Better Men 2: Get Your Heart Back
Acts 2:32-39 | Daniel Simmons | Light House Church | 9/27/26
The thesis of this series is that the redemption God wants in this world is uniquely led by better men who have healthy hearts, building healthy households that form healthy churches, shining the healing light of Jesus into this sick and dying world.
This session is titled “Get Your Heart Back,” and it begins a three-part look at the healthy heart of a man.
[pause]
Scripture gives us two pictures of a man’s heart:
A house built on a crumbling foundation will collapse. A healthy heart is built on the cornerstone of Christ (Matt. 7:24–27).
A bad tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree that bears fruit for God’s glory is a heart rooted in Christ (Luke 6:43–45).
Without a healthy heart, men cannot lead healthy households or form healthy churches, and the result is more of the same cycles of sin and brokenness in the world.
So the question for every man here is: What condition is your foundation in? What is your heart rooted in?
Here is the big idea: the only way to get your heart back is through ongoing repentance of sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
To do this, I want to do three things:
Diagnose our heart condition
Show you the Lord God has appointed, and his call to repent and believe
Call you to the exchange: a heart filled with the Holy Spirit
Let’s pray.
1. Our Heart Condition
But first we need to understand our heart condition. Why have we lost ourselves at the very core?
Story: The Lord of the Flies
While I was on a prayer retreat several months back, planning this series with Pastor Dale, I went out on a prayer walk and asked God specifically to show me his heart for men in our world. It was a lovely walk, but my focus was being spoiled by a swarm of flies attacking my head. After a while I was getting kind of frantic. I began asking God why I was having such a hard time with the flies, and asking him to send them away because I couldn’t think straight or pray.
After asking a few times with increasing zeal, a super clear thought broke in, one that felt like it came from outside of me: “Men are tormented and crippled by the Lord of the flies.” What had been a moment of frantically flinging my hat around my head became a clear-thinking moment, literally absent of flies for about 30 seconds, as I locked in on this thought.
I began to meditate on the idea of the Lord of the flies. I knew this phrase referred to the devil. In fact, it is the literal meaning of the name Beelzebub, the name used for the devil in the Gospels (Matt. 12:24–27).
Men are tormented and crippled by the devil.
They have lost themselves and their hearts because they are ruled by lies that invite them to live life however they please.
They believe they are lord.
They believe they can get healthy and happy by filling themselves up with whatever seems good to them.
But the truth is, they need a better Lord, and they need to be filled with something truly life-giving.
Hold on to those two things: a better Lord and a better filling. That’s where we’re headed. But first we have to face why we need them.
Why we need this teaching
Sadly, our culture still denies the innate brokenness of mankind and keeps trying to fix humanity’s problems without God. It wants to emphasize the fundamental goodness of every human from childhood.
Now, we can certainly affirm mankind’s dignity, honor, and power.
This is because we are made in God’s image.
We are truly remarkable and capable of incredible things.
Men build cities and empires and everything in between.
But when we deny our fundamental brokenness, we overlook a critical reality: generation after generation, families, homes, and societies are still broken. All the stats Pastor Dale read last week are true —
not because men haven’t been educated enough,
or because we haven’t had enough counseling,
or because we have too much life trauma,
or because we are hindered by others,
but because of a core heart issue in all of us.
Even the world’s most honest voices admit it. Take the famous novel Lord of the Flies — the same name God brought to mind on my walk.
After witnessing the horrors of WWII, author William Golding was so deeply convinced that political and human systems will always fail, because of the innate sin nature in every man, that he wrote this allegorical novel.
Through imagery and story, it shows that within every human, even down to the smallest children, is a sin nature, a beast within us, influenced by the Lord of the Flies: Satan.
Only one character, Simon, a Christ figure, comes to understand the truth: the real “beast” and danger on the island was not a physical monster, but the evil that lay inside each of them.
But when he came to deliver this liberating truth, the others killed him in a sacrificial way.
Or take G.K. Chesterton. When he was reportedly asked by The Times of London, “What is wrong with the world today?” he responded simply: “Dear sir, I am.”
[pause]
Chesterton rightly understood that we are all part of the problem.
Golding saw it. Chesterton saw it. But only Scripture tells us where it came from and how deep it goes.
The root problem
To see how deep this goes, go back to what we were made for. Humanity was meant to reflect God perfectly to the world. Men, in particular, you were formed by God
to build, to lead, to protect, and to provide;
to create a family culture that reflects God’s love to your wife and children;
to reflect God to your neighbors and co-workers, and his glory in all you do.
But the image of God stamped on our hearts was twisted when sin entered the world and we were separated from God. Now, at the root of our very being is a sin nature.
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
We were made to reflect God’s glory, but in our sin all of us have fallen short of that purpose and identity.
How did we get here? Satan, the architect of sin, did it first and taught us to do the same.
He denied his position and allegiance to his Maker by trying to exalt himself.
And he still whispers the same lie today: you just need less interference from others. Less authority. Other people are the real problem. God is the real problem. You know best.
By submitting to his ways and lies, we declared that allegiance and authority ultimately belong to him.
We believed the lie that it’s better for man to pursue happiness apart from God.
In choosing to disobey and reject God, we became enslaved to another god: the god of self. We pledged allegiance to our own happiness at all costs.
But in doing so, as God promised, we died. Not immediately physically, but spiritually, at a heart level, and eventually physically.
So here is the problem of the human heart: it is dead in sin and unable to escape, because it is enslaved to sin and Satan.
And so the very thing we need most, a relationship with God, is the very thing we avoid.
John 3:19 “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”
Here is the result. Look at Romans 1:
Romans 1:18–21 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them… So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
An unhealthy heart is rooted in a broken relationship with God.
So what’s the fruit of that dark heart?
Romans 1:22–25 “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”
The consequence
[lean in]
Men, unless you understand the state of your heart — that you are a fallen human enslaved to sin and Satan — you will never have a healthy heart.
Remember the tree? A dead root cannot bear good fruit.
Your life will not bear good fruit.
Instead, it will destroy you and others as you chase one empty and dead god after another.
We are all blind guides.
We saw the outcome in Crete last week in the book of Titus, and we see it everywhere we look today.
2. The Solution: A Better Lord
But there is good news. There is a path to getting a healthy heart. Remember the first thing men need: a better Lord.
There is an appointed Lord and Savior: the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how he began his ministry:
Mark 1:14–15 “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”
How do you get your heart back? Repent and believe the good news of Jesus.
Who was this Jesus, demanding repentance and declaring that the kingdom had come in his appearing? Why should we listen to him?
The birth narratives leading up to this moment reveal that this is the Son of God, sent from heaven, born of a virgin, who condescended from his throne of glory to bring peace to broken mankind.
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis argues that because of the claims Jesus made about himself, he is either a liar, a lunatic, or truly Lord.
Philippians 2:5–11 “…Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Because all mankind was lost in sin, God himself condescended. The Son of God took on human flesh and died in our place to redeem us.
But God raised him from the dead and exalted him to his right hand, so that there is a man seated in heaven who is declared Lord of all.
Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The resurrection is God’s proof.
Acts 17:30–31 “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
The resurrection of Jesus gave assurance that he is Lord and judge. How?
For all mankind, through all of history, death was the final word. Everything they said and did was left with a question mark over it, because someone else would be the judge of their life.
But Jesus rose again. All his words were proven true and righteous in that moment. All his claims were stamped with God’s approval.
This is how Peter preaches his first message on the day of Pentecost, soon after the resurrection:
Acts 2:32–33, 36–37 “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing… Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
The resurrection stops all conversation and demands a response. It is proof that he has been made Lord and King. And it left everyone asking, “What shall we do?”
[pause]
Acts 2:38–39 “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.’”
The answer: repent of your sin and be baptized in Jesus’ name, and you will be forgiven of your sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In other words, Jesus calls us to repent of our old way of life and thinking, and to pledge our allegiance so fully to him that we are baptized into his name.
Baptism symbolizes the death of the old and new life in Jesus. It symbolizes being united to Jesus and his way of life.
This is renewal of the heart and mind, submission of the body fully to God, and denial of self.
And the Holy Spirit is the seal of eternal life and our access again to the God we were once cut off from because of sin.
This is a call to confess Jesus as Lord of all: we are not our own; we belong to him.
Let me show you an example of repentance and faith.
Mark 10:17–18 “And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.’”
This question confronts the man about what he actually believes about Jesus’ identity.
If Jesus is Lord and God, then his words are life, and they are what he will be judged by.
But if he’s just another teacher, then it’s just a suggestion he can add to his self-made salvation plan.
Jesus gives him divine commands anyway, and then adds another weighty and authoritative call.
Mark 10:19–22 “You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Jesus is saying, “You don’t have me.”
Money is not inherently sinful. But for this man it was the idol he was trying to fill the hole in his heart with, and he needed to lay it down.
Jesus was showing him, in love, that he wanted God on his own terms and didn’t understand his need for him.
But God demands that he be Lord of all. If he is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all.
The call to repent, believe, and be baptized in his name is a call to surrender. Lay down your arms. Throw up the white flag. It’s a call to come and die. Jesus used this very language in his preaching:
Matthew 16:24–26 “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?’”
Jesus demands all. In another place he shows that he must be Lord over our family, over our very life, over everything (Luke 14:25–33).
Everything else we hold onto as earthly treasure is fleeting, a broken cistern that cannot satisfy. It will pass away.
If we try to hold on to life, we will ultimately lose it. But if we give it all up for Jesus, he promises we will truly find life. We will truly get our hearts back.
When we submit all to God, we gain treasure in heaven, like the man who sold all he had to buy the field with the buried treasure (Matt. 13:44).
That is the first yes: surrendering to Jesus as Lord. But for those of us who have already said yes, it doesn’t stop there. His lordship reaches into everything, big and small.
Story: My band
I was faced with a fork in the road like this in my early twenties, when it became clear to me that my band and my career were my greatest treasure in life, and that God was calling me to submit them to him. If he was Lord, he demanded that everything be given to him.
It was not wrong that I was in a band. It’s not wrong to make music, or to pursue a passion, or to work hard at something you love. But at that time there was a fork in the road, and the Lord Jesus called me to himself. He showed me that my band was an idol of my heart that he wanted me to give to him.
Sometimes when we give the Lord things we love, he gives them back. And sometimes he doesn’t. But either way, he is Lord. If he requires something of us, if he wants us to walk a new path and a new way of life, we must follow, no matter the cost.
By God’s grace, I gave that band to him, and he never gave it back. But I know that in this instance, for my own soul, I needed to say yes to his call to come and follow him and make him my treasure in everything. It was truly one of the hardest things I’ve done in life.
I resonate with Paul’s exhortation:
Philippians 2:12–13 “Therefore, my beloved… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
Because he is Lord, the call is to bow in worship, to confess him as Lord, and then to obey him as Lord.
This life with God starts with repentance and continues with repentance.
It starts with repenting of our old patterns of sin and ways of life.
It continues as we daily walk with God and submit to Jesus’ lordship.
Ongoing repentance and faith demands our daily yeses — quick yeses everywhere God calls.
We do not weigh what God says according to our reason or desires. We submit our reason and desires to what he said.
This goes for things that are clearly sinful and things that are not. Everything he demands must be submitted to him.
Story: The rent
There was a time when I was single and didn’t have a lot of money, and I happened to run into a sister who was in serious financial need. She had been taken advantage of, multiple things had gone wrong for her, and she was about to lose her home of close to a decade.
I didn’t know how to respond. At first I told her I could not pay her rent; I just didn’t have enough money, and it seemed unwise for me to do it. But I told her I would pray and seek the Lord for a path forward.
The morning her rent was due came, eviction was imminent, and God laid it so heavily on my heart to go and essentially drain my bank account to pay her rent. I got up, ran over there, and paid her bill, much to the shock of her landlord, whom I told that I believed God had led me to pay for this friend.
At the time it felt so foolish. It was so difficult, because I knew it was going to put me in a precarious financial situation. But the Lord seemed to demand this of me, as he had at other times with my finances.
Sometimes giving of myself beyond reason looked like giving energy when I felt like I had none.
Sometimes it looked like sharing the gospel with people I didn’t feel like talking to, or was afraid to.
Sometimes it looked like showing up on a random street corner to share the gospel with a stranger.
And sometimes it looked like giving money where there was a need, even though it stretched me to my limits.
Ultimately, he’s the Lord, and I want to live my life more faithfully submitted to the little calls he gives us day to day to serve him and others — calls that welcome us to submit to him and experience life in him.
The reality is that when he has our hearts in the little things, and can entrust us with little things, it shows that he is Lord over the truly weighty things.
So what are you holding back from the Lord today? What are you trying to save?
Jesus’ lordship demands a regular and serious look at your heart, at what you love and treasure.
Is your treasure your life, your family, your status, your money, sex, power, or success?
Or is your treasure in God, who can make your heart alive and give you eternal treasure in heaven?
3. The Exchange: A Better Filling
I want to conclude with the second thing every man needs: a better filling. This is the exchange every man needs to have a healthy heart.
[direct]
Look back at Acts 2:38:
Acts 2:38 “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”
I was struck when reading this recently, because I believe so many men have unhealthy hearts because they are stuck in some area they are unwilling to submit to the lordship of Jesus.
But notice the promise. God doesn’t only forgive; he gives. He gives his Spirit.
This is what God promised long before Pentecost:
Ezekiel 36:26–27 “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
This is how you get your heart back. God doesn’t patch up the old heart; he gives you a new one.
And he doesn’t leave you to obey in your own strength. His Spirit within you moves you to walk in his ways.
Men try to fill the hole with money, lust, success, and self. God fills it with himself.
So here is the exchange: God wants to take your dark, sinful heart, full of licentiousness, lust, and laziness, and give you a heart washed in the blood and forgiven, free and full of the Holy Spirit and the renewing power and life of God. That’s what comes when you repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!
The question for your heart:
What fills you up?
What rules you?
What has your heart?
Is Christ the Lord managing you, nourishing you, leading your life by the Holy Spirit?
What foundation are you building your life on?
The rich man was offered this exchange, and he chose to keep his money instead of eternal glory with God.
Men, you and I are offered the same exchange.
Jesus calls you today to come follow him as Lord and King.
He wants to be near you, to remake you and transform you by the Holy Spirit given to every believer.
He wants to give you eternal glory and heavenly treasure.
Will you exchange your rags for glory with Jesus?
Will you repent of your hidden sins and earthly treasures and exchange them for the kingdom of God?
So, if you are not truly submitted to Jesus as Lord, the call to you today is to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
And for every Christian, the call to an increasingly holy and healthy heart is ongoing repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. Listen to how Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount:
Matthew 7:21–27 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Calling him “Lord” isn’t enough. The house that stands is the one built on hearing and doing.
Oh, that we would be known by the Lord on that day for faithful submission to him and obedience to everything he calls us to — houses built on the rock.
So this is the foundation of a healthy heart, men:
You have pledged your allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He has made you new from the inside.
He has cleansed your sins and washed you in his blood.
He fills you with the Holy Spirit and unites you to himself.
He is Lord of all, or he is not Lord at all.
This is a process of sanctification.
The old man that loves self and the flesh is put off.
The new man is put on.
As we behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we are transformed from one degree of glory to another, remade in his image.
[transition]
We will discuss this more over the next two weeks, as we consider ongoing communion with Jesus next week, and how to walk by the Spirit and not according to the flesh the week after.