Matters of the Heart #2: Trusting God With Your Heart

Matters of the Heart #2 is a message about trusting God with your heart, especially when it has been hurt. The pastor teaches that the condition of your spiritual heart decides whether you sense God’s presence, and that Jesus as Redeemer has bought back that heart, freed it from blame and promised to mend what breaks. A broken heart, he says, is not the end; handed to God, it becomes the place where His strength shows up and where your heart is enlarged.

This message continues from Matters of the Heart #1: Guarding the Spiritual Heart and the Principle of the Seed. Below you will find the video, a summary, the Scripture behind each point (NKJV on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline and practical steps to trust God with your heart.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was posted in November 2021 as the second part of a series the pastor has taught before. He says Matters of the Heart is his most requested teaching on CD, sent around the world every year and often given as Christmas gifts in the business world. He calls this message “trusting god with our heart.”

It builds on the first part: every person has two hearts, the physical heart and the hidden man of the heart, which matters more. The message ends with an invitation to give your heart to Jesus Christ.

Matters of the Heart and God’s Presence

The pastor opens with an observation. In the same service, some people are experiencing God’s presence while others are thinking they do not sense Him at all. It is a heart issue, he says, just as someone holding something against another person does not want to be around them while everyone else is enjoying their company.

That is why forgiveness matters so much. Most hurts are not intentional. Even Jesus prayed on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). We tend to assume people wanted to hurt us, when often they have no clue what they are doing. Forgive them, he says, and keep your heart right.

Many people, he notes, give their spiritual heart little thought until someone wrongs them. In kindergarten he announced he was running away with a neighbor girl; his mother handed him a suitcase and told him to have a nice life. Partway down the driveway he decided he loved his mom more, and went home.

He has noticed that people without Christ often seem able to take more than new believers, who can become delicate flowers after they are born again. The reason, he says, is that they now have a new heart, soft and pliable, which can feel hurt more easily. So believers have to learn how to handle it, and that is the purpose of this part of the matters of the heart series.

Jesus Our Redeemer: What He Bought Back

Most believers know Jesus is their Redeemer, the pastor says, but many do not know what that word means or what He redeemed them from. God’s people perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Through Adam’s disobedience, mankind, who belonged to God, was given over to the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2). Jesus came to buy us back and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Colossians 1:13).

He then reads through the dictionary meanings of redeem and applies each one to the heart. The table below follows his walk-through.

Satan’s goal, he explains, is to see soft hearts hurt more easily, because a hurt heart closes and stops heaven from flowing into and through a life. If we do not receive, we have nothing to give. So when his heart feels hurt, the pastor says, he does not point at anyone. He prays, “Father, forgive me,” and keeps going, presenting his heart to God.

Being freed from the consequences of sin does not mean sinning freely, he adds; grace teaches us how not to. But when we fail, we are freed from the burden of it and the hardness it brings. Because Jesus is our Redeemer, any lack or hurt is for a time, and freedom and liberty are going to show up.

Darkened Hearts and Half-Hearted Christians

The pastor reads Romans 1:20–21: although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Christians can follow the same process, he warns, asking, “God, how come You’re not doing this for me?” The answer is to keep acknowledging Him: You are still God, still my Redeemer, and my heart is in good care in Your hands.

He leads the church to trust God with their heart, releasing anyone they have held something against and asking forgiveness for not being thankful. It is easy, because Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30). The hard part is facing your own heart, and only then can you be fully free.

A Redeemer brings us back to God’s original purpose, a pure and intimate relationship. Adam named every animal because he was intimate with them, but he let the serpent he had become familiar with speak against what God said. The pastor compares this to a new job: at first it is the best thing since sliced bread, but after a few months it starts to tell you how rotten it is. The same can happen in marriage and family. The love of many grows cold (Matthew 24:12).

“What good’s a half-hearted Christian?” he asks. It is like a cola without carbonation, an espresso without caffeine, a car without an engine. Jesus said salt that loses its flavor is good for nothing but to be trampled underfoot (Matthew 5:13). If you are bored with God, with Scripture and with prayer, something has gone wrong.

God never asks us to do what we can achieve on our own. We are fellow workers with Him (1 Corinthians 3:9), so He will lead us into situations bigger than us. David said, “I will run the course of Your commandments, for You shall enlarge my heart” (Psalm 119:32). The goal is not a guarded, feeble heart but a growing one.

A Heart Enlarged, Not Protected

After the fall, the blood of atonement covered the heart in God’s presence (Leviticus 17:11). But God does not want our hearts merely covered; He wants them open. That is why He takes out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. Keeping it right is now our part: if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).

Many people say God told them to do something, then quit months later with a broken heart because it was too hard. Yet God promises to enlarge the heart of those who keep going. The pastor says he could have quit a hundred times while pastoring in Merrill, but each time his heart grew, and so did the ministry, which now reaches 37 nations.

David said he would have lost heart unless he had believed he would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (Psalm 27:13). “Any old dead fish floats downstream,” the pastor says; it takes a live one to swim up. Proverbs 4:23 says to keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. People did not determine the course of his life, he says; his heart did.

He uses the eagle as a picture. Other birds such as the osprey can climb nearly as high, but only the eagle can stay where the air is thin, because God gave it a heart built to hold oxygen there until the storm is over. That is the heart God gives a believer.

He tells of working at a garbage-truck plant in Kingsford, Michigan, during lean years of ministry. He arrived early, cleaned, changed light bulbs and quietly blessed the place, choosing to trust God with his heart. Put at the end of a long hallway on a job nobody wanted, he was having a blast with Jesus, and soon others wanted that job. The man who replaced him called it the worst job of his life. The pastor also prophesied the company would grow to three shifts, and years later the president called to say all of it had come to pass.

Kintsugi: A Broken Heart Mended With Gold

Everyone will face a broken heart, the pastor says; the question is how we deal with it. He tells the Japanese legend of a shogun who broke his favorite tea bowl. It came back held together with metal staples, and he was disappointed. A craftsman then mended it with lacquer mixed with gold dust, and the bowl returned with streaks of gold running through it. The method became known as kintsugi, roughly golden joinery: the value lies in how the object has been mended.

The Bible says the same, he teaches. We are more beautiful to God for having a broken heart, because He is the One who mends it. In 2 Corinthians 12:7–10, a messenger of Satan buffeted Paul, and God answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Paul chose to boast in his infirmities, “for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

God does not want our strength, the pastor says; in our strength we do not need Him. He wants us to say, “God, here’s my heart; bring me back better.” Reading the Passion Translation, he calls a broken heart’s weakness a portal for God’s power. He also quotes Ernest Hemingway: “The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places.”

From Genesis 3:15 he notes that the serpent would bruise the heel. Time, he says, does not heal all wounds; it only makes you forget until you see that person again ten years later. In every church, job, marriage and family you will be wounded. That is the cursed system, but God has given a new heart to bear up and bring heaven into it. When we see Jesus, the proof of His time on earth will be His scars.

He reads from the hymn “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart, O take and seal it.” He recounts that its writer, Robert Robinson, later drifted from the Lord. A woman in a stagecoach asked if he knew the hymn she loved, and he replied that he was the unhappy man who wrote it. The pastor says God used those very words to draw Robinson back to restored fellowship.

Seven Ways to Trust God With Your Heart

We are partakers of Christ if we hold our confidence steadfast to the end, and today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart (Hebrews 3:14–15). “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6), and Jesus calls us friends, not servants (John 15:15). Then the pastor lists how to get through seasons of enlargement:

• Do not look for the easy way. Stay the course and deal with your own heart. Never let loyalty and kindness leave you (Proverbs 3:3).
• Do not be afraid of a broken heart. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5).
• God does not reject a broken heart. A broken and a contrite heart He will not despise (Psalm 51:16–17).
• Jesus understands. At Lazarus’ grave, Jesus wept (John 11:35).
• Jesus is anointed to heal the brokenhearted. Isaiah 61:1, quoted by Jesus in Luke 4:18.
• God is greater than our hearts. If our heart condemns us, God is greater (1 John 3:20).
• God wants to rebuild our hearts. He gives a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:25–27).

The Hebrew word for broken, he says, is shabar, which the King James renders many ways, including “bring to the birth.” Stay with God through a broken heart and you will bring to birth what He has for you. Contrite, dakar, means to collapse. The 120 waited ten days in a crowded upper room until the Spirit came; they stayed where they were supposed to be.

Psalm 34:17–19 says the Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. The heart is the life factory, he says; when it is broken it seems shut off, but only for a time. Like the shogun’s tea bowl, it comes back more beautiful.

Jesus taught us to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth (Matthew 6:9–10), and it comes through our hearts. The Lord will give strength to His people and bless them with peace (Psalm 29:11). Early in ministry, facing a situation with no strength at all, he saw God heal his broken heart.

He closes with a tent meeting where a whole family came to mock, the parents high on drugs. After prayer for deliverance, the father stood up in his right mind and brought his family forward. All that summer, he says, the man drove station wagon loads of neighbors to the crusades. Now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2), and the pastor invites listeners to give God their heart.

Trusting God With Your Heart This Week

He ends in prayer, thanking God that He enlarges us when we are in distress (Psalm 4:1). These steps come from the message:

• Forgive quickly. Assume people did not know what they were doing, release them and keep your heart right.
• Stop the blame game. When you feel hurt, pray “Father, forgive me” and present your heart to God.
• Stay thankful. Glorify God as God in hard seasons so your heart is not darkened.
• Finish what God told you to do. Do not quit when it hurts; that is where He enlarges your heart.
• Bring heaven to your workplace. Bless it, serve it and keep a light heart, even in the job nobody wants.
• Hand God the broken pieces. Say, “God, here’s my heart; bring me back better,” and expect His mending.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 Matters of the heart and sensing God’s presence
• 1:14 Forgive and keep your heart right
• 2:15 Running away from home in kindergarten
• 4:11 Delicate flowers and trusting God with our heart
• 5:10 Jesus our Redeemer
• 6:08 What redeem means
• 10:33 Romans 1: darkened hearts
• 12:59 Adam, intimacy and the serpent
• 16:23 What good is a half-hearted Christian?
• 18:52 Psalm 119:32: You shall enlarge my heart
• 21:05 Walking in the light and not quitting
• 23:09 Proverbs 4:23: guard your heart
• 25:13 The eagle’s heart
• 26:13 Bringing heaven to the factory
• 29:39 The legend of kintsugi
• 31:36 2 Corinthians 12: strength in weakness
• 36:15 Genesis 3:15 and why time does not heal wounds
• 38:34 Come Thou Fount and Robert Robinson
• 42:13 Hebrews 3: do not harden your heart
• 44:26 Don’t look for the easy way; loyalty and kindness
• 46:40 Don’t fear a broken heart; God does not reject it
• 51:16 Jesus understands: Lazarus
• 53:28 Anointed to heal the brokenhearted
• 55:41 God is greater; He rebuilds our hearts
• 59:52 Tent meeting testimony and invitation

Matters of the Heart Series

This message is part of the Matters of the Heart series at NTC Ministries. Go back a step or continue:

• Previous: Matters of the Heart #1: Guarding the Spiritual Heart and the Principle of the Seed
• You are here: Matters of the Heart #2: Trusting God With Your Heart
• Next: Matters of the Heart #3 — Overcoming Heart Failure and Choosing God First

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do new Christians sometimes seem more easily hurt?

The pastor’s explanation is that a born-again believer has received a new heart that is soft and pliable, so hurts can feel deeper than they did before. People without Christ often seem to take more. He does not treat this as a weakness to hide, but as a reason to learn how to trust God with that heart, forgive quickly and let heaven keep flowing in and through it.

Does God cause our hearts to be broken?

From 2 Corinthians 12, the pastor points out that Paul’s thorn was a messenger of Satan, not God’s doing. He also says that sometimes a problem came because he refused to keep his heart with God, and so he was brought to a place where his heart broke and he had to give it to Him. He praises God not for the problem, but for who He is.

What does it mean to have an enlarged heart?

Drawing on Psalm 119:32, he describes it as a heart that grows by continuing to do what God asked, even when it hurts. Instead of protecting a small, feeble heart from every wound, the believer stays on the path, and God enlarges the heart so that heaven can flow into the place where He has put them, blessing the people around them.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Romans 1:20–21 — hearts darkened by unthankfulness
• Psalm 119:32 — You shall enlarge my heart
• Proverbs 4:23 — keep your heart with all diligence
• 2 Corinthians 12:7–10 — strength made perfect in weakness
• Hebrews 3:14–15 — do not harden your heart
• Psalm 51:16–17 — a broken and contrite heart
• Psalm 34:17–19 — the Lord is near the brokenhearted
• Isaiah 61:1 — anointed to heal the brokenhearted
• Ezekiel 36:25–27 — a new heart and a new spirit

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

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