Keep Thy Heart

Victories: 1. Fall is here but for some reason it looks more like summer than summer did 2. Back 2 Church 3.Rummage

Prayer: Jonesboro Friends Church Pastor Rich Wollan

Missionary Prayer: Doug & Jenny McGee / China - Pray for Doug’s music and the reach that he has.

Intro

We are not simple creatures. We would like to think of ourselves as such be the truth is we are complex and multifaceted. Let me explain myself. When you see a picture of an ice cream cone there is a lot going on inside you. First, you recognize that as an ice cream cone, which is what it is, you can even tell by the color that it is some kind of berry flavored and there is even a memory inside of you on what that might taste like. Beyond taste you can probably even remember the feel of it in your mouth, the frozen creaminess, the sweet flavor as it hits your tongue. But your complexity does not end there. In fact it is kind of mean of me to be showing you this picture without the possibility of getting an ice cream cone. I’m sorry but I am not going to be handing out ice cream cones so you are just going to have to suffer, that is part of your complexity, you can deal with disappointment. However, not all of you have the same reaction to the picture. There are very few of you who when seeing an ice cream cone have a negative reaction. You know that with all that iced CREAM comes stomach issues later. For those of you who are lactose intolerant or have some other reaction the picture might not have the same effect but I think it is also very likely that despite your intolerance there is still a desire for the ice cream. So you know what an ice cream cone is and you have a desire for the ice cream but your complexity does not end there. You are not made up only of what you know and what you desire you as a human being have the ability of conscience will and you can choose your path. You have the ability to withhold pleasures from yourself. You are not a herd creature which has no ability to do anything but what comes instinctually. You could at this point be so enamored by the idea of ice cream that you decide that staying there in your seat is not worth it, you are going to head to Sophie’s or Ivanhoe's and get some ice cream, or you can resist the draw for that creamy cold deliciousness and either wait for it after lunch today or maybe not even have it at all. It is up to you to decide to give into the temptation or to deny it. All of this is going on in you right now and all I did was show you a picture of an ice cream cone.

I propose to you this bit of wisdom and truth; You are complex because you were created with complexity built into you. In other words, you were created in the image of an incredibly complex creator and that complexity is a part of what God imbues you with. Even when we are speaking about something as simple as ice cream. Our lives are never simple and therefore we have been given complexity in order to deal with life. This leads me to what I want to speak about this morning. Let me read for you a passage of Proverbs that points to this idea.

Bible Reading: Proverbs 4:20-27

I want you to focus on a single verse in that reading and that verse is Proverbs 4:23 “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” Solomon is speaking here to his people and his words of wisdom are to heed his advice because if they heed the advice (1.) they will receive life and health, (2.)they will deny the deceitfulness of the world, (3.) they will see clearly the paths they should take and (4.) they will know good from evil but it all starts because they are diligently keeping their heart. That seems like an incredibly simple solution, all you have to do is keep your heart. But the problem is this; keeping your heart is complex, despite what the world tells us. This idea of Keeping you Heart has nothing to do with following your heart, or listening to your heart, or trusting your heart. Those are incredibly bad ideas. Our hearts will always want what is not good for us and therefore we should never follow our hearts but we should keep them or another word for this is to protect them in order to do not what we want but to do what God wants.

I will add this; keeping your heart is way more complex than we think. An author I was reading this past week on this subject described this complexity as, “...a trinity of spiritual functions: the mind, the desires, and the will.” What does that mean? Well it means that keeping our heart will requires to think deeply about what we know about our hearts, care about how our hearts yearn, and discern what is good for our heart and what is not. The complexity of our hearts has everything to do with; What we know, What we love and What we choose.

What we Know

At the start of our reading today was Solomon telling the readers to listen to his advice in verse 20. Think of Solomon here as a wise teacher whose goal is to reign in an unruly student and to make matters worse he is trying to teach his student in the middle of a carnival. Why a carnival? Well because life is kind of like a carnival. It is filled with people and lights and sounds and smells that are all designed to drag your attention toward the. Therefore, our teacher is doing his best to convince the student that what he has to say is at the very least equal or better than the carnival. The students mind is constantly being distracted by everything else and the lessons that the teacher is trying to teach is lost in the lights and sounds, the people and the games. No matter how great the lesson is when we are distracted our minds aren’t on the lesson. There is always something else to look at and therefore it takes real intentional thought to put the importance on keeping the heart. Back in Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;” These words are given to the reader because the teacher knows that our first instinct will be to trust in our own understanding. We trust in what we understand and what we understand is that the carnival of life is fun.

However, Solomon tells us to give attention to his words because what we think we understand is tainted by the sin of a deceitful mouth according to 4:24. What we put into our minds is never neutral it will either turn us toward God or away from Him. This is why Paul told us in Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” and Jesus said Mark 7:20–23 “And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”” What is the difference? A change of thought. The defiled man allows his thoughts to poison his life where as the believer will change his thoughts towards those things which are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. Think this through. There is a right way to live life and there is a wrong way, it may seem like life is just one neutral decision after another but my friends it is not, and then only way you are going to figure this out is if you know that your heart is worth keeping. Our enemy Satan would like nothing more than for you to ignore your heart or to do what every Hallmark movie tells you to do, follow your heart, listen to your heart, or trust your heart. But if you live your life however feels right at the present moment, with no thought as to what is right or wrong, no meditation on good or evil. You will end up a disjointed, miserable mess, because your heart is full of Sin and it wants the carnival way more then it wants the lesson.

The carnival of life will always be there but are you going to put your thoughts on the words of the teacher or the bearded lady? Only one of those thoughts leads to eternal life, the other has a deadly sentence. Friends Keep your heart.

What we Love

Ok let’s return to the carnival of life. The carnival of this life is meant to be distracting because it is vying for your attention and it not only promises fun but in most cases it makes good on the promises. If you haven’t already gathered this I am comparing the Carnival of Life to Sin. This means that the teacher is God and He is trying to help us to see past the lights and the distractions to His truths that bring life. The teacher is trying his best to get you to heed the lessons he is teaching and his words are falling on deaf ears. Why? You know the reason why. The carnival is too much fun, it has what our hearts desire. The tastes, the smells, the lights, the promise of fun. Then there is the food.

Carnival food is the best stuff you will ever put in your mouth at least for the first few bites and then the sickly sweetness and the fried oiliness will catch up to you. Here is the thing about carnival food, you all know exactly what I am talking about. The imagine taking that first bite of a sugary elephant ear or funnel cake. Delicious, Jim Richards has mentioned a funnel cake at the State fair that I really want to try sometime, a Fruity Pebble funnel cake. It sounds amazing. You take that first bite and yep there it is all the warm gooey sweetness. Yum. Now imagine the last bite. You know the feeling don’t you. The sweetness is still there but for some reason over the past few moments the sweetness is kind of overpowering and you have started to notice the pockets of oil that were trapped in the fryer. And if you ate the whole thing by yourself the warm gooeyness is starting to feel a bit heavy on your stomach. The last bite is really nothing like the first one right? On more than one occasion I have heard people finishing the last bite say. “Oh, I shouldn’t have eaten that.” When that is the case the last thing you should ever do is get on a tilt-a-whirl.

The complexity of keeping our hearts is similar. When we look at the carnival of our life it can seem like we have many options available to us, but really we only have two. Give in to the desires of our hearts or listen to God. I have said this before and I will most likly say it again, Sin is fun. If sin was terrible and horrible we would shun sin and seek God but the truth is sin is fun. And the problem is that when we sin we know that there will be consequences but we would rather have the fun now and deal with the consequences later. The Heart wants what it wants. We often seek after what we know is not good for us simply because we want the fun.

In Ch. 6 Solomon tells us about the way of a wicked man. Proverbs 6:12–13 “A worthless person, a wicked man, Walks with a perverse mouth; He winks with his eyes, He shuffles his feet, He points with his fingers;” Why would this person choose this way of life? Because our hearts desire it. Jeremiah 17:9 ““The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?” We want the carnival because it is fun, but the fun never lasts and what we are left with are the regrets.

If we are to keep our hearts, we have to first understand that what our hearts want is not what is best for them. If you have ever had to return to the carnival the second day in a row you know what I mean. You generally will not make the same food choices the second day that you made the first. Our hearts may desire all the sin that we can stomach but that doesn’t mean that we should allow them to stray. Look again at the words of Solomon in in 4:25-26.

The carnival of life will alway pull us toward sin and away from God but we don’t have to let it. Friends keep your heart.

What we Choose

How do we keep our heart. We choose to do take our eyes off the carnival of life and we choose instead to follow God.

Proverbs 3:1 “My son, do not forget my law, But let your heart keep my commands;” The Choice: God’s ways, while hard, are better than my ways. I will keep them.

Proverbs 3:3 “Let not mercy and truth forsake you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart,” The Choice: Remembering God’s truths will not be easy therefore, I must study them and apply them to my life.

Proverbs 4:4 “He also taught me, and said to me: “Let your heart retain my words; Keep my commands, and live.” The Choice: I will mess up and return back to my sin therefore, I need to return to the truths of God as often as I mess up.

Proverbs 4:21 “Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart;” The Choice: Persevere, be steadfast, have self-control. You will never be done keeping your heart.

Proverbs 4:23 “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.”

Keeping your heart can only be done when you have the teacher, teaching you a better way to live. Keeping your heart comes when you know Jesus.

Gospel

Jesus died for our sins, and because He did, we can place our belief in that sacrifice. 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We have the promise of God that if we ask for forgiveness and believe in the saving power of Jesus, we will be saved. And from the saving power of Jesus, we become new creations. 2 Cor. 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” This means that as Christians, we get a fresh start, we aren’t who we used to be, and we have the power of God behind us to change who we are becoming. Glory to God in the highest, for He has saved my soul, and He can save yours too if you will let Him. If you aren’t sure, then you can confess Him as your savior. If that is your desire today, you can say this prayer with me. Bow your heads.

Dear Lord, I know that I’m a sinner. I’m sorry for my sin, and I ask you to forgive me. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I repent of my sins, and I ask you to come into my life and take control. I make a commitment to follow you, and I trust you as my Lord and Savior.

Friend, if you prayed that prayer today, I ask that you come and speak to me after the service.

Benediction: Kings Treasure