Guard the Heart

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes when you go for a physical, the doctor will listen to you with a stethoscope and ask you some questions, and if they have a concern about your heart, they will ask you to undergo an EKG.

The EKG looks at the physical structure of the heart in real time

It checks on the health of the heart

And of course this is important because we know that heart health is crucial to the whole body

Tonight, as we open up to the end of Proverbs 4, we are opening up to a passage about the heart.

Not the physical heart, but the spiritual

Proverbs 4:20-27 provides us with a bit of a spiritual EKG

A check on the health of our spiritual hearts and our souls

CONTEXT

We are picking up Proverbs tonight in the middle of the 6th Fatherly Address.

There are ten of these addresses from Solomon in the first 9 chapters of Proverbs.

The last time we were together, Solomon was speaking to all the sons of Israel.

Tonight, his attention turns back to his own household as he speaks about keeping and guarding the heart with vigilance.

TEXT—these are the very words of God

Proverbs 4:20–27 ESV

My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.

1. Be vigilant about what goes in the heart (v. 20).

2. Be vigilant about what stays in the heart (v. 21-23)

3. Be vigilant about what comes out of the heart (v. 23-27)

WHAT GOES IN (v. 20)

1. Be vigilant about what goes in the heart (v. 20).

REPETITION OF “LISTEN”

In verse 20, Solomon calls on his son to pay attention and incline his ear to his father’s sayings or his father’s wisdom.

This sort of talk is a regular refrain from Solomon during the fatherly addresses.

This is not on accident.

Solomon wants concentration from his son and anyone else who will listen.

This is what will be required if wisdom is going to produce holiness in the life of Solomon’s son.

This is what will be required if wisdom is going to produce holiness in our lives.

Solomon says it in all different ways throughout these fatherly talks:

“Hear my son, your father’s instruction...” (1:8)

“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you...” (2:1)

“My son, do not forget my teaching...” (3:1)

“Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction...” (4:1)

These are all different ways in which Solomon is calling for concentration on the Lord’s wisdom.

CONCENTRATION

What does it look like for us to concentrate on the Lord’s wisdom?

Well here is what we know from our study so far.

We have stopped and talked a couple of times about how Jesus is the Wisdom of God.

Christ showed us the wisdom of God with flesh and bone in how He lived His life in obedience.

And He showed us the wisdom of God with every Word of truth that issued forth from His tongue.

1 Corinthians 1:24 ESV

but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

So we have that—Jesus is the wisdom of God.

And we know that the Word of God reveals Jesus to us, right?

Listen to what Jesus says to a group of Jews in John 5 who want to kill Him because He is saying that He is equal to the Father:

John 5:39 ESV

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

So then we know that Jesus is the Wisdom of God and we find Jesus in the Scriptures.

Therefore, if we want to concentrate on the wisdom of God, as Solomon is saying, what we need is to hear Christ in the Word of God.

This is why it is so important that we must daily study the Scriptures.

Studying the Word keeps us concentrated on the right things.

Studying the Word keeps us seeking first the kingdom of God.

Studying the Word keeps seeking the things that are above where Christ is seated

Studying the Word will see to the Word of Christ to dwell in us richly

Studying the Word will keep us focused on Christ and His Gospel

This is what attentiveness and concentration toward the Word produces

And this is why we must fill our hearts with the wisdom of God.

We must be vigilant about this.

We must be watchful about how careless we can be about what goes in our hearts.

WHAT DO YOU FILL YOUR HEART WITH?

See—nobody here has an empty heart.

You are a human being created in the image of God, which means you have a spiritual heart.

I am not speaking of the physical organ in your body.

Here is a definition of the spiritual heart from Sinclair Ferguson:

The heart is the central core and drive of my life intellectually (it involves my mind), affectionately (it shapes my soul), and totally (it provides the energy for my living).

Sinclair Ferguson

If it is the central core and drive of your life, then we would say it must be important.

And what we take into it should not be taken lightly.

And yet, if we examine ourselves, we might find that we are way too relaxed and even lazy about what goes in our hearts.

If we will read fiction books but we can’t make time for our Bibles, we are not thinking well about what goes in our hearts.

If we will scroll mindlessly on our smart phones, taking in hundreds of images a day, without really stopping to consider the effect they are having on us, we are not thinking well about what goes in our hearts.

If we will watch shows with tons of sexual content and think that it is not going to drive us to lust and soil the marriage bed, we re not thinking well about what goes in our hearts.

Some us think more about what goes in our dogs or our soil in the front yard, than we do about what goes in our hearts.

Some us are constantly thinking about what food will go in our mouths, but neglect much thought about the sort of spiritual food the heart is receiving.

It cannot be this way.

We need to know what valves to open up and to close.

When it comes to the Word of God and the wisdom found in it in Jesus Christ, we want to open up the valve and fill our hearts to the brim.

When it comes to sound preaching and teaching based on the wisdom of the Word, we should open that valve up as wide as we can.

But when it comes to the world and its images and messages, we need to close off the valve.

We need to be discerning enough to say, “This is bad and it shouldn’t go in my heart.”

I am not saying you live under a rock, reading the Bible for the rest of your life, only coming out to eat ChickFila and see Angel Studios movies.

Not at all.

Instead, I am saying that we are not relaxed about what we take into our hearts as people who know the importance of the heart.

This is Paul’s emphasis when he says:

Philippians 4:8 ESV

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Solomon has repeated himself again and again—LISTEN! CONCENTRATE!

He knows how important it is to be careful about what goes into the heart.

WHAT STAYS IN (v. 21-23)

2. Be vigilant about what stays in the heart (v. 21-23).

PENNING UP THE WORDS IN THE HEART (v. 21)

We can see the need for this vigilance in verses 21-23.

When it comes to words of wisdom, Solomon’s son is not to let them escape from his sight.

He is supposed to keep them with in his heart.

This reminds me of when my kids were little and we were all living the “baby gate life.”

They had these little feet that could move so fast and they could go from quietly playing in front of you to reaching for the knife drawer in seconds.

So we had baby gates up in all these certain locations to be able to pen the kids in and keep them from getting away.

Solomon is saying that this is how wisdom can be.

It is like the words have these little feet and they can get up and get away from us.

And that really has less to do with the wisdom and more to do with our spiritual weakness and how prone we are to forget wisdom and act like fools.

So then, we need to keep the wise words of God within our hearts.

And the way we do this is pretty straightforward—we need to make efforts to memorize the Word of God.

One of the more recognized Bible verses that instructs us to do this is found in Psalm 119:

Psalm 119:10–11 ESV

With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

You see the desire of the Psalmist—to seek God with all of his heart and not wander from His commands.

And you see his plan—storing up the word in the heart that he might not sin against the Lord.

We need to use our minds to memorize the Word and in doing this, we are penning up the wisdom of God in our hearts.

The Scripture memory acts like the baby gate for the words of wisdom.

This sort of discipline was crucial and expected in ancient Hebrew culture.

You see this in Deuteronomy 6, where the Lord says that His commands will be written on the hearts of His children.

And then He explains how that is going to happen:

Deuteronomy 6:6–7 ESV

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

The commands get inscribed on the heart through:

the diligent teaching

the talk as they travel to and from different places

The talk they have when they get up and when they lie down

The repetition of teaching and talking would help all the generations of Israel hide the Word in their heart, that they may obey God and keep covenant with Him.

MOTIVATION TO MEMORIZE (v. 22)

It is no different today in the sense that by memorizing Scripture, we will not just fill our hearts with wisdom, but we will hold that wisdom in.

But that doesn’t mean it is easy.

Most of us are leaking more information than we are retaining because we are inundated with it now more than we have ever been.

It can be hard to find the time or the ability to memorize Scripture.

And maybe we could get away with that excuse, if not for the other things that we do memorize.

We can memorize lyrics to our favorite songs

We can memorize lines from our favorite shows

We can memorize the birthdays of our favorite people

Why? Because we are intentionally familiar with those things.

So the answer to our struggles to memorize are not excuses and opt-outs.

The answer is for us to be more intentionally familiar with the Word of God.

And God’s Word gives us motivation to do so in v. 22.

When you keep the Words of wisdom in your heart, you will find that they are life to you and bring healing to your flesh.

Life is wisdom’s reward.

If Adam had not disobeyed God, but listened to God’s wisdom and not eaten of the tree of good and evil, what would he have been able to do?

He would have been able to eat from the tree of life.

Genesis 3:22 ESV

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”

Adam is ousted from the Garden so that he would not eat from the tree of life in his fallen state.

If he had stored up God’s warning and God’s promise in his heart and not sinned against God, he would have remained in the Garden and eaten from the tree and lived.

He would not have died. He would have had rest with God.

But even though Adam did sin and Adam did fall, rest is still available to Adam’s children.

Though we are sinners like our father Adam, if we repent and trust in Christ—the wisdom of God, we will have life.

If we find Christ, who is the wisdom of God, we will find healing to all our flesh.

This is once again a reference to full life.

This speaks to the physical healing that Christ brings to our bodies now as He cares for us as His sheep.

This speaks to the ultimate healing that Christ will bring to our bodies when we are resurrected in the same manner as Him.

This speaks to the spiritual peace that Christ brings to our souls now.

This speaks to the ultimate peace we will have as the sheep of God in the fold of God, with the Good Shepherd reigning over us forever.

The Wisdom of God gives the abundant life of God and this is undeniably clear in the Person of Christ Himself.

Christ, the wisdom of God, has brought all of this to us with His saving work.

And so this is a motivation to memorize.

Hide the word of Christ in your heart and it will be life to you.

GUARD YOUR HEART (v. 23)

Ultimately, all of this comes down to a call to guard the heart, which is exactly what we see in v. 23.

Proverbs 4:23 ESV

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

We guard what goes in—this is what we have already talked about.

And we guard what stays in.

I want truth to stay in.

And I want that truth to be the driving force of my life, so I want to keep falsehood out.

I want to keep my heart pure and unclouded.

I only want the wisdom of God inside the baby gates, if you will.

In light of this, we have to heed Solomon’s words and guard our hearts.

Now part of the reason we want to memorize Scripture and be very careful about what we let in the heart, is that Jesus died to give you the spiritual heart you have!

The heart of man is the worst part before it is regenerated, and the best afterward; it is the seat of principles and the foundation of actions. The eye of God is, and the eye of man ought to be, principally fixed on it.

John Flavel

Flavel is saying that before you were a Christian, your heart was rotten.

But Christ died for you and rose again.

And when you believed in Him, you believed because the Spirit of Christ made you alive.

He regenerated your heart.

And now that your heart has life in Christ, all these wonderful things come from it.

Things like faith and love and hope.

Things like obedience and holiness and glory to God.

So since the state of the heart is something Christ died to win and something that impacts how much glory is coming out of your life toward God—the heart is important.

Flavel says it is so important that God is constantly concerned with your heart.

Therefore, WE should also be constantly concerned with our spiritual hearts.

We guard them. We keep them.

We do this because we know it is how we remain pure and show the world the holiness of the Jesus we represent:

Psalm 119:9 ESV

How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.

DUTY IS OURS, POWER IS GOD’S

But we are not on our own in this work.

When John Flavel talked about guarding the heart, he talked about it as a work where we have a partner.

And that partner is God Himself.

Flavel said this:

The duty is ours, but the power is God’s.

We have to read the Bible.

We have to memorize Scripture.

We have to be discerning about what we watch and listen to.

But it is God who will convict us as we read the Bible.

And it is God who will give our minds the ability to memorize His words of wisdom.

And it is God’s Spirit who will help us discern what is praiseworthy from what is not.

We are striving to guard our hearts, but it is the Lord who puts strength in the stride.

We are striving to guard our hearts—but it is ultimately God who is keeping them.

When I was a teenager I got to go to London and they took us into a room to view the crown jewels.

The place was prepared for just about anything.

They have 22 guards posted up at all times.

They have 38 staff members handling the visitors who are coming through.

They have bombproof glass.

And they have over 100 cameras that you would never be able to find even if you tried.

They do this because the crown jewels are valuable and they are important to both the rulers and the people of England.

They want them to stay in the tower where they are preserved.

Well, our hearts are valuable.

They are important to God.

Much more important than a room full of rocks that are not made in His image.

And they are important to us.

How we handle them is a matter of eternal life and eternal death.

Therefore, we must be vigilant in guarding what stays in our hearts.

WHAT COMES OUT OF THE HEART (v. 23-27)

And this brings us to our final point.

We have to be vigilant about what goes in and what stays in, but we also have to be watchful about what is coming out of our lives.

3. Be vigilant about what comes out of the heart (v. 23-27).

Before we look at verses 24-27, I want to remind us of the words of Christ, which will help us understand what Solomon is saying.

In Matthew 15, after tangling with the Pharisees about man-made tradition, Jesus speaks about what defiles a person.

It is not about the food going in them, but the sort of living that is coming out of them.

It is now about how clean their hands are, but how clean their spiritual lives are.

Matthew 15:11 ESV

it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

And then He elaborates further and says:

Matthew 15:18–20 ESV

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

Jesus points to God’s moral law in the 10 Commandments and He says, “Transgressing these in how you live—this is what defiles you.”

And notice that these defiling actions come from where?

The Heart.

So now going back to Proverbs 4, I think that Solomon is saying much the same as Jesus.

Keep your heart. Guard your heart.

Because the springs of life flow from it.

Everything you do, flows from the heart.

If you keep the heart, you will not defile yourself.

But If your heart is not guarded, you are going to find yourself transgressing God’s law.

What has gone in and been kept in, will ultimately come out.

SPEECH (v. 24)

You see this in verse 24.

If the heart is guarded, our speech should be altered.

If our heart has the wisdom of God hidden in it, our mouths shouldn’t have perversity and deviously talk flowing out of it.

This is why it doesn’t make sense to us when we see an athlete spewing profanity during a game and thanking Jesus after a game.

James 3:10 ESV

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

How is your speech?

If your Sunday School class came to your workplace, would they be shocked that the saint who speaks theologically on the Lord’s Day speaks so worldly on a Friday?

Do your children ever find it strange that you speak one way at home and another way in front of people?

Do you find yourself constantly embroiled in gossip and drama because your tongue pulls you into it?

These would all be signs that something is wrong in the heart.

These things should be put away.

Colossians 3:8 ESV

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

SIGHT (v. 25)

In verse 25, Solomon shifts from what we say to what we are looking at.

By calling on his son to look straight forward, he saying, “Be careful where you look.”

He wants his son to keep his eyes on wisdom and not let his gaze drift to the foolishness of the world.

Jesus said something very similar in Matthew 6:22-23

Matthew 6:22–23 ESV

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Whatever you are focusing on matters.

It impacts your spirituality.

When we find that our focus is being consumed by something other than Christ, this is when we need to check our hearts.

If all we think about is work—to the point that we are letting our spiritual responsibilities and disciplines fall by the wayside, your heart has lost track of wisdom.

If all we think about is our own desires—to the point that we will ignore God’s commands to fulfill them, your heart has lost track of wisdom.

If our minds are constantly consumed with our hobbies—to the point that we become selfish and we will ignore our family and our church in order to do what we want to do, your heart has lost track of wisdom.

Whenever we find ourselves devotedly focused on something or someone not named Jesus, to the detriment of our relationship with Jesus, it is a sign that the heart is not well.

STEPS (v. 26-27)

And then finally, in verses 26-27, Solomon goes from talking about SPEECH and SIGHT to talking about STEPS.

There are really two commands found in the two verses.

The first command is:

Ponder the path of your feet. (26)

And the purpose of the command is that when it is obeyed, all the ways of Solomon’s son would be sure.

The second command is:

Do not swerve to the right or to the left. (27)

And the purpose of this command is that when it is obeyed, the foot of Solomon’s son would turn away from evil.

In essence, Solomon is saying that his son should think before he acts and consider whether or not his action is on the path of wisdom.

If what he is about to do is a deviation to the right or to the left of wisdom’s way, then he should stop and not go further.

This will keep him from evil.

Then his ways will be sure.

Or as Solomon said in Proverbs 3:5—God will make direct his path.

We have all seen those times when someone is acting recklessly.

They might even be someone that we would normally count to be wise, but some sort of unhealthy despair or desire is driving them to act out of character.

They have forgotten wisdom and become very impulsive.

And when we get to that state, we are prone to stop pondering our path and we begin to swerve.

And this is when we end up committing sin.

If we begin to act this way in our lives, we have to stop and check out hearts.

When we are running reckless, it is a sign that our hearts are not right.

We have gotten out of step with God.

Wisdom has run away from us and the baby gate isn’t working.

A STRAIGHT LINE FROM THE HEART TO ACTION

So when we consider Jesus’ words from Matthew 15 and Solomon’s words here regarding speech, sight and steps, we can come to this conclusion:

We can draw a straight line from how we are behaving to the state of our spiritual hearts.

Often people will use their hearts as an excuse for their actions.

They will say things like, “I know this is wrong, but my heart is right.”

But what we are seeing tonight is that when we do wrong things, it actually speaks to our heart being wrong—not right.

When we are doing wrong things, they are not happening despite our hearts.

They are direct results of our hearts.

So we can’t blame our sin on the people around us.

We can’t blame it on our environment.

Instead, we have to look at ourselves and recognize that if things are unhealthy in our lives, something is unhealthy in our heart.

This is when we have to ask ourselves the hard questions of self-examination.

Am I being vigilant enough about what goes in my heart? Is that why evil is coming out of it?

Am I being vigilant enough about what stays in my heart? Am I doing sinful things because I am not penning up the wisdom of God in my heart?

And if the answer is — YES, then we have to make change.

If you are walking around bitter and angry, stop and check your heart and ask, “How much bitterness and anger am I taking in through my television and social media and YouTube?”

If you are walking around filled with lust, stop and check your heart and ask, “How many sexually stirring images do I allow into my mind and my heart each day?”

If you are walking around filled with happiness in the world and contentment, despite the fact that you barely ever read your Bible or talk to Jesus outside of church, stop and check your heart and ask, “Have I taken in so much of the world that I need very little of Christ to be happy?”

CONCLUSION

Any sign of spiritual backsliding and decline has to be taken seriously.

And it must be looked at as a sign that our hearts may not be well.

If I go to the doctor and I say:

I have...

Heart palpitations

Shortness of breath

My jaws hurt

My chest is tight

They are going to take my blood pressure.

They are going to order tests.

They might do a heart cath at some point.

They would do ALL of that because they would know that the things I am describing are a sign that my heart is not in good shape.

When we find ourselves looking at the wrong things.

Saying the wrong things.

And doing the wrong things...

These are the signs that our spiritual hearts need help.

But praise the Lord that Jesus is the great Healer of the Heart.

He is the Great Physician who makes it whole again.

He drives out the infections and sicknesses.

He fills it with His truth and grace and His Spirit.

If your heart is not well tonight, bring it to Him.

Matthew 11:28–30 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

There is no need to stay in the waiting room.

There is no 3 month wait period to see Him.

He has His hand out to you tonight, Christian.

He is saying, “You know me. My heart is yours. Let me fix it again, that spring of life may flow from it for the glory of my name.”

Give your heart to Him.

Surrender to Him—the wisdom of God once more.

He will be life to you.

If your heart is well tonight, we give God praise for that.

But you cannot grow relaxed about your spiritual health.

We have to remember the warning that Jesus gave His disciples as they fell asleep when He wanted their prayers the most:

Matthew 26:41 ESV

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Be careful about what you let in.

Be careful about what you keep in.

Be careful about what comes out.

Your heart may be well, but you are not strong.

Your heart is well because Jesus is strong and you are more than a conqueror in Him.

Guard your heart for the sake of Christ in the strength of Christ.