Hidden Motives

Hebrews 4:12,14,16, Romans 8:1

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Our reading for today comes from the Book of Hebrews, the fourth chapter I’ll read verses 12, 14, and 16.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the point of dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, even being able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart. Therefore, since we have a great high priest, who has gone through the heavens, namely, Jesus the Son of God, let us continue to hold on to our confession. So let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:12,14,16)

When I was a little child, I became very good at hiding my real motives. I was able to fool my parents, or at least I thought I could, if I maybe gave them a certain look or if maybe tried to express something a certain way. Sometimes inside I was really lying about what I really wanted, but I was able to mask that, if you will, so that they thought that maybe I wanted something else.

And as we grow up, we get very good at this. We actually get pretty professional at it. We’re able to hide our real agenda, our real motives from people, even when we’re talking to them or maybe looking at them and things like that. As adults, we may express something in a certain way, hoping for the sake of our pride that somebody might admire what a wonderful Christian we are. Or maybe we’re outwardly friendly to someone, but really were hiding a sexual desire for them. Or maybe were expressing gratitude to someone, and at the same time, doing that, hoping that they’ll give us more gifts or some benefits in the future.

Now, all these things that I mentioned, no x-ray picks up on them. You can’t find some machine that’s able to look down inside of us to find this. And yet God tells us that through his Word, he is able to penetrate down into our consciences and see all of this. Only God himself is capable of knowing the depth of the sin that’s inside of us even more than we can know it ourselves.

A great story that shows this is when if you remember the story of a woman who comes to anoint Jesus with a very costly perfume right before Jesus was about to go and suffer on the cross. And Judas, one of Jesus disciples who took care of the money, Judas questioned this and said this money could have been used to give to the poor. And it’s interesting because there, though, the Holy Spirit writes that the reason he said this week was because he was a thief and he would take money from the bag of money of Jesus’ disciples. Now it could be there were people present at that, that thought, what a great thought, what a what a very fine moral thought that this could have been used to help the poor.

But God himself is not fooled. God is never fooled by how we might mask and try to cover up our sins. The text in front of us says that the Word of God is living and active, and it penetrates down inside of us dividing soul and spirit. We don’t even know where that division is. Joint and marrow. Yet it shows not only spiritually but physically, how deep inside of us God is capable of going. Now that’s a terrifying verse. That’s a terrifying thought to think how deeply God is able to look inside of me.

If it were not for Christ, we would shut this book and never want to read it again. But the very God who sees you and me as we really are and sees all of our motives still wants to love us, still wants us to be his children, still wants to forgive us, still wants to cover us with the holy, perfect righteousness of his Son and still wants us to come and live with him in heaven. Isn’t that interesting, think of all the people that if they really knew your motives might not want to have anything to do with you. And yet God knows the deepest part of us, the worst in us. And he still loves us. And he still cares for us and desires for us to be his children. There’s a beautiful passage I’d like to close with from Paul’s letter to the Romans. He says

So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)

Thanks be to God, amen.