Motives Are Weighed By The LORD
Proverbs 16.2 (1-9)
So much of what Jesus taught while He was here on the earth had to do with this second verse. What is the driving force behind your actions? What moves you?
He sees our hearts. He knows them. He knows our thoughts, as we shared last week, even before they are formed.
When Jesus came in the first century, there had been a period of silence. God had spoken through the prophets, recorded for us in the last of the Old Testament. Then for over 400 years there was what we have come to call the Inter Testamental Period. The people waited for the Messiah. The Jewish faith became much more organized then before. It was in this time that the Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees saw their rise. The Pharisees were known for their keeping of the law on the outside, which Jesus saw right through. He pronounced Woes on them, recorded for us in Matthew 23. In the fifth verse Jesus said, “Everything they do is done for men to see.” - that was their motivation. In Matthew 23.25-28 Jesus speaks of what was inside their hearts.
Motives are weighed by the LORD. He is the judge of hearts.
1. What Are Motives?
It is desire. Motive has to do with deep desires within our hearts. One of the reason we called to self examination from time to time is to have the LORD search out the motives of our hearts. Psalm 139.23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. is a prayer of asking the LORD to reveal our motives.
It is moral character. Job was an upright man. Satan falsely accused Job and it was not in any outward thing because he had correct scales. It was an accusation of impure motives or mixed motives. Job 1.9 Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied. 10 Have You not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But stretch out Your Hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse You to Your Face. What brashness Satan has How wrong He is He told God that Job’s love for Him was based on the fact he was blessed and had not had any great tragedy in His life. The test of a man’s faith is in His suffering. Job passed the test. He served God out of right motives. His words and actions proved that as time went on.
It is the mind and heart acting together. Motive has to do with what I think and what my heart desires. It has to do with these two coming together and acting. As I grow closer to Jesus and become more like the Master, my motives are going to have to do more and more with God’s glory and other’s good and less about me.
It is intention. Motives are what I aim for. The only worthy motive for the believer is love. Anything short of that misses God’s glory and misses the mark.
2. The Weights God Uses In Measuring Them.
We are told that motives are weighed by the LORD. The idea here is one of scales and balances. This is continuous activity. God is taking what is in our hearts and placing them on His balances.
His Word. Hebrews 4.12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. He is not impressed with outward religious activity that is done to be seen by others, rather He finds it repulsive.
Human Conscience and Revealed Truth. God expects us to walk in the light we have been given and to keep our consciences clear. Paul wrote to Timothy, “ (I Timothy 1.5) The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. God looks at our consciences. Our conscience is that ability of the soul to distinguish between good and evil, commending the good and shunning evil. Some have seared their conscience and have lost that ability. They do evil and it does not seem to bother them at all.
He tests us.
God allows His people to go through tests.
Tests show us what is in our hearts. God already knows. It also shows others. When we are tested our motives are shown. C.S. Lewis wrote, “Nothing less will shake a man--or at any rate a man like me--out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.”
Suffering does some interesting things in the human heart. We don’t have time to get into it this morning suffice it to say that the tests God a
3. He sees Our Hearts
There were three areas Jesus spoke about in Matthew 6 that have to do with worship- our worship of God the Father. He speaks about motives here and how God sees our hearts.
Giving
Fasting
Praying
All of these were to be done in secret, so as not to be seen by men. The hypocrites (play actors) did these things in front of men and even went so far as to announce it with trumpets. They had their reward in full. They got what they were going after- men’s applause.
He saw the hearts of the hypocrites in the first century and He sees our hearts today.
He continually watches and examines the motives of everyone, placing them in His balances.
Psalm 44.21 God knows the secrets of the heart
Our giving ought to be between Him and us. It should be out of our deep love for Him and out of joy because of His goodness to us.
When we fast we should only let those know who absolutely need to know and no one else. Like giving you will be rewarded openly.
When we pray we should pray secretly. This obviously does not mean that we should not pray publicly like we will tonight at the prayer meeting but even when we do we need to be careful that we remember we are talking to the LORD. Others may listen but it Him that we ought to be the most concerned about.
Our service to the LORD is to be for Him and seen by Him and done out of love for Him. When we do that there is great joy. God loves to have secrets with us. It is joyful to have secrets with Him These things ought to become more and more a part of our walk with Him.
4. He Knows Our Thoughts
Psalm 139.1 O LORD, You have searched me and You know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar.
Our motives as we said before have roots in our thoughts. God knows our thoughts before they are formed Motives are weighed by the LORD. He knows how those thoughts are going form and how they will unite with our heart. We see this early on in human history. He warned Cain in Genesis 4.6-7 God saw his heart and the anger that was in it. He knew what Cain was thinking and warned him about it.
Since God knows our thoughts before they are formed and He knows our hearts, it is always a good idea to listen to Him when He speaks. No one who has taken warnings from God to heart has ever been sorry while those who have taken warnings from Him lightly have always lived to regret it.
5. He is Familiar With All Our Ways Psalm 139.3b
God is intimately acquainted with all our ways. He knows the way we take. He knows our secret sins. He knows everything.
With such amazing knowledge, wonderful and complete knowledge of the past, present and future, the LORD is able to weigh our motives and know exactly what we are about. Even within ourselves our own hearts can deceive us. For instance we might start doing something for Jesus, get commended for it and begin doing it for the commendation. That is why a man is tested by the praise he receives. (Proverbs 27.21) God looks at our motives.
Motives are weighed by the LORD. He sees our hearts, knows our thoughts and is familiar with all our ways. Search me O God, examine my heart, Unite my heart. Give me an undivided heart
that I might fear Your Name and walk in the truth.
that I might fear Your Name and walk in the truth.
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