A Changed Heart Means a Changed Life!

3rd Sunday after Epiphany, 1/22/12
1 Corinthians 7:29-31

A Changed Heart Means a Changed Life!
I. In your relationships
II. In your outlook
III. In your possessions

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN is known around the world for its medical care. And one of its many areas of expertise is heart transplants. I took a look at its website and found the story there of a young woman named Tara Kline. A year after graduating from high school she was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect and was told she would need a heart and double lung transplant. Upon hearing the diagnosis and the suggested treatment, her fears were overwhelming. Even if she survived such a difficult procedure, what would her life be like?

She waited eight years for a donor to be found, but even after all that time, her fears hadn’t subsided at all. She kept telling the Mayo staff, “I can’t do this. It’s too much!” But her team of doctors assured her that everything would be fine.

Five years later she knows how right they were. She has her life back. She finished college and can play with her young nephew—things that would have been impossible without her new heart and lungs. She has a new appreciation for each day of her life. She realizes that someone had to die in order to give her life.

How true that is for every one of us! In a spiritual sense we’ve had a heart transplant. Through his almighty word our God has changed our hearts that were cold and dead in sin and unbelief into hearts that are warm and full of spiritual life and love for him. Our hearts are filled with faith in Jesus as our Savior. We live each day in the certainty of our forgiveness and our eternal life. In fact, that changed heart affects every aspect of our lives. Our faith in Jesus gives us a completely different way of looking at everything in our lives.

A changed heart means a changed life. St. Paul helps us understand how deeply our faith in Jesus affects our lives in these verses before us this morning. A changed heart means a changed life. May our God help us not only to realize it but also empower us to live like it!

Part I.

More than a year ago a popular television ad ended with the slogan, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” It was a more-than-subtle invitation to indulge your sinful nature in what many people refer to as “Sin City.” In other words, come to Las Vegas and let your hair down and then go back home and leave your sins behind.

Is St. Paul urging something similar when he tells us, “From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none”? Is he urging married men to remove their wedding rings and spend their nights in singles bars? Is he telling us to forget our vows of faithfulness? Is he espousing what some people call an open marriage?

Of course not. In fact, in this very letter he denounces immorality. In other letters he upholds and encourages the sanctity of marriage and demands faithfulness on the part of both husbands and wives. So what is he talking about here?

Before we answer that, let’s recall what the Bible says about marriage. It’s a holy estate, established by God before sin entered the world. God instituted marriage as a blessing for human beings. That hasn’t changed and won’t change until our Lord returns. God still blesses husband and wife with each other in marriage. He wants each married couple to remain devoted and faithful to one another until he parts them in death.

But that devotion to one another dare never interfere with our relationship to our Lord. Paul mentions the husband-wife relationship here because that’s the subject of this chapter of his letter. But what he says actually applies to any relationship the Christian might have whether that’s a friendship or a marriage or an extended family situation or a school, work, or business situation. Think about it. Consider how often the people in our lives tend to get in the way of our relationship with Jesus Christ. If they aren’t boldly tempting us to do something which Jesus forbids, they’re encouraging us or even demanding of us that we divert our attention away from our Lord. Paul says if that’s the case, then you need to choose Christ and make that perfectly clear to whomever is pulling you away from him.

A changed heart means a changed life, a change in your relationships.

Jesus once said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:26). But doesn’t the Bible command us to love these very people? It certainly does. But this was Jesus’ way of emphasizing that a tremendous change has taken place in you and me through the powerful gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ve been brought to faith in him. That changes everything, even our closest relationships. We must place Christ first. That’s not easy. In fact, we fail more times than we care to admit. But consider that Jesus placed us ahead of himself and he did that in the most difficult way possible when he suffered and died for us. He did that so that we could have a relationship with him that will never end. A changed heart means a changed life.

Part II.

Someone once said, “If living the Christian life is easy for you, you’re probably not living one.” I think we’d all agree. The Christian is going one way and the world is going in the opposite direction. That’s never easy.

Paul speaks about opposites in the next section of our text. He writes, “Those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not.”

Again, Paul is speaking about how the world and the Christian are opposites. What is it that makes our world mourn? Our world mourns the downfall or the passing even of people who have lived openly sinful and despicable lives. Our world mourns and complains when our government attempts to restrain people from behavior that’s detrimental to themselves and society.

And what makes our world happy? When it’s free to indulge itself in whatever the sinful nature desires. In fact, it finds its entertainment in sin. It delights in greed, lust and materialism.

But not the Christian. A changed heart means a changed life. What makes the Christian mourn? Our world’s insatiable appetite for sin and it’s defiance of the one, holy God. The Christian mourns over the idolatry of humanism. The Christian is pained by all the strife and pain that sin brings into families.

And what makes the Christian happy? The Christian finds his peace and comfort in the almighty rule of Jesus Christ. The Christian rejoices with the angels in heaven over one sinner who repents. The Christian rejoices over God’s faithful people who join him or her in worshipping the God of our salvation. The Christian lives as a contented optimist, knowing that in the end Jesus will make all things right for a world gone terribly wrong.

A changed heart means a changed life, changed in your outlook.

And yet many are the times that we tend to look at things the way the world does. We worry over our health and finances as if our Lord has nothing to do with them. We feel cheated that our lives aren’t blessed more than they are. Our focus is too often on ourselves instead of on our Lord, our loved ones and others. That’s when we need the reminder that our hearts have been changed. That’s one of the blessings of your baptism. God completely changed our hearts with his word connected to the water. He brought us faith in Jesus and forgiveness for our sins. He became our eternal focus. Our sinful nature has been drowned and our new life was created. And now through his word and the Lord’s Supper he continues to strengthen that new person who lives a changed life, changed even in our outlook on things.

Part III.

Paul has one more change to discuss with us this morning. He writes, “Those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them.” He wants to discuss with us the change that has occurred in our possessions.

In one of his letters to Timothy, Paul had this to say about the Christian’s changed view of possessions, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Tim. 6:6-10).

The Christian realizes that everything belongs to our God and he gives us our possessions to use while we’re here on earth. That means our possessions aren’t an end in themselves. They are given to us to use to God’s glory, not our own. So why would we place such a great amount of emphasis on our possessions? I know our world does, but we’ve been changed. And a changed heart means a changed life, especially regarding our possessions.

Even if the Lord chooses to take everything away from us, as he did the ancient believer Job, that still means we have our greatest treasure in our Savior Jesus Christ. He’s the one who has changed you forever when he made you his dear child by faith in him. May the power of that risen Savior go with you now as you live a life that reflects the changed heart your Savior gave you! Amen.