Guard Your Heart
Notes
Transcript
Guard Your Heart
Guard Your Heart
Guard your heart above all else,
for it is the source of life.
Proverbs
“A good tree doesn’t produce bad fruit; on the other hand, a bad tree doesn’t produce good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs aren’t gathered from thornbushes, or grapes picked from a bramble bush. A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
Matthew
Intro
Intro
Well Hello all!
I am super pumped to be back stateside and on solid ground!
We had an amazing vacation last week, but it is always good to be home on the frozen tundra that we call IL.
Thank you to everyone who stepping in and helped teach and lead the last couple of weeks!
I have only heard great things!
I know it was cold last week but I am so grateful that you guys were able to meet and hear an awesome message from Jeremiah!
So I just want to talk for a bit about the next couple of weeks, on the front end if the message.
So next week is the Super Bowl!
We will be having our Super Bowl party!
We will be playing the game right here in the youth room, we will have tons of food, watching the game and if you are not interested in watching the game that is totally fine, we have games going all over the place. Board games in the library and games in the gym!
So join us next week as we have our super bowl party!
The following week, we are going to be doing a study of how do we read our bibles.
I am super pumped about this, I hope that you are as well.
I would encourage you to bring an actual Bible in two weeks, one that can may be marked in and a journal possibly if you have one.
That is Feb 9th!
The following Sunday Feb 16th we will be off because of our junior high retreat called SURGE!
But the next week Feb 23 we will be jumping into a new series called Can I Ask That?
All of the messaging in this series will be based on questions that you submit.
We will be taking the most asked questions and doing a message based on those questions.
We have about 4 to 6 weeks set aside for this because we really want to tackle some hard topics or at least hit on some questions that you may have burning inside of you.
We have a survey set up.
Here is that information
It is totally anonymous- These questions can be all over the board— Were dinosaurs real? What do Mormons believe? How do I pray? Can I date? When Should I date? Questions can literally be about anything, your leaders and I will sort through these questions and start to on prepping for these questions.
So get those questions in, asap, but also know that you have about 3 weeks to get questions! but the sooner the better!
That is where we are heading!
So tonight we are going to be tackling what I think is a pretty convicting topic for me and I am sure it is for you as well.
Tonight we are going to be looking at what we put into our bodies, and I am not talking about food, or stuff we shove up or nose, or smoke, snort or vape, but what we consume with our eyes, and ears.
I am talking about the things we feed our souls, ours minds and our hearts.
No before you tune we out I want us to be able to enter into an honest conversation, Lets push pause on defenses being raised on the justifications that are starting to flood our minds.
I want us to just begin by looking at some passages of scripture and coming to a conclusion based on what God says, not what we think but what is said.
Can we do that?
Can we enter into a straight up conversation about this?
I thought so!
Awesome!
Because if I can be honest with you, I struggle with what I should be consuming with my mind, and as I was prepping this week, I did not want to talk about this.
I thought many times just to stop and do something easier.
It is controversial, it will cause defenses to go up— because it did for me— it will cause we too look at what I am consuming and it will make we say— is this okay? Is this right?
We are going to be looking at two passages and
Why two passages because I believe they play off of each other.
And what we are going to be talking about is found in other areas of scripture as well, it is very much an on going theme.
lets start with
Guard your heart above all else,
for it is the source of life.
Lets pray and then dive into this text
PRAY
Just to give a little background, King Solomon was writing this Proverb.
A Proverb is a short pithy saying in general use, stating a general truth or piece of advice.
Examples are:
It's no use locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.
Actions speak louder than words.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Just to name a few.
King Solomon was a man who was know for his wisdom.
He actually ask God for wisdom, God gave him a chance to ask for anything he wanted and he said make me wise so I can lead your people.
God grants him this and Solomon is a guy whose wisdom is known through all the kingdom and the world truly.
So Solomon records some of his wisdom here in the book of Proverbs.
Here is what is interesting about this part Solomon is giving advice here like a father would a son and he even recounts the advice that his father, King David, gave him.
Then Solomon jumps to that there are two paths— keep off the wicked path— avoid it.
Then he gets down to the end of the chapter and he encourages the reader to pay attention to what he is saying and then in verse 23 after all the wisdom he has shared he says
Guard your heart above all else,
for it is the source of life.
Our first point is guard your heart
Point #1: Your heart must be protected
Point #1: Your heart must be protected
Explain
Guard your heart above all else,
for it is the source of life.
Your heart must be protected.
The interesting thing about the heart is that Solomon says it is the source of life.
The word heart here in the Hebrew is Leiv— It means the mind the whole person- it is your inner-self.
It even goes further your heart is the location of knowledge and it is the source of decisions.
Your heart is who you are— the true you, the you that behind the mask— when it is just you.
The true you.
This would be very profound wisdom that Solomon would have written here.
And his encouragement to guard it, protect it above all else.
You defend your true self— you do not allow the evil to come in you keep on the path that is straight.
Guard your whole soul as it is the source of life and do this above all else.
The New American Commentary: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (5) The Fourth Exhortation: A Father’s Plea (4:1–27)
It is “the wellspring of life” in that the capacity to live with joy and vigor ultimately comes from within and not from circumstances. The corrupt heart draws one down to the grave, but Wisdom protects the heart from that corruption.
Illustrate
Illustrate
In high school, college, after college, the moments where I have allowed outside influences to preterite my heart- my true self- I can tell you I was not following after the Lord.
This is where we get into the stuff that makes us sweat a bit.
When I am not being filled up with God’s word, and I am choosing to be filled up with music that drops an f bomb every other sentence, or I am watching inappropriate movies or tv shows, you know the ones, the ones that have scenes of sex, and crude humor that store away for later.
We pretend to be someone we are not, we seek attention to cover up this feeling of loneliness.
We watch, listen and partake in things so we don’t miss out, we don’t want to be made fun of so do things and say things that make us cool but yet we have allowed our hearts to be compromised.
I have been there guys, I know what that is like and it stinks to be an outcast— but what is the cost?
WE ARE NOT GUARDING OUR HEARTS
We allowing
Apply
How do we guard them?
We watch what we take in?
We ask the hard question of how does this help me?
How does this impact my heart?
I have not said anything that pertains to us as Christians yet.
The questions I asked were questions about your inner-self.
IF Solomon believed that protecting your heart was one of the most important things we can do— then why do we sell out?
Because it is easier to fit in then be an outcast.
We sell out, we give in because it is easier to give into what everyone else is doing.
Peer pressure is so strong and it gets harder everyday.
The peer to fit in, to not miss out on social media, to be up on all the trends, to make a new tick tock everyday, and do your homework, and watch all the shows on netflix.
That would be exhausting— not to mention if you are believer, if Christ is King of your life— you are doing youth group, going to church, reading your devos!
Teens have it hard: i get this, but in order to protect your heart what of these things would protect your heart the most?
because here the deal what we put into our heart, our soul guess what comes out?
check out this passage in
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
The second point is you cannot be what you are not.
Point #2: You cannot be what you are not
Point #2: You cannot be what you are not
Explain
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
Jesus is speaking here, again a man who was full of wisdom as he was God in the flesh.
Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people, Jesus had people from all over following him, he was healing people and he was speaking like no one who ever spoke before.
Jesus was loved by the people and he is telling the people to love their enemies, to not judge and then he begins to talk about fruit.
He starts talking about good trees and bad trees.
I want to be very clear with the terms good and bad here.
Good in this section refers to things that are excellent, approved, genuine, praiseworthy, morally correct, noble.
and bad is refers to poor quality, bad, unfit, worthless, rotten.
Back to the trees and the fruit.
Jesus is saying the people look a good tree does not produce bad fruit— because we would not call it a good tree would we?
No we would call that tree that produced back fruit a bad tree, unfit and worthless.
Same can be said about a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, why?
Because if it produced good fruit we would call the tree good!
Are you tracking with me?
Each tree is know by its own fruit.
Jesus goes on to drive this point home just a bit more:
Figs cannot be picked from a thornbush, why because figs grow on fig trees and what do thornbushes produce— thorns thats right.
And grapes grow on grape vines not a bramble bush!
What grows on bramble bushes?
No bramble- actually wild berries!
I hope you get the point here that Jesus is making.
He is saying that you are what you are.
Each tree or bush has its characteristic fruit.
One tree cannot pick a certain type of fruit from any tree but its own.
What is Jesus really saying here?
It is the question that we may need to wrestle with first.
Does the tree determine the fruit or does the fruit determine the tree?
Someone lean towards it is the fruit that determines the tree, but Jesus is actually leaning more towards the tree determines the fruit.
Each subject— Good trees, bad trees, thornbushes, brambles is the source of a product.
Good fruit, bad fruit, thorns, berries or bramble.
The tree in other words determines its fruits.
Fruit is not a work, but a product that corresponds to the nature of the tree.
We live out what we believe.
We will produce what is going on inside of us.
This is what Jesus is getting at.
Soloman says to guard your heart it is the source of life- and Jesus is saying look who you are will determine your fruit.
What is your heart- your life right now?
What product is coming out of your tree?
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him.
And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
The product that comes from this will be bad fruit.
Illustrate
Trucks, cars, motorcycles: they are all great.
We all know the basic fact that they take gas to run.
I’m sure you will be shocked to know that I’m not a millionaire, and so I always put the cheap gas in my car.
But I’m not sure that really saves me money, because they say that the better gas you use, the better your car runs.
If you put bad gas in, your car won’t work well.
If you put good gas in your car, you get better performance, longer life.
Apply
The idea here is that it’s what’s inside the tree that counts.
What the tree stores up, what it puts inside itself, is what it uses to make fruit.
If the tree takes nothing but the bad stuff in, it’s not going to produce great fruit.
The opposite is true, if you put good stuff in, you are going to produce good fruit.
A basic fact of life that we typically ignore is that it really matters what we watch and listen to.
It really matters what we put in our mind and hearts.
We don’t like to admit this; we deny it until we die.
We watch bad movies, listen to bad music, and we say, “It doesn’t affect me, I’m fine.”
We deny this basic truth of life all the time.
But whether we deny it or not, what we put in our minds and hearts matters because it is what comes out in our lives.
Lets see what Jesus says next
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
Point #3: What you say comes from what you store up
Point #3: What you say comes from what you store up
Explain
What’s true with trees is true for us.
What comes out in our lives comes directly from what’s stored in our hearts.
Jesus says the good man brings good things from the good stored in his heart.
The evil man brings evil things from the evil stored in his heart.
The second half of verse 45 says out of the overflow of a person’s heart, is what their mouth speaks.
The idea here is like a cup: what you pour in is what will flow out.
You can’t expect to put motor oil in the cup and think you’re going to get Pumpkin Spice latté when you drink from it.
Although, I think that would be a good trade.
Unfortunately, that’s how many of us live.
We continually put junk in our brains and think we are going to get good stuff to come out.
It doesn’t make any sense.
Illustrate
Your heart is like a vault; what you put inside goes in there and it stays.
Everything you see, everything you hear, watch, read, and observe goes inside our vault and it gets stored there.
It stores what you put in it.
Then, when you are faced with a decision or something happens in a relationship, or a friend issue, or you’re put in a hard spot on the sports field, you reach inside your vault and grab something to use.
What you put in is what you end up using for life.
Look at this heart— we are going to call this our heart.
and we are going to put some stuff in our heart.
Lets take it from 7am
You wake up to the new Cardi B Song that is all about sex, and getting paid.
We will call that not useful.
You help your little sis get ready for school because you are being kind- hey that is good.
you forgot about a huge test today, said a word that was not oh fun!
lets put that one in the bad side.
You read all the drama that happened on snapchat, instagram, FB, Tick Tock,— 6 bad
You read an article that is about 14 ways to make her want you— bad
just walking in the hallways you here bad lanuage
Bad in
you consume product after product that you have to find your phone when your mom walks in.
bad bad bad
You see everyday we have choices about what we put in our heart, we have some that we can’t help, but in the end we consume a lot of junk to be frank
So, the next time you are in a class and have the opportunity to cheat, what will you do?”
Then, reach inside and pull out one of the color balls.
Chances are you will grab a bad color because you put more in.
It’s ok if you get a good color, we all do good sometimes, just move on to another situation where they have to make a choice.
Apply
If you put in lies you get out a life of deceit.
If you put in sexually explicit videos on YouTube or movies (porn); you will get out a deformed view of relationships and sex that will mess you up.
If you put in degrading music, then you will start to see and treat people that way.
If you put in false ideas, you will get false actions.
Evil goes in, evil comes out. We can deny it all we want, but that’s the truth.
Like a tree, like a cup, like a well - what you put inside of your heart is what will come out in our life.
You can’t expect to put junk in and get beauty out. Bad in, bad out - good in, good out.
Think about these things?
Why?
Not because God is some cosmic killjoy trying to keep you from everything fun.
He wants to protect you.
He knows what bad stuff can do to your mind and life and he wants to keep you from it.
We need to be constantly watching and filtering things that we put in our head because it truly makes a difference.
When stuff gets in our minds and hearts, it starts to change how we think and it will eventually change how we act.
I know what you’re thinking.
I can read some of your minds.
You’re thinking in your head right now, whatever, that’s not me.
I can watch that stuff and I’m fine, it doesn’t affect me.
Those horror movies I watch – doesn’t affect me.
That junk I watch on YouTube – doesn’t affect me.
Maybe you tuned me out already cause you think, maybe everyone else, but not me, I’m ok with it.
I can put motor oil in a cup and get pumpkin spice out.
But you can’t – it’s physically impossible – it’s a fact of life.
What you put in your heart changes you.
But, here’s the tricky part, here is why we think it doesn’t affect us.
It’s because it doesn’t do it all at once.
It’s like an eroding river, it just changes things a little bit at a time, but after a while, you’ve got the Grand Canyon.
[KEY POINT]
That’s the scary thing about this principle in life.
It’s really hard to see that it’s affecting you.
It’s a tough one because you can’t really tell it’s happening to you.
Once the junk gets inside your heart and changes you, that is your new reality.
You don’t know any different.
You don’t know how you were supposed to be.
The things you watch/listen to, the things you put in your heart have a very slow but very significant effect on the way you think, then the way you act, that effects your whole life.
Especially how you relate to and serve God.
That’s why it is so important to guard your heart, because what you allow inside,
1) Affects your life and the choices you make.
2) But most importantly it affects your relationship with God and your ability to live for Him.
Maybe this week you need to take a serious look at what you consume daily.
Maybe there are some apps you need to delete because lets just honest they are worthless, and unfit for producing good.
I cannot tell you what to do, all I can do is share with you my heart and what I believe Jesus is telling from this passage in Luke.
If you have questions about things that you are consuming and if they are helpful or not talk to your leaders or myself.
lets pray
Conclusion