How do we address the hearts of unbelievers and believers in the church service? Church needs both depth and warmth. It needs to engage the hearts of believers and unbelievers. Murray Capill continues to apply his challenge of engaging the heart to church.

Make sure you listen to his first talk.

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TRANSCRIPT:

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Good day, I’m Pete Hughes and you’re listening to the Reach Australia podcast.Recently at our national conference, Marie Capel did an excellent talk on the heart and if you haven’t heard that talk, I’d recommend you go back and listen to it.This is a shorter talk where he takes those ideas and he applies them to church.

How do we capture not just the Christian heart, but the non Christian heart as we meet together as God’s people?Enjoy.I think Sunday morning people are rocking up to church.

Who’s coming?There’s a a young mum, she’s worn out, kids were up in the night, her partner didn’t feel like coming.She’s alone, she’s weary, she’s wondering what on earth she’s doing there.

There’s an old lady.She’s a dear old soul who feels profoundly inadequate now because of all that she can’t do for the Lord anymore.But if you knew her prayer life, it would put you to shame.

There’s a young couple there.They’re absolutely pumped, keen as beans, love church, totally involved.They’re there.There’s a guy who’s rock solid in church life, but no one knows the stuff in his private life that haunts him.

There’s another bloke who’s been dragged along to church.He’s never been before.He doesn’t have a clue what to expect.There’s a girl, she’s lonely, she’s pretty depressed.

She’s been told all her life that she’s no good, and she believes it.There’s a couple who are doing a home renovation and they’re going to spend the next hour in their heads planning the back deck.

I was once told that if I I was told this by a builder in my church, if I could hear all the hammering and nailing going on while I’m preaching, I would not be able to hear myself speak.So these are the kind of people rocking up on a Sunday morning, dozens more of them, believers and unbelievers and their hearts in all sorts of different places, mind, conscience, will passions all over the place.

And so this is a profoundly pastoral moment.This is the gathering of the flock and we are there leading the service, shepherding them to the Good Shepherd.So what kind of shepherding will they get for their hearts in your service?

Will they get something for the mind?Boy?I hope so.These people, these kind of people are coming along.They need something for their mind.They need the word of God, they need the gospel.They don’t just need tips for their lives.

They don’t need, you know, but a pop psychology.They need the truth of the gospel.They need to be lifted above those life situations and see God in his glory and His Majesty.They need some meat, but don’t just serve them up raw chunks of meat like marinated and and cook it to perfection and use some sauces and relishes.

So there’s appetizing.They give them meat or yeah, OK, and deference to the vegans again, like give them give them the best kale lasagna you’ve ever cooked.They need something for their mind.

Will you give them something for their wills?They need to know what to do.They need to know that is how to respond to God in those life circumstances.They don’t need so much tips for how to get the kids to sleep at night or how to do this or that, certainly not on the home renovation.

What they need, ultimately, is to learn how to trust God and obey God in the circumstances of their lives.So they need something for their mind.They need something for their will, but if they only get a knowing and doing service, then there will be deep parts of their hearts still untouched.

Will they get something for their conscience?Will the truth that you’re talking about be pressed into their hearts in such a way that they’re deeply convicted?That they’re convicted of their desperate need of help and convicted that Jesus Christ is the one who can meet that need?

And will they get something for their passions?Will they be moved?Will they be stirred in the deep inner desires and longings of their hearts?Church is only boring when it doesn’t connect to the deep heart realities with which we’ve come along.

So these men and women, kids, young people, when they come to church, they need something for their whole heart.Want to talk briefly then about two things.The heart of unbelievers and the heart of a church service or whatever that thing is that you call Sunday mornings.

First of all, the heart of unbelievers.In First Corinthians 14, we’d have this beautiful picture of an unbeliever walking into church and walking out with his heart massively changed.Now you know that in First Corinthians 14, Paul is massive on edification.

That’s why he prefers prophecy over tongues.He would rather have 5 intelligible words then 10,000 miraculous words that you can’t understand.He’s huge on edification.He wants stuff for the mind.But look at what his edification leads to.

Have a look at these well known verses.If therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders are unbelievers in to, will they not wait?Say that you’re out of your out of your minds.Interesting isn’t it?Out of your mind, but if all prophesied and unbeliever or outside enters he’s convicted.

There’s that word by all called to account by all the secrets of his heart are disclosed and so falling on his face, which sounds terribly passionate.He will worship God and declare God is really among you.

Notice this, this visitor, he, she, whoever it’s who come along convicted by all.I don’t think that’s all the people and all the stuff going on, all this word ministry, all this edification convicted in such a way that now he she starts to feel that the secrets of their heart are being laid there.

They’re being exposed.The the word is speaking into their conscience and convicting them.You know that feeling, I hope yourself when you you hear the word and it’s like, whoa, that was just for me.

It’s just gone straight into your heart.God has smacked you between the eyeballs.And that’s the experience of this outsider, deeply convicted by the ministry of the Word and so secondly, then moved to worship, falling on his face makes this magnificent declaration.

God, God really is among you.This is a person who has encountered the place where the presence of God dwells.There in the church.

He’s met God as people sing and pray and speak the truth and minister the Word.There’s a sense, wow, in this place, God is really here.And so the edification has led to conviction and passion and that has led to an encounter with God.

I think that whole heart experience is essential, not only biblically, as we’ve seen, but also culturally.Culturally, it seems to me that the hearts of most people in our cultural moment are bottom up hearts.

That is, say they’re passion driven and we have passions about all sorts of things from coffee to climate change, food, gender, sexuality, identity, minorities, racism.People come along to church.They’re all their innate passions.

Those passions are often forming their consciences and determining their actions, and their passions are actually their mindset.It’s a bottom up heart in our culture.If such people come to our services and the passions are ignored or sidelined, then it will seem to them inauthentic.

That is, say they’re passion driven and we have passions about all sorts of things from coffee to climate change, food, gender, sexuality, identity, minorities, racism.People come along to church.They’re all their

In their hearts.Those passions are often forming their consciences and determining their actions, and their passions are actually their mindset.It’s a bottom up heart in our culture.If such people come to our services and the passions are ignored or sidelined, then it will seem to them inauthentic.

But if they come to a church and they see passion, but it’s a it’s a whole different suite of passions from what they are used to, but it’s authentic and it’s real and it is passion that it might make them think twice about what’s going on.Humanly speaking, if church is cold, impersonal, intellectual, emotionless, humanly speaking, I know God can use anything.

But humanly speaking, that is unlikely to impact the heart of an unbeliever.Oh, for people to come into church and they experience their warmth and love and enthusiasm and joy and intensity, a people of God caught up, lifted up to something bigger than the things that these people came in with on their hearts.

That’s what these people need to know.They need a wholehearted, not 1/2 hearted service.So from the heart of unbelievers to the heart of church, the heart of our service and our gathering on a Sunday, what should be the aim of what we’re doing when we gather?

These gatherings should not in any way be light on knowing and doing.Not Bible light, not gospel light, not God light, and not light in clarity on how to respond to God.

But it must be knowing and doing that pushes toward conviction and passion.How do we do that?Two things.And the second has two things.So first of all, the first of the two, those who lead must lead the way.

OK, If we’re going to have services, gatherings where knowing and doing pushes toward conviction and passion, those who lead must lead the way.I’ve always got a Richard Baxter quote.Here it is.I confess I must speak it by lamentable experience that I published to my flock the distempers of my own soul.

When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold.And when it is confused, my preaching’s confused.And so I often observe also in the best of my hearers that when I’ve grown cold and preaching, they’ve grown cold too, and the next prayers that I’ve heard from them have been too much like my preaching.

The state of our heart as leaders will directly impact the heat of our services.Whether you’re welcoming or song leading or reading the Bible, or praying or conducting an interview or wrapping things up or opening God’s Word, the state of our heart must be one where our knowing and doing has been impacting our conscience and passions.

Those of us who lead must learn to embody warmth and conviction, passion, energy, longing, love, desire, not not faked and and different depending on our personalities.That there are lovely, quiet, introverted ways of being passionate.

There are out there exuberant ways of being passionate.We must embody the truth.If you are emotionally dead, you will help kill people.Death spreads.

Those who stay will slowly wither in their souls.Those who don’t want to wither will leave your church.So pray that as those of us who lead, pray that our hearts would be warm and convicted and moved by what we know and by what we do.

I often used to to to work on my own heart before preaching and leading services.I would often on Saturday night read histories of revival and I would read those great stories of Welsh and English and New England revivals because there I’d be just reminded again of the power of God and what the Holy Spirit can do and what happens when God moves in and awakens and shakes and, and the sort of people God uses and the the sort of ways he works.

And it would just stir my heart.And I would step the next day into ministry with far greater expectation and warmth and excitement about ministry.Those who lead must lead the way.Here’s the second thing.The second thing with two things, every, every movement of our gatherings needs to be wholehearted.

And I just want to throw out two tools that are helpful for that.The first we’ve actually had yesterday and I just want to underline it and and endorse it.It’s the warmth and depth measure.So this comes straight from Toby Neil and and Liv Chapman, Vine Church.

They use this.I think it’s just so helpful asking of everything, is it warm?Is it deep?Depth is about God and the word truth, the gospel.We don’t want it light and superficial.

We want depth of faith and hope and love.Biblical depth and warmth is about treating people with the grace that we have received.It’s it’s about being personal and relational and emotionally intelligent.

And so depth digs for the gospel moment.I’m just nicking all this from these guys and and warmth digs for the human moment.Some churches have depth without warmth.

I’ve been to those churches.They are not serving up beautiful marinated steak.It feels to me like thick, bland, cold pea soup.It’s nutritious and very unappetizing.

Some churches have warmth without depth and it feels like fairy floss.It’s all sort of sweet and just gone.There’s nothing, no substance.

Some churches we can have neither depth nor warmth.I can’t find a food analogy for it.It’s actually like lying in an empty bathtub.

No depth, no warmth.Do you ever do that?Do you ever get undressed and just lie in an empty bathtub?If you don’t, then don’t do it to your church either.

Wholehearted gatherings are where every point along the way, introducing songs, reading the Bible, praying.Liv demonstrated some of this beautifully yesterday, where every point along the way, and I think in our preaching it’s a must.In our praying, it’s a must.There’s depth and there’s warmth.

Here’s the other tool to toss your way, the convicting, moving measure.We saw that for our own hearts.What’s convicting?What’s moving?

And now as we lead others in the presence of God, how should this convict people?How should this move people?How is this truth so convicting, so challenging, so exposing, so amazing, so important?

How should we be convicted of this?And how?How is this moving?How’s it beautiful?How’s it sweet as how’s it just lovely?How’s it good?Some things, some things are just very convicting, aren’t they?

Some things are very moving.So take all your knowing and doing and push it and express it in terms of what is just really convicting and really moving.It’s often just a A1 liner.

It’s the way something’s introduced before a song.We say it’s, there’s a line in here that I just think is so beautiful.After an interview, we say, wow, The the thing that just sticks in my heart right now is what you said there.

We hide out what’s convicting and what’s moving, and we make it warm and deep.And so here’s my contention.This is what I want to leave with you to think about.If a church is knowing and doing, is warm and deep and convicting and moving, then by God’s grace, people’s hearts will engage with God and with the gospel.

Is that not what we want?And this doesn’t just happen.It’s a culture.It’s a gospel culture.It’s a culture we will have to cultivate.It’s a culture where we’ll have to train and equip people to lead in our gatherings in a way that is warm and deep and convicting and moving.

And I think we should have the expectation that when our knowing and doing is deep and warm and convicting and moving, God may speak powerfully into people’s hearts.And many people in our church and coming into our churches will fall down and worship God and say God is really among you.

Praise Him.I hope once again that you were challenged by that.I hope that you enjoyed it.I hope that you are going to take something that Murray has talked about and work out how are you going to change the way that you do church or you go to church this week.

Keep an eye out for further resources.If you have any questions, ideas or feedback, make sure you e-mail [email protected] dot AU.I’m Pete Hughes, chat soon.