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The Parable of the Heart

Week 1: How do you know if you need a heart transplant and how do you get one? 
To start the series, we recommend you preach for about 15-minutes and then show the 9-minute video followed by the invitation. (More on that later.)

Week 2: What is the nature of the old heart?

The spiritual heart is the fountain or source of all of our thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes and endeavors. We are developing a free hand out piece about the size of the “Four Spiritual Laws” that contains a chart for people to diagnose their own heart conditions and understand the concept of spiritual heart transplants. When we seriously compare our own thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes and endeavors to those of Jesus Christ, Romans 3:23 takes on a whole new meaning. We don’t just fall short, we are light years away! Great time for another invitation.

Week 3: What is the nature of Christ’s heart and our new relationship with Him? 
The heart transplant allegory provides a powerful model to help us understand the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Our hearts are dead in our sins and transgressions. We need transplants and there is only one spiritual heart that can save us. Only the perfect, eternal heart of Christ, the only begotten sinless Son of God who died on the Cross, can save us for eternity. 

Here, you can drill down into the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes and endeavors of Christ and how He lived His life. Who wouldn’t want a heart like that? 

And what a beautiful picture of a personal relationship with Christ! Having the very heart of another person is even closer than your breath. When His thoughts become our thoughts, His passions become our passions, when His desires become our desires, there is no greater level of intimacy.

Week 4: How much does God the Father love us and want us to love others? 
In John 17:26 Jesus prays on behalf of all future believers that the same love that the Father has for Jesus would be in us. So, just how much does the Father love Jesus? 

God is pursuing us. The picture of this mother running out and hugging Daniel, and this couple who freely donated the heart of their son for somebody that they did not even know is a beautiful picture of God's love for us. In fact, we were not only strangers but we were enemies when he gave us his son's heart.

After our heart transplant, the Holy Spirit will fill us with that same love. What would happen to the world if Idlewild members would live out that reality?!

Week 5: What can we do to earn this new heart?

ABSOLUTE GRACE: You could easily preach several weeks on this. In your church you probably have members who have received heart transplants. If so, ask them what they could have done or ever could do to earn the right to receive the heart of their donor. Most likely their eyes will fill with tears and they won’t be able to speak. There is absolutely nothing a heart recipient could ever do to earn the right to receive the heart of their donor. Ephesians 2:8-9-reveals, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” 

Week 6: What is the nature of our new family relationships? 
A physical heart recipient becomes flesh and blood relatives with the family of the heart donor. But the family tie is even stronger with God. When we receive the heart of Christ we are adopted into the family of God and become new creations with new identities. We become heirs with Christ to the Kingdom of Heaven.  The people in the church are our new brothers and sisters with the same hearts.

IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS: Whenever Stefan’s parents see Daniel, they don’t think about his shortcomings and failures. All they see is their son’s heart in him. That’s how God sees us after our transplant. 

Week 7: How do we live heart healthy lifestyles?

After our transplant, we need to take medicine, which is the Word of God; attend support groups, which are Bible believing churches and small groups, and meet with our great physician daily, which is prayer.

Immediately after our transplant we may not be the picture of perfect health, but praise the Lord, God promises to finish the good work He started in us and transforms us into the image of Jesus Christ. That’s a beautiful picture of sanctification.

Week 8: How do we help others receive heart transplants? 
This is the evangelism training piece. 

Because Passing Hearts has won top awards in a dozen international film festivals, it has high credibility as a secular work of art. As a result, non-Christians will be drawn to watching it and some of your members may feel more comfortable giving it to their non-Christian friends. 

In this week we look at how our partnership with LifeLink for organ donor registration can give us many opportunities to share this message.

By the end of the eight week series your members will be well equipped to confidently share this message with their friends.

THE INVITATION: 

You could explain it this way at the end of each service in the series: 

Imagine you go to your cardiologist and she explains you are in end-stage heart failure and your only chance to survive is to receive a heart transplant. 

First you would cry out, “Lord have mercy on me!” 

Then you would seek a second opinion, interview heart recipients and surf the Internet looking for survival rates, best hospitals, latest research, lifestyles after transplant, finances and more. And rightly so, because asking the doctor to saw your chest open, cut out your old heart and sew in a new one, may be  the most radical surgery anyone can have. 

But some of you are in that place where you know your old heart is dead and no amount of exercise or new diet can save you. Because of our human condition, everything we do is selfishly motivated at it’s deepest level. And no matter how hard you try, you end up doing the opposite of what you know you should do. 

Through Ephesians 2:4-5 God teaches, although you were dead in your transgressions, you were made alive in Christ! Jesus did not come to make bad people good, HE CAME TO MAKE DEAD PEOPLE ALIVE!

For some of you God has made it clear that your old heart is dead in transgressions. You know you need the new heart. But reality is until you sign the surgery request form and lie down on the operating table, you don’t get the new heart. 

The great news is, God is waiting right now and would love to take out your old heart of stone and put in the heart of His Son, Jesus Christ. It’s non-invasive, but you will become a new creation with the heart of Jesus Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit. 

So if you feel God is calling you to surrender that old heart of stone and receive the perfect, eternal heart of Jesus Christ, you can simply say something like this to God: …. 

You could give some form of that invitation every week for eight weeks.

After the invitation, ask the people how many of them have ever talked with a friend about medical issues in the last month. Or, how many of you know someone with heart problems or other medical issues. Or maybe you know someone who is a medical professional who could relate to this story. Or maybe you know someone who is struggling with anxiety, depression, fear or other problems. 

Encourage them to purchase 3 DVDs for $10 as they go out to share with their friends. When they do, we recommend that they loan the DVD to the friend for one week. That way their friends are more likely to watch it and they can talk with them about their reaction to the video.