Sermon Tone Analysis

Before we begin I want to put your minds at ease…even though I look like I’m about ready to go into labor at any time, my due date is not until August.

So there is no chance you are going to have to rush me off to the hospital.

And, no, I am not having twins.

I just get really huge.

Ok, now that we have that taken care of… I want to thank you for having me here today.

I think this summer it will be 11 years since my husband and I left this church to accept a ministry position in Wisconsin.

At that time our oldest was 1 and we were expecting our second.

We were only here at Berean for two years but in that time we made many lasting friendships and still keep in contact.

One of my fond memories here was that we were here during the time the church had 4 missionary families on deputation…the Flincks, Harmons, Balls, and Caasis and it was a wonderful opportunity to get to know them.

Our church in Oconomowoc actually has the privilege of supporting one of those families, the Harmons, and because of the friendship we had with them here we have been able to pray for them with more understanding and knowledge.

I was talking to Judy a couple months ago and she shared with me a few of the devotionals you have had this year centered around the theme “The Heart of a Godly Woman” such as a thankful heart, a giving heart, a wounded heart, a joyful heart, and so on.

As I began to think and pray about what I would talk about today I decided to look up the word “heart” in the concordance and was surprised how many times it is used in the Bible.

In the KJV the word translated heart is used 762 times!

I read through verse after verse that mentioned or talked about the heart and I started thinking “How in the world am I going to decide on just one of these?”

And then I began to think.

Since the Bible talks so much about our hearts, they must be pretty important!

And what do we do with something that is very important to us?

We protect it, right?

We think about protecting our family or our money or our freedom, but do we ever think about protecting our hearts?

Right away I though of .

If you have your Bibles you can turn there, otherwise I have all the verses I’m going to be using on the screen for you to follow along.

This verse, alone with one other verse, is my key verse today but since this is a topical study I will be using many other verses as well.

says “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

Let’s pray.

King Solomon, the wisest man in history, was instructing his son in this verse to keep his heart with all diligence.

Many questions may come to mind as we ponder this such as “Why?”

Why should I keep my heart?

What should I keep my heart from?

How can I keep my heart?

Well, we are going to start with the “why” and that is number one on your outline…

I. Why should I keep my heart?

Before we answer this question I want to define a couple words.

What is the “heart”?

1.

The literal heart

2. Also used (figuratively) very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect; likewise for the center of anything

Will - But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said.

Intellect - Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

What does it mean to “keep”?

1.

To watch, guard, keep

2. To preserve, guard from dangers

3. Other uses in the Bible:

He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.

He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

I think we see from these examples that the word “keep” can be understood as “guard” or “protect”.

So Solomon was instructing his son to guard and protect his heart, or the real him, his inner being.

And that brings us back to our question…why should I keep or guard my heart?

A. Because God should be the most important thing in my life

And if I don’t guard my heart, other things will steal the love that He deserves.

This is going to be a key idea throughout the rest of this time so be listening for it!

And this is going to be my other key verse:

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Wow, I am challenged every time I read that verse.

I think these two ideas go hand in hand.

If we want to keep our heart, then we need to love God with all our heart.

And if we want to love God with all our heart, then we will keep and protect our heart.

God didn’t leave anything out here.

He wants the whole “us”.

Not just bits and pieces or the leftovers.

He doesn’t want to share our hearts with sinful lusts and desires; He wants us to love Him with ALL our heart!

And God has given us a really good verse to show us how we can tell if we are loving Him with our whole heart.

In .

Jesus says:

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

So then we have another question…How do we know what we treasure?

I’m going to ask for a little feedback here…What are some ways that you can tell what your treasure is, what is really important to you? (Where you spend your time, money, efforts).

And what are some common things that people will spend a lot of their time, money, or efforts on?

(Many people spend their time and money on their business or career, their car, or their hobbies.)

There are many things I treasure, my family, friends, ministry, home… I put a lot of time and effort into each of those things and I treasure them but I need to be careful that I am not treasuring them more than my relationship with God.

We have so many things that can steal our hearts away from God, sometimes without us even realizing it.

They can even be things that are good in themselves but if they become more important to us than God, if they steal our love away from God, then they become idols in our lives.

This is why we need to guard our heart, to keep this from happening.

Let’s take hobbies for example.

This is kind of a silly illustration but hopefully it will help get this idea across.

Do any of you enjoy shopping?

I enjoy shopping!

I don’t know about you but with five boys, homeschooling, church activities, housework, music lessons, and basketball practice, I don’t get a lot of time to myself.

But when I get to go shopping, I get to get away from all that for a while, my husband watches the boys and I get to spend some “girl” time with my mother-in-law or one of my sisters.

Now you understand that girl time is hard to come by in my house…!

Once in a while I go shopping in the evenings and if I get back late enough, Jon has to put the boys to bed and I don’t have to!

It’s great!

Now, is there anything wrong with shopping?

No.

But what would happen if shopping became too important in my life?

What if I started spending more and more time away from home and my responsibilities began to slide?

Or I get grumpy if I don’t get my shopping time in.

I’m not spending the time with my family that I need to, the housework isn’t getting done, and I even am losing out on some of my devotion time… Maybe I decide that I can skip a church service or two.

That hobby has become a treasure in my heart.

I am spending my time, my money, (well, my husband’s money), and my efforts on something that is stealing my heart from God.

We can also tell what we treasure by how we respond to things.

What happens when someone deletes that important file you’ve been working on so hard?

Or messes up the house you’ve worked so hard to clean?

Or scratches your brand new car?

Your response will show where your heart is.

Did I blow up and get angry?

If so, I am allowing that specific thing a love in my heart that only God should occupy.

Now, does that mean that I can’t enjoy anything but God? No, obviously not.

But everything we do should be guided by the constant motivation of our love for Him.

I’m not going to spend more time shopping than I should because I love the Lord and want to please and honor Him with my time and money.

I’m going to respond differently to the person who scratched my car because that car is temporary and will not matter in eternity.

Maybe your hobby is not shopping.