The Way that Seems Right

In 1990, Hank Gathers was one of the best college basketball players in the country.  His team, Loyola Marymount University, was the highest-scoring team in the nation.  Professional basketball teams were fighting for the chance to draft him, which would make him a multi-millionaire at the age of 23.  Late in his senior season, he was diagnosed with an abnormal heartbeat.  A cardiologist prescribed a beta-blocker medication.  But Gathers felt like the medicine affected his play.  So he cut back on the medicine without consulting his doctor, and stopped attending check-ups.  On most game-days, he wouldn’t take any of the medicine at all.  In March of 1990, in a conference tournament game, Gathers took an alley-oop pass and brought it down with a tomahawk dunk.  He then took a few steps down court and collapsed.  He was dead before they could get him to the hospital.  An autopsy revealed that he had a heart defect called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  

                You and I were born with a spiritual heart defect.  I call it a rebel heart; it is a desire to break free of God’s control of our lives.  Proverbs 16:25 gives us the prognosis: it is fatal, spiritually and otherwise.  The question isn’t “Do I have a rebel heart?”  You do, and so do I.  That heart defect needs to be exposed for what it is.  In this message, I want to look at two different ways the rebel heart manifests itself in our lives today.  Then I want us to talk about the cure.

               Note: This isn't a light, cheerful sermon.  In fact, it's likely to make some people angry.  Some will find it intolerant and narrow-minded.  Others will think it meddles in areas I should just stay out of.  If you want to know why, be here Sunday!  And pray that God  will speak His truth to each of us.