Fat Hearts

Psalm 119:65-72

How’s your ticker? When you’re young, you don’t think much about your heart. That changes as you age. You know more and more people who have heart problems. Maybe you develop one. As a keen enthusiast of all things health and fitness, as I’m sure you can tell, I remember a time when I took a baby aspirin a day for about a month. I was sure I’d live forever. It certainly seemed easier than worrying about diet and exercise.

So, how’s your ticker? The psalmist’s concern is that ours might be fat. He’s talking about his foes in this section, but all of us were born enemies of the gospel and all of us tend to backslide pretty easily. The psalmist himself had to be taught again where true goodness is found. He thanks the Lord for the affliction that helped teach him. All of us do well to have a check-up on the ole ticker from time to time.

So, how’s your ticker? The psalmist’s concern is that ours might be fat

So, how’s your ticker? Is it fat? What do you think it even means when the psalmist says “their heart is unfeeling like fat”? As is usually the case, the King James puts it more colorfully than the NIV or ESV here. Modern translations are sometimes like English food when it comes to wording. It’s fine, but bland. The King James is like Indian food. It makes you sweat and gets in your nostrils. Here's how the KJV puts it: “Their heart is as fat as grease.”

What’s going on here? What kind of heart should we want? Is it so bad if our heart is unfeeling? It’s good when a heart isn’t hurting, right? We call the doctor if it is. But at the same time a heart is supposed to feel, isn’t it? We draw a heart between our name and the name of a crush for a reason. So, what’s going on? Do we want fat hearts or not?

What kind of heart should we want?

You’re probably getting rather tired of all the ticker talk by now and wondering where we’re going, but I’m going to ask you to bear with me. Let me have my fun. Let’s talk fat and the Scriptures—I feel like that would make a great name for a conference paper or a Motown Christian group.

When God’s Old Testament people brought sacrifices to God, the fat was the choice part. That was the part dedicated to the Lord. Fat was where the energy came from, so it was choice. Fat was a good thing. It was God’s portion. Abel knew this already in Genesis. Moses writes, “Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions” (Genesis 4:4). Fat, therefore, isn’t necessarily a bad thing in the Bible.

You’re probably getting rather tired of all the ticker talk by now and wondering where we’re going, but I’m going to ask you to bear with me. Let me have my fun. Let’s talk fat and the Scriptures—I feel like that would make a great name for a conference paper or a Motown Christian group

Fatness was also associated with wealth and fertility. Fat could be a blessing. The man with plenty of food grew pudgy. You didn’t get pudgy in a famine. The pregnant woman grew a beautiful belly. Fat brought life. Fat could be a good thing.

Sometimes, however, God’s people were chastised for growing too fat. No, God wasn’t measuring their waistlines. God was warning them that they’d become too well-fed on the ways of this world and the sins of their neighbors. They didn’t think they needed God anymore. With a full belly, they stopped hungering and thirsting for righteousness. They became lethargic, grew tired of the Lord’s counsel. They saw little need for his promises, because they had all they thought they needed. They could eat, drink, and be merry.

This is where the fat hearts in our text seem to fall. While the psalmist loves the word of the Lord, his enemies see little use for it. Their tastebuds are too tingly to savor it. Their bellies are too full to hunger for it. They’re too satisfied with things below to care about things above. They’re numb to their neighbor and God. Driven by their appetites, the world and everything in it is just here for consumption.

What have you been getting fat on? We are drowning in junk food. Our love has grown numb. Our bellies are distended and yet empty. We’ve set aside things above for things below. We do well to learn where the fat is coming from and cut it out of our diet. God wants us to have fat hearts, but not fat hearts like those.

What kind of fat should our hearts be? The Lord wants them to be like that fat of the Old Testament sacrifices. We are what he wants. We are what he gave his Son to have. He wants us to have fat hearts, but not hearts that are numb, tired, lethargic. No, hearts that belong to the Lord are loving and active, hungry for the Bread of Life, eager to hear God’s promises and live in them.

What have you been getting fat on? We are drowning in junk food. Our love has grown numb. Our bellies are distended and yet empty. We’ve set aside things above for things below

This psalm mentions the law a lot. The word here is “torah.” Torah doesn’t simply mean law. It can be used in that way, but it can also refer to the first five books of the Bible, God’s teaching in general, or all of Scripture. When the psalmist says, “The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces,” he doesn’t simply mean that he really likes God’s rules. He isn’t the kind of guy who ruins board games. No, he delights that he has a God who speaks, who speaks to him, who speaks both command and promise, law and grace. You have that same God, a God who speaks, who speaks to you, who gives command and promise.

How’s your ticker? Are your hearts fat? I hope they are, but fat with the right thing, fed with what matters most, with what actually nourishes, with the words of our God, the Bread of Life. May our hearts be his portion, not by our own works or words, or with our own choices, or through our own devices, but by hearing, by receiving, by treasuring what he has done and said, that he has chosen us, that he has given us his Son, the Word of God himself made flesh and wrapped in the swaddling clothes of Scripture.