Summary
The Feet and Heart Connection
In Psalm 86:11–12, David lifts up two petitions: "Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth," and "Give me an undivided heart to revere your name." The first is a plea to be so fashioned by God that faith expresses itself in a daily walk in the truth. The second asks for singularity of purpose—remembering that in Scripture the heart encompasses mind, emotions, and will. David is praying that God would grant him one heart, the very gift God promises in Ezekiel 11:19.
How does God answer such prayers? A popular bumper-sticker slogan claims, "It doesn't matter where your feet are on Sunday; what matters is where your heart is on Monday." That sentiment is precisely backwards. There is a real connection between the feet and the heart, and God has built His answer to David's prayer right into that connection by gathering His people around Word and Sacrament on the Lord's Day. Where the feet go on Sunday shapes what the heart receives for Monday.
The early Christians understood this. Released from the Saturday Sabbath Colossians 2:16–17, which had pointed ahead to the rest now given in Christ, they quickly began to gather on the first day of the week—the day of the resurrection (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2). The Large Catechism affirms that "since from ancient times Sunday has been appointed for this purpose, we should not change it," so that a common order may prevail. And Luther's explanation of the Third Commandment in the Small Catechism teaches that we should hold preaching and God's Word sacred, gladly hearing and learning it.
This matters because God uses means. He has appointed Word and Sacrament—Holy Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and His inerrant, infallible Word—as the very instruments by which He births, sustains, and grows faith. As Pastor Klemet Preus put it, worship is not primarily our praying, praising, and singing; if it were, we could do it anywhere. Worship is hearing, learning, and receiving what God comes to give. That is why the feet must be carried to the place where these gifts are distributed “The Feet and Heart Connection” 8-27-23.
If you were Satan, where would you attack? Precisely here—at the means of grace and our reception of them. The temptation is to treat the Lord's Day like any other day: a chance to sleep in, catch up on chores, or fill the morning with scheduled activities. The more we schedule ourselves silly, the more we starve. Faith malnourished long enough dies—not the body, but faith itself. Professor Jim Nestingen used to say that God commands us to rest because, left to ourselves, we will not rest; we will keep running until we are wrung out. God simply tells us, "Stop it." He has something to give us.
And what He gives is Christ Himself. On the cross Jesus bore every sin, including our pension for pushing Him into the background and crowding His Day with our stuff. He bore our failure to gladly hear and learn His Word, and from the cross He declared it forgiven. He continues to come to us in His Word, pulling away the rubble of our distractions and revealing a love that has opened eternity to us. Apart from this reception there is no true rest—we may sleep until noon and still not be rested from the top of our head to the soles of our feet. Real rest is found only in what God gives through Word and Sacrament. The feet and the heart are connected, and God in His grace gathers His people each Lord's Day because He understands that connection perfectly.
Video citations
- “The Feet and Heart Connection” 8-27-23 — Would you open up your Bibles please with me to Psalm 86 for our study this morning? Psalm 86 in the Old Testament if you're using a Pue edition page 507 Psalm 86. The Gospel writer Luke was a…