Welcome And Why A Podcast

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Heart Religion, a conversation with the leadership of Redeemer Bible Church here in Elk Grove to help you know, love, and follow Jesus better by faith. I'm here today with my brother pastor Eric Rios, and we are gonna be just kicking off this new ministry initiative of Redeemer, this podcast called Heart Religion. And uh we're gonna dive into what is the heart. But even before we get there, uh why another podcast?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

There's a lot of content in the world. Why are we doing this? Yeah, that that's a great question. Uh we don't need more busy work. We're not doing it because there's nothing to do in the week. Yeah. Uh, we're doing it because we care for God's people. We want to shepherd God's people. And we kind of have to take a look. How are people receiving information these days? You know, they're not reading theological papers. I mean, some are, right? But we're not gonna be doing that. We're gonna be presenting information at a conversation so that people can hear from their pastors. Yeah. Uh, this isn't something for people way out there somewhere. This is for our local body. If it blesses somewhere, somebody else in another state or in another country, that's awesome. We praise God for that. But really, the the direction is for God's people here at Redeemer Bible Church in Elk Road.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

That's good. Yeah, so much of our shepherding is micro, yeah, like one-on-one. Right. Right. I mean, obviously there's the corporate gathering on Sundays, but during the week, it's a lot of small, which is good and needed. But we're hopeful that this might even reach more of God's people here at Redeemer and obviously bless anybody who listens. Yep. Yeah, it reminds me of in every age, pastors have had to wrestle this out of how to shepherd. Um, and back in the day, there was a pastor named John Calvin. Yeah. And he wrote a lot, right? Because his people, um, they didn't have this technology, obviously, but they could read. Right. And they didn't have access to go buy books because of poverty. So he would write and then distribute these letters to his church to disciple them during the week. And a lot of that's been turned into his works today, but he didn't start off just to write books. Right. It was to shepherd his people there where he was pastoring, yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Which really is just what we're trying to do today. Yeah. Every every pastor has a different context. We're 21st century America. We have this technology. We have gifted brothers and sisters here that are helping us put all this together. So yeah, it should be uh, I'm excited for it. Yeah. Yeah, we're looking forward to it.

Why God Wants The Heart

SPEAKER_01 2:17

I I love the name Heart Religion. And so I'm so excited that that's the name of our podcast. I would love to hear from you, Justin. Uh, why do you think that that's a good title for this podcast?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Uh yeah, well, one, because it's there wasn't one already in existence. Okay. So, you know, we just Googled and you know, yeah, uh, but in all seriousness, it it really is that all over the Bible, God's after the heart. That's just that's what God's desiring for all people of all time that we would work out our faith from hearts that actually love God and desire to please God. Amen. And it's so easy to turn Christianity into like intellectualism or winning arguments like apologetics, right? But actually doing all of that and missing our hearts, which is just cover to cover all over the Bible. That's what God loves is hearts that want to please Him. Right. So our goal is to just help people in every episode work out their hearts before God by faith. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah. And and Eric, I just want to kind of maybe turn it on you. You know, you're the soul care discipleship pastor here at RBC. And so you think a lot about the heart and motivations, desires, why we do what we do. Um, and so I just want to kind of kick this off. Like, as we think about the heart, we're obviously not talking about the ticker, you know, that's you know, keeping blood pumping through our body. Right. Um, biblically speaking, like, what is the heart?

Defining The Heart Biblically

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, great question. I love that we're starting with that question. Um, I think you look at Old Testament, New Testament, you cannot get away from heart language. And even if we're thinking about, okay, what was Jesus' ministry while he was here on earth? It was a ministry of heart religion. So Jesus was about the heart. And so then we got to be about the heart. And so, yeah, thinking about a definition, um, yeah, if we're thinking about it with our Bibles open, we would say it's the immaterial part of man. And so think about uh two parts. We have the flesh, you know, body, skin, bones, all that kind of stuff. And then we have everything that makes us up as a unique person. So thinking about the affections, the desires, yeah, almost like the control center of why do we do the things that we do, that's good, our motivations, everything that you cannot see about us produces what we would say is the heart. Yeah. And so I was thinking about this, and you know, we're on a we're on a video podcast right now. I want to give an example. And so, if we were to cut the audio from this podcast and people were forced to just watch our faces, that's that's kind of a bummer for them. They're gonna have to just watch us, they could learn us, they could look at your face, they could look at my face. Maybe there's uh a subtitle that says that my name is Eric and your name is Justin on a Sunday morning, they might be able to come in here having watched the podcast and say, Oh, that's that guy, Justin, or that's that guy over there, Eric, if all they had was the video. But now, if we change it and we just go to the audio, and so you can't see what we look like, but you can hear our voices. And then if we change the content of this podcast to the things that keep us up at night, the things that motivate us, the things that challenge us, the things that we treasure, the people that are in our life that are most important to us, and then why? Well, now people are gonna begin to hear a little bit about our heart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yeah, it's almost like Jesus, where he said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. How do you know somebody's heart? Well, you listen to them, yeah, right? Yeah, and so you can look at somebody and see the externals, yeah, that physicality that we have, yeah, right. But there is something about like our even like there, like that's a great illustration of the audio. Like, well, we hear it. I get to know you at that level by listening. And then if we work out our hearts, biblically defined, now I'm getting into desires, intentions, motivations, longings, fears, right? All of that now is the immaterial part of man, like you said, right? That internal heart that is what's driving me.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

And I I love that you already you're already there. We're we're tracking well this morning. Um, you you mentioned Jesus' words, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Treasure, Fruit, And External Religion

SPEAKER_01 6:32

I'm gonna back us up a little bit. In Luke 6, starting in verse 43, these are Jesus' words. He says, For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again is a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of his heart, produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so we we gotta look at that, right? We gotta see the heart of Jesus is to get after the motivations, the desires, and it's not so much in correcting the actions and the behaviors, Jesus is going straight after what we treasure.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Right. And that was that was a bombshell right in Jesus' day. Yeah, right. I mean, so much of Jesus' sermons, right, were uh addressing his particular cultural moment. And obviously they're transcultural, like the word of God's always relevant, but you think of Christ's ministry, right? And he was amongst a culture that was highly religious, yeah, but highly external.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Right. So it is, they they looked good on the outside, right? Um, they cleaned up well, you would say. They wore their best on Sundays, you know, they had external righteousness, right? But internally, they were a mess, right? And so that's why Jesus is constantly referencing the heart. He's talking about things like, you know, uh you in inside you're full of dead man's bones, right? Right? Like that idea of washing the outside of a cup. Yep. Um, and so here he's really getting to the fact that you could look good externally, but a heart that's far from God. Right. Right. And that's probably the one of the most dangerous things about even Christianity and Christian religion, right? Is we can have this like external performance. Yep. You know, and I think in our culture today, that could look like, you know, uh, I'm I'm good with money, I'm financially secure, or I've raised children who are good moral human beings. You know, I go to church every Sunday, I I uh give money, I serve, I'm conservative politically, you know, all the stuff that we could say looks Christian.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah, and if we stop it there, isn't that exhausting? Yeah. I mean, what becomes a standard at that point? You know, you've got family A over here and family B, and then there's this constant ticker and and measure, and then the standard goes up higher and higher. And it's really based on the things that are this outward appearance and not actually their desire. And so somebody could be financially good with money, but we still don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Oh, and they call it stewardship, by the way. Yeah, they use a Bible term, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But then they could actually have a carnal motivation for why they are good with their money. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

And God's after the heart. Exactly. That's what he's always coming after is I want your heart. Yeah, right. Not just these externals. And so, yeah, that's gonna be our goal, right? For this heart religion podcast would be always coming back to, hey, the word of God, what's it say? Yeah, right. We gotta understand it because the transformation comes from the scriptures, not just Eric's opinion, Justin's opinion, right, or anybody else's. It comes from the word, but the word of God applied to the heart. Yeah, right. And then we we're gonna have to wrestle with actually submitting to the word to work it out by faith. Right, right. And I is it it's it is, it's exhaust you know, you said it's exhausting to live on that performance treadmill, which we'll talk about in a minute. But in a way, it's it's easier because I don't have to look at my heart, right? The heart being exposed is hard.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah, it's convicting. It is, it is, and and that was Jesus' ministry. Right. That's what he continued to get after with the Pharisees. You know, we could even look at another passage where Jesus would confront the Pharisees and say that they honor me with their lips, but what? Their heart is far from me.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah. So maybe with that, Eric, we can move into kind of another kind of question.

Blame Shifting Versus Heart Change

SPEAKER_00 10:35

What um I mean, we would establish what is the heart, you know, at a high level. But why does this biblical definition of the heart matter so much? If it is the control center of everything, you know, then then why does it actually, or how does that aff affect us in real time and space?

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, I I love that question um because it really gets after um just the other forms of religion that we could say. If we are after a heart-based religion, then we're gonna get after the things that cause us to worship. And so um there's so many things, and I I already use the word exhausting, there's so many other factors and things that we can look at. So if Jesus is getting after you will know them by their fruit, then we can look at what the what the life is producing, and and then we can begin to address things at a heart level. So uh if we begin to look at like circumstances, environments, um, it is so easy to play the blame game. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many times I've heard where it's just like, well, that's just how I raised. That's that's just how I was raised, you know, and they could blame their ethnicity at that point. You know, the the classic is like, well, we're Irish, we're Italian, we're angry, we're Mexican, we do this, and and they can they can kind of blame their ethnicity or their past on their on their current um passions and desires. Yeah. But really it's it's it's blaming uh the family tree and not actually examining the heart. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We can do that with with so many other things of just upbringing, even blaming relationships, right? We have a husband and wife in a counseling room, and then both of them are doing this, right? Right. The husband's looking this way, the wife's looking this way, and and we can play that game and we can begin to like start, you know, connecting all these superficial things that may be um presenting problems in the marriage. Yep. But if we don't actually get to the level of the heart, uh, we're actually not helping anybody.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah. Yeah, we're just behavior modificationists in the name of Jesus. Right? So we're changing behavior, which could look good for a while, but it's actually not dealing with with what pleases God, which is the heart. Amen. Right. And I find that so often that's just what the flesh does. I mean, it's it's why we have like in James, right? Like, where does strife come from?

unknown 12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Right? If we don't deal with the heart, we're gonna say, Strife comes from my spouse, strife comes from my boss, strife, strife comes from, you know, bad politicians, strife comes from me being broke. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm broken, so I, you know, we got pressures, right? Right. We're always able to blame something or someone, you know, and so then then it's that's outside of us. Yeah. But it's like, you know, where does strife come from? From within. From within. Right? You desire, yeah. You have these passions waging war within you. Yes. And then that's where the word of God is gonna do some really good work in our hearts. Yep. Um, and so yeah, not only does the definition of the heart matter.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yeah, really what that I love that James 4 passage that you're you're referencing there, is that it's really getting after worship. Right. And if we believe that um that God's holding out on us, well, it's gonna produce something in us. And so it's gonna look like anger, it's gonna look like anxiety. And all these things we would just say are presenting problems. Yep. And so if we can't get a little bit deeper than that, then we're we're missing the mark, which is the heart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Yeah, and just like it's so natural to the flesh, right? Our our knee-jerk is Adam and Eve.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

It's her fault, it's his fault, it's the snake's fault. It's it's your fault. Exactly. You gave me this. Exactly. It's always that way. That's where we go every time if we're just in the flesh, right? Yeah. And it takes the word of God being worked out for us to actually have that knee-jerk response that's not blaming somebody else, but looking internally and going, oh, ooh, what's going on for me and in my heart, right? In my affections. Right. Right.

What Defiles Us Comes From Within

SPEAKER_00 14:34

And I just find Mark 7 to be so helpful. Um, again, Jesus' day, they had all these dietary regulations, right? So they would, they would have concluded it's what goes into somebody that defiles, right? And in that context, Jesus says in Mark uh 7.20, uh, he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of a man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. And these evil things come from within.

unknown 15:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

And they defile a person. And I'm just like, dang. All we love to blame that on the world. Right. Right. I mean, how many times has, you know, as a youth ministry for a lot of years, college ministry, and parents would like to say, oh, my kid just hung out with the wrong kids. He's a good kid, just the wrong friends. Yeah. And it's that same thing. They, it's like, actually, it's it's his heart. It's her heart. It's always, it comes from within. Yeah, bad company can corrupt good morals, but we also, birds of a feather, flock together. You know, it's like, oh yeah, my heart is a certain way. Yeah. And we're so quick to blame this wicked world that we're in or the relationship that's not going well or whatever, as opposed to looking, oh, what's this? What is this saying about me?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yep. Yeah. So then at that point, it's not geography. Right. Right? Because people will think, like, oh, it's California. California's gone to hell in a handbasket. It's not the public school. We gotta get out of here. It's not the public school system. It's not the spouse God gave me. Right, right. So you can leave, you can be uprooted, and then you can probably find the same problems in another state. Yeah. And guess what's similar? What the constant variable is, is you're still there. Yeah. You haven't addressed your heart. So you can move to a different geography. You can you can have a different spouse, which is a terrible thing to consider. But if you haven't addressed your heart, then you haven't done any work that's gonna be worthwhile.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah. And I would say that's the really the offense of the cross, even the offense of the cross is you, you have a problem. It's you. Yeah. The problem is not something that's been done to you. Right. It's you. Yeah. Right. And then I think the life of faith is that constant humility of the awareness of man, even though I have a new heart as a Christian, right? Yeah. We've been born again. I still have this remnant of the flesh, right? Romans 7, this war within. And so I'm so quick to go off the path of walking with Christ by faith, right? And then my knee-jerk is still blaming something outside of me.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

And scripture is just so consistently coming back with like, no, no, what's happening inside of you? Right. Yeah. And it reminds

Guarding The Heart In Real Life

SPEAKER_00 17:22

me of like the Proverbs 4 23 text, right? Keep your heart with all vigilance. Uh for for from it flows the springs of life. You know, it's such an interesting and stark warning, right? Keep your heart with this idea of like just like urgency. Right. Right? Guard it. Yep. Why? Because all of life bubbles out of it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yep. Yeah. And then the the the guarding of the heart eventually looks like guarding your ears, guarding your eyes, guarding the things where where your environment actually does play a significant role, right? We can't blame our environment. Right. But we have to definitely guard the things that we're taking in because it is going to affect our heart. Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

But that's kind of encouraging, right? I mean, I think there's been this kind of perceptive perception sometimes that, you know, Christians have to kind of uh live in a monastery. Okay. You kind of have to, you know, seclude yourself from the world entirely, right? To be holy, right? To live for God. Um, and I mean there is a there is truth of separating ourselves from certain circumstances or relationships or you know, wickedness, entertainment, whatnot, that goes, oh yeah, that is not gonna help me walk with God by faith. But you see so many examples in scripture. Like I'm just thinking like a Joseph example. Sure. He didn't have a great environment. He wasn't treated right by others. Right. He had a lot of trauma, we would call today. Sure. His boss's wife, who's also a slave master's wife, is really wicked. Yep. Like he's in prison unjustly. Like he, you know what he can't change his external circumstances, but God is with him. And he walks with God from a heart that wants to please God. Right. And that's actually what God's after.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Right? So we can say, oh, I'm walking with God because I've I've shoved everything worldly away. Right. Right. But actually, we're in the world, not of the world. And I think as we do heart religion, now we're like, oh man, in my job, right, with my family, with my hobbies, in my politics, whatever. Yep, the world's broken, but I'm walking with God for my heart.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

And that's where we need help. That's where I need help. Yeah. And that's where we want to actually teach God's people to receive that, to be transformed at the level of their heart, and to not remove themselves from the world, but then to say, okay, these pressures in life, they still really exist. Yep. So the the goal is not and the motivation is not to remove yourself from this situation. God actually has you here right now. And then the point for you being here today is that you would persevere, that you would, that you would endure, that you would be transformed, and that you would actually see the pressures of life are actually sanctifying you. It's what God is using in your life to mature you, to grow you up.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Yeah. Yeah, which is so contrary to the flesh again, because we think that walking with God would be like a certain circumstantial change potentially. Yeah. Right. But that's really not what God's God's after. He's after, hey, in your season of trial or in your season of temptation or in your environment that's difficult, walk with God from a heart that wants to please him.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Right. And then we get to know the joys and the benefits of walking with God. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah. Um, I mean, we are just so amped up on the heart around here. Right. Uh uh, if you've been around Redeemer very long, like you hear this heart religion language because we value it, because we think it's literally what God's after, beginning to end of the Bible. He's after the heart that wants to please him. Totally. So I'm excited for these conversations.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah, me too. Me too. I love it. Yeah, we're just kind of uh looking over some different passages this morning. And um, again, the words of Jesus. This is where he begins his ministry. Matthew 5, he says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. That's good. And that's what he's after in our hearts, that's what he's after in our lives, and that's what he's after for in God's people.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah. Amen.

What Comes Next And How To Engage

SPEAKER_00 21:27

So, what we're gonna do is these first few episodes of heart religion is we're just gonna keep unpacking this idea of the heart, okay, uh, what it is, why it matters, and then the next episode, we're gonna look at how to get to the heart. Like, how do we actually understand it biblically, right? Cover to cover of the Bible, but then how do we get to the heart? Because I think that's, you know, it's it's easier to add rules. It's easier just to say do's and don'ts, right? Look good externally. Um, and so I think that's why it's so common in modern Christianity, right? Is to focus on those things. Yeah. But we want to get to how do we understand the heart? How do we get to the heart? How do we keep cultivating our heart by faith? Yeah. Right. And so that's really gonna be kind of the consistent theme of this podcast. Um I'm here for it. Yeah, yeah, me too. So I'm excited. Our next one will actually just continue this conversation with how do we keep working out our hearts by faith. Um, and so we're thrilled to be doing this podcast. Uh, we're excited for what God has in store. And if you have any questions that you want us to answer as your pastors here at Redeemer Bible Church, uh please DM us, email us, leave comments in the comment section. Uh, our goal is to serve you that you'd work out your heart by faith, uh, out of a love, a genuine love, affection for God, uh, that you've just seen in his word and you want to live for him more and better by faith. And so we are thankful for this opportunity. We're excited for what we think God's gonna do through it. Yep. And uh, we hope you've been encouraged.