that has kind of come to define much of who we are right now, and it's the word balance, like the holy grail for many, many books that are sold now with greater volume, many works that are written is about balance, having a good, healthy balance, having a healthy work-life balance, a good, it's not about so much now about what you work. It's actually about the rest that you enjoy." [00:04:04]

"And we see this in the words and the teachings of Jesus. And the biblical authors have this long established view that the disordering of our thoughts, the misalignment of our heart's desires, has the ability to disrail our best motives. And so we come to the teachings that we find in scripture. And we jump down to say Proverbs 4. Where it says, Another translation talks about it being the wellspring of life. Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." [00:06:34]

"The first and most basic thing we can and must do is to keep God before our minds. In our waking, in our sleeping, in our working, in our driving. What does our mind do? Does it shift towards the things of God, the plans and purposes that God has for us? Or does it shift into something else? Keep God before us. Our minds. He goes on. This is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls. Our part in this practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to him." [00:08:11]

"Before becoming a Christian, and even once becoming a Christian, there are things... There are things that your mind will drift towards which, in the language of Dallas Willard, are burdensome habits of dwelling on the things of the past. That could be sins that you are entangled in. That could be thoughts that you have towards other people. Maybe bitterness that is dredged deep in your heart towards somebody else. It may be anger at something that went on years ago and it just still sits with you. It might be anxiety and fear. It could be any of those things. Those can become burdensome habits." [00:08:52]

"And so as Willard says, we must constantly direct and redirect our thoughts back to God. Because as I said last week, I quoted from the great hymn, Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Like we have this proclivity within us to wander away from the things of God and get caught up in those things. That are less than God." [00:09:46]

"Constantly returns to the north. If God is the great longing of our souls, he will become the pole star of our inward being. I just think there's something. Something so beautiful and rich in that very quote. What is a pole star? It's the north star that for hundreds of years became the guiding light in the sky that helped people to keep in the right direction when out traveling. Where is the pole star? Where's the north star? That will keep me going in the right direction. When all else begins to fail. When I'm out on a rocky sea, where's the pole star? When life just feels messy and whoa, what's going on? Where's the pole star? I'm keeping my eyes. Fixed on Jesus." [00:10:46]

"And this brings us to what Josh read to us earlier in Matthew 13. Because in Matthew 13, Jesus here is telling this parable. Jesus told these parables, these stories, which was so right for the time. People would have understood this language. And in this moment, Jesus is saying that he's telling this parable to the people of Israel. He's telling this story of a farmer scattering seeds. But what we see from this parable and what determined the growth of the seed wasn't the seed itself, but it was the condition of the soil." [00:13:33]

"Some of us, like those knights, have hearts cluttered. Some of us have hearts cluttered with thorns, desires for glory, wealth, comfort. And these things choke out the good seeds of the kingdom. But just like the parable of the sower, what matters isn't just the goal of the quest, of like the end point, where you're going to get to. But what matters is what happens along the way and what's happening to your heart along the journey. Is your heart becoming softer to those around you? Is your heart becoming more pure?" [00:14:22]

"Last week, I reminded us that we're on this journey of prioritizing the presence of God, of being transformed into the likeness of Jesus, of being empowered by the Holy Spirit to partner with God on his mission. Those words of presence, transformation, and mission are key. They're our kind of missional framework for what we're doing here. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. But this radical call to serve alongside one another is something which is woven all through the scriptures. We are called to serve the Lord." [00:16:07]

"And that's where our goals and our ideals and our dreams and our longings, become aligned to his plans and purposes for our lives. It's not about the Holy Grail that we're chasing, but it's about laying that down and going, God, what do you want us to do? This is us. We're a church who serve Jesus together and we love Jesus together. We're on his plans and purposes together. We're following after him together. And we want to do all that we can to focus on that very notion that we are better together." [00:18:20]