1) Hi, my name is Dr. Park, and I’m one of the doctors at
a) First of all, I need to explain to you, this hospital is probably unlike any hospital you’ve ever been to.
i) Most of you are probably familiar with the normal hospital where they treat things such as cancers, kidney stones, and any physical injuries.
ii) We here at
(1) We treat things such as hands that cause you to sin. Eyes that wander. Minds that are sinful… Mouths that have problems sharing the gospel. those kinds of things.
b)
i) We started 5 years ago, and every year its been growing…more and more people have been coming and using our services….and due to the recent success and growth, we’ve made plans to expand our hospital.
ii) And we’re in the process of building one right here in
iii) So
2) Our vision is to see the spiritually dead alive, and the spiritually hurt, healed, and the spiritually well, growing. à spiritual life, healing and growth.
a) The difficulty is that spiritual injuries or hurts are hard to see, because they’re not like a gash where you feel physical pain. Spiritual injuries are more internal, and have to do with our hearts.
b) That’s where we come in, each of the doctors here are specially trained to diagnose spiritual diseases, prescribe medications, and even operate if necessary.
i) When it opens, I want to invite you guys for a free check up. It could possibly be life changing.
3) To prove my point, I’d like to share one of the cases I recently encountered.
4) For the sake of protecting the identity of the patient, I’ve changed his name…lets call him mike.
a) Mike came into our hospital about 3 years ago, this 28 years old, bright young man, got a good job, married two kids, lives in a nice house…but I’ve seen enough patients to know that the spiritual well-being of a person didn’t depend on what he had, or his salary, or anything like that.
i) Mike came in because he had a spiritual problem.
5) I met Mike on a normal Friday morning, he’d come in for a check up and he told me that he once in awhile he would feel ill. He felt that something just wasn’t right.
a) So I asked, well what do you mean? What are your symptoms? What’s wrong?
i) Well I feel like I lose my passion for God.
ii) I remember when I was younger, i used to go to church every day, try to read the Bible and pray… I’d try to obey all the commandments and live for God. and it was good..but now…its getting harder and harder.
iii) But now, I don’t care if I come to church late, I don’t get excited for praise, the sermons are ok, but its not that convicting…
(1) I feel like I don’t get anything out of reading the Bible…or even when I pray I feel like it’s a one way prayer…he isn’t listening or speaking to me.
(2) I don’t hunger for God anymore; I can’t say that he’s my all in all, and I want to live for him alone anymore.
iv) When I’m with my friends, I don’t have a desire to be holy or to be a light for him…
(1) I’d rather just do what I want, even though I know it’s a sin.
v) Sometimes I’d rather just live as if God wasn’t there.
(1) Just make money, live a comfortable life, retire…
(2) Doctor, is there something wrong with me?
b) When he told me this, I was growing concerned, the symptoms sounded serious:
c) So I asked him how long has this been going on?
i) Mike’s response shocked me: 4-5 years…
d) What happened?! Why didn’t you come earlier?! This is your spiritual life!
i) And he sounded kind of surprised, and guilty, I don’t think he realized it was this serious:
ii) I don’t know after I got out of college, no accountability, no people to talk to about spiritual things. Busyness of life…kids, work, caught of to me.
iii) I thought something was off, but all my friends were living the same way, I thought that’s just how it was supposed to be.
6) I was worried, I told him, Mike, from the symptoms you’re sharing with me, this sounds serious. I think you have a condition that’s known as the hardness of heart.
a) You have a callous heart. A heart that is cold before God.
b) Basically hardness of heart is a disease that is turned away from God.
i) It doesn’t respond to God’s calling, it doesn’t desire to live for him…its opposed to God.
c) Even though he didn’t know what it was, he could tell by my tone that the condition hardness of heart was something serious, and he began to flood me with questions: What is that? Where did it come from? Can it be fixed?
7) And I tried to give him as much information as possible:
a) The last time I read about it in Romans 1, where it talks about people who were cold hearted…they continually turned away from God.
i) What happened to them, Mike asked?
(1) They died.
b) Now Mike was serious.
8) How did I get this hardness of heart?
a) According to Romans 1, Paul tells us that there are two main causes of hardness of heart
i) The first cause of spiritual hardness was: Suppressing the truth-
(1) Basically it means that you’ve been constantly ignoring God’s call to you. Romans 1 talks about how God created the world so that his invisible qualities would be made known. Like when you see the mountains you see his majesty, and when you see his oceans you see his power, and when you see the sunset you see his beauty.
(a) God was using nature to reveal himself…and he wanted his people to draw near to him. But these people didn’t.
ii) God is always revealing himself to us, because he always wants us to draw near to him.
(1) So he gives us his word, he gives us his church, he calls us to pray…and he tells us he’ll be with us when we evangelize and even when we suffer…ultimately he’s revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ.
(2) But suppressing the truth means that every time God reveals himself to you…you shut him down…you turn the cold shoulder.
iii) Maybe for you, the suppressing the truth came when you came to church but didn’t feel like listening? Or when your friends were trying to keep you accountable from sin but you didn’t listen? Maybe its those times when you felt convicted to read the Bible but you just watched TV instead?
(1) These are all ways that people suppress the truth, and its definitely a cause of spiritual hardness of heart.
iv) The second cause of spiritual hardness is: Worshipping the creation over the creator
(1) Romans 1 talks about how instead of worshipping God the creator, they started to worship idols in the form of man and animals.
(2) Mike seemed confused, he said, I’ve never created another idol, nor have I ever bowed down to worship anything….how did I ever worship the creation over the creator
(a) Let me ask you: on Sundays have you ever wanted to stay home and watch sports more than come to church?
(i) Or have you ever had a time, when all you did was worry about your financial situation? Every thought you had was, is this going to make money? Or is this going to save money? Or how much is this going to cost?
(ii) And he interrupted, well that’s something that I think all godly people should do…they should be using their money wisely and being good stewards of their money…
1. and I told him…yeah you’re right…but when the thoughts of money consume you, and it is the only thing that directs your actions and thoughts…then its become something that turns you away from God.
(b) Spiritual hardness doesn’t just come from making another idol and bowing down and worshipping it.
(i) Worshipping creation is whenever you put something above God in your life.
(ii) And surprisingly, anything in the world can be idolized: even things that seem good, music can be an idol, cars, family, even food can be an idol if you live life for that next nice meal.
1. if you’re stingy about everything else, but lavish when it comes to food…because remember scripture it says: where your treasures are, there your heart is also.
2. and if your heart is in the created things, that will lead you to be distant from the creator and that’s how a hardened heart is formed
v) The bottom line is that sin causes you to harden your heart before God.
(1) Sin is what makes you suppress the truth and turn away from god.
(2) Sin is what makes you worship created things over God the creator.
9) And if your sinfulness is not dealt with here and now…it can get worse.
a) I told him, if you don’t deal with your hardness of heart right now, it can lead to things much more severe.
i) First of all it could lead to deeper sin.
(1) Romans 1 continually uses the phrase: therefore God gave the over…meaning that as the people got into sin, they didn’t get out of it, instead they got deeper and deeper into sin.
(2) Paul shares the example of how first, they suppressed the truth. When God was calling them, they didn’t listen. Then instead of listening to God’s voice, they started to worship other idols that they created. Then they started to have sexually immoral relationships, then it got even worse and people started having homosexual relationships, and then lastly it says that they were filled with every other kind of sin.
(3) Sin is like that, you can’t ever get out of it, without a change of heart you only get in deeper.
(a) Right now you might be worried about money, but that can lead you to cut some corners to make a few more bucks…and then that could eventually lead you to stealing bigger things to make more money…or it could lead you to gambling away all your money in hopes of making money or paying off debt.
(b) Your lust could be just as simple as allowing your eyes to linger when someone attractive walks by, but if you let that linger, then it could lead to deeper sin.
ii) And as you grow deeper in sin, all the symptoms you’ve talked about will only get worse:
(1) It’ll get even harder for you to hear God’s voice.
(2) You’ll lose passion for serving God, living for him, sin will become more enticing…
iii) And Romans 2:5 says that you’re storing up wrath (2:5), basically, its going to lead to your spiritual death.
10) At this point Mike was completely devastated.
a) I could see that he had so many things going on in his head:
i) Probably thinking: why did I wait so long?
ii) How did I come to this point?
iii) Why me?
b) And it even surprised me a little because on the surface, his life seemed so fine…no one could have ever imagined that his spiritual life was in need of so much repair.
c) Desperately he asked: Dr. Lee, what can I do?
11) I think what I told him shocked him: I told, him there was nothing he could, nor was there anything I could do.
a) It was impossible to fix this hardened heart by himself.
b) It didn’t matter what he read or how many times he attended church or did good things…the sin had already done the damage.
c) And because the sin had already entered into his heart, it was impossible to take away the sin without taking out the entire heart.
i) This would require a complete heart transplant.
12) Then came the good news.
a) I remembered where Mike could get a new heart.
b) I remembered a case where the Israelites had the same issue: a hardened heart, and I remembered that Ezekiel said about the cure:
i) When
c) Ezekiel 18:30-32 30 "Therefore, O house of
i) God said that if we repent and turn away from sin, then God himself will give us a new heart and new spirit!
(1) That new heart is filled with new desires: to worship God, to seek him, to turn to him…that new heart now will grow in christlikeness and holiness.
(2) God will give us a new heart if we repent and turn away from sin and turn to him.
d) At that point I began to share with him that true repentance comes when we turn to Jesus Christ to receive forgiveness of sins. I told mike truthfully, the death that you deserve for your hardness of heart, Jesus Christ died that death on the cross so that you wouldn’t. He took your sins and paid the price of death by shedding his blood on the cross. So that you could have a new heart, a heart that loves God.
i) When we come to him humbly, acknowledging our sin, admitting our need for a changed life, and turn to Jesus Christ, through God’s grace, we receive the blood of Jesus Christ as the substitution for our sins. Now we can have a perfect relationship with God the father.
(1) We can enjoy his presence…we can hear him speaking to us…we can get excited about worship.
13) I’m so grateful for your help…At first I thought that I really liked the things of this world, but now I realize now that this is what I really wanted, a walk with God that is satisfying, desirable…more than anything in the world, I wanted God to love him and to experience his love…I want to come to church and meet with God, I want to open up his word and experience his grace and mercy…I want to serve and help and love others as Christ loved the church…and now with this new heart, I can have it.
14) He was so thankful.
15) These are the types of things we offer…
a) If you ever feel like you need a check up in your heart, feel free to come by and ask for a first time free complimentary check up.
