Calloused Heart
I remember as a kid, whenever I’d meet one of my dads friends, they’d extend their hand to shake mine. It always amazed me how big and hard the guys’ hands were. From working on cars or in the fields, their hands would all be rough and calloused. I still notice it to this day whenever I shake a man’s hand. I know, I tend to work in an office all day, so my hands probably feel soft in comparison. I don’t do enough manual labor to really build up the callouses on my hands, but you can always tell those who do such work by their hands.
It’s a sort of protection mechanism of our bodies to develop these callouses. They protect us from harm. When we repeatedly scrape and rub our hands and feet, we begin to develop a callous. That hard layer of skin helps to keep those rocks or tools, or whatever it is, from hurting us. Some people end up getting callouses in places they’d prefer not to and desire nothing more than to get rid of them. In fact, the beauty industry has a hundred and one different creams, soaps, and stones to help you get rid of those unwanted callouses.
Now, I’m sure each of you understands where I’m going at this point. The title of this message is “Calloused Heart.” You know that at some point I’m going to make the transition from talking about calloused hands to a calloused heart. And that transition will take place right about… now.
Just like with our hands, we can develop a callous on our heart. When abrasive things happen to us, when we’ve been hurt too many times, or when we just think we know what we’re doing and don’t want to listen to anybody else, our hearts can become calloused like our hands. Just like with our hands, it can be a sort of protection mechanism, but there are times when it’s not good for you to be calloused.
In our journey through Acts, we come to the end of the book. In the final recorded message of Paul, we see him preaching the same message he’s always preached. However, this time he ends it a little differently (Acts 28:25-28). He quotes a passage from Isaiah 6:9-10 that Jesus is recorded as quoting in most of the gospels. It’s kind of a sad truth really. Jesus came as the Jewish Messiah. The Jewish people had waited for centuries for this messiah to come, yet even while God was telling them what to expect, he also told them, “Many of you just aren’t going to get it. The messiah will come and he’ll do everything I said he was going to do, but your hearts will be so calloused that you won’t understand.”
This isn’t an issue of not being able to hear or not being able to see. I remember growing up, on more than one occasion, after the tenth time my mom had told me to do something, she’d say, “You’re not listening to me.” Of course, as an obstinate child I’d respond, “I am too listening. You said…” and I’d rattle off whatever she’d said. Inevitably she’d come back saying, “Yes, you heard me, but you’re not listening.” There’s a difference between listening and hearing. If you’re in a room and somebody is talking loudly, you really have no choice but to hear the person speaking. The sound waves travel from the person’s mouth or from the speakers across the room and into your ears. Unless you put your fingers in your ears or put on earmuffs or headphones, you really have no choice but to hear. The sound waves will reach your ears and stimulate the ear drums. While it’s not your choice whether you hear, it is completely up to you to choose to listen.
We’ve all learned how to do that, especially us guys. We’ve learned to tune out an unpleasant noise, whether it’s the humming of the light or the kids screaming. We call it selective hearing. If there’s an unpleasant noise, we have trained ourselves to tune it out. It’s an intentional thing. It’s not that we can’t hear it anymore; instead, it’s more that we aren’t listening. As we can see from the scripture here, the calloused heart that God is speaking about through the prophet Isaiah is a completely intentional thing. Again he states, “They hardly hear with their ears” and “they have closed their eyes.” If you can “hardly hear” it’s because #1, you’re not listening, or #2 you’ve put something in the way of your ears, whether it be your fingers or headphones, to keep yourself from hearing. Maybe this could be explained as an unintentional medical issue, but if you’ve closed your eyes, that is an entirely different story. You don’t accidentally close your eyes.
We often look at passages such as this and point fingers outside the church saying, “See! Those people have calloused hearts, because they aren’t listening to God,” but we inside the church are just as capable of having calloused hearts. God brings someone to speak truth into our lives and we completely dismiss them. Do any of these sound familiar?
“They’re just clinging to the way things used to be. They need to learn to change with the times.”
“I’ve been in this church for 10, 15, 20 years, and we’ve always done it this way. ”
“Who are you to tell me that I need to change. Look at your own life.”
It’s not because we can’t hear or we can’t see, it’s because we don’t want to hear and we don’t want to see. We do this to ourselves because, “We’re right.” We do this to ourselves because, “They just don’t understand.” We harden our hearts and turn away from God because we simply don’t want to listen to what he has to say to us. “Otherwise [we] might see with [our] eyes, hear with [our] ears, understand with [our] hearts and turn, and [God] would heal [us],” and many times, we like the way things are. We like the way we are, and we don’t want to change even if it’s for the better.
But how do we do that? How do we choose to see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and understand with our hearts? Paul doesn’t give us the solution here, but God gave it to us way back in 2 Chronicles 7:14. This is a favorite verse in Christian circles. We typically look at this verse and focus on “repent and God will save you,” but we skip over the “how.” I found it interesting how when I read this verse in 2 Chronicles, it almost seemed to mirror the words God gave to Isaiah. “If we see, hear, understand, and turn, God will heal us.” “If we’re humble, pray, seek, and turn, God will heal us.”
The first and greatest roadblock is humbling ourselves, admitting that we weren’t paying attention, admitting that we had our eyes closed and didn’t want to listen to God. When we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re right or that others are wrong, it takes quite a bit of humility to admit that we were the ones that were wrong and were the ones holding on to what we wanted, ignoring the wise counsel from those around us. Admitting that we don’t quite have it all together and humbling ourselves before God is the first step.
The next two go together. In order to hear with our ears and understand with our hearts, we must first pray and seek God. When you’ve gotten so used to tuning out a sound, whether it’s the kids or the humming of the lights, you don’t just start hearing them again without making a conscious effort. That’s why it’s important that we seek God and pray to him. Actively seeking to see his face, hear his voice, and understand what he’s trying to tell us, because it’s this closeness that will help to keep us from tuning him out again. When you have that regular conference with God, you will know his voice, and you’ll be able to pick it out in a crowded room. No longer will you tune it out as background noise, but you’ll be listening for that voice in every situation.
And finally, when we’ve humbled ourselves, prayed, and sought God, when we’ve seen, heard, and understood, we will turn away from the wickedness that God has been calling us away from, and that’s when the true healing begins
Many different things will lead to a hardened, calloused heart, whether it’s that of a believer or an unbeliever. When it comes to the heart, there is nothing you our I can do to soften another person’s heart. We can love them, we can talk to them, we can show them mercy, but ultimately it is not within our power to soften their hearts. While a person lives in that condition, they will not listen to the truth of God. They simply can’t. As Isaiah said, “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.’ For this people’s heart has become calloused.” A person in that condition simply won’t allow themselves to understand.
Don’t be discouraged. Continue to love a calloused person and be willing to share the truth with them, but don’t let their rejection discourage you from sharing with others. There are many people out there whose hearts are not calloused. There are many people out there that are desperate to hear the truth. Too often we let the rejection of some keep us from sharing with others. As here with Paul, when the message was rejected by the Jews, he turned to preach to the Gentiles. There is always someone willing to listen, and we can’t let the rejection of some and the fear of the rejection of others keep us from proclaiming the truth of God’s love..
While we may not be able to do anything to soften the hearts of others, the condition of our own hearts is completely up to us. Sin, pride, selfishness, each of these can cause our hearts to be hardened, can cause us to separate ourselves from God. The only way for a heart to be softened, whether it’s yours, mine, or somebody else’s, is to humble ourselves, pray, seek God, and turn from our wickedness. Then, and only then, will we be healed.