The Heart is Key

The Heart is Key

Psalms 57:1-11

Psalm 57:7 AV

My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.

The heart is an organ that weighs about ten to twelve ounces, it weights about one third of 1% of your body’s weight.

Yet it pumps through itself forty-five pounds of blood per minute, 2700 pounds per hour, and 32.4 tons per day. It is a muscle that never rests except between beats.

Every thirty seconds, all the blood in the body passes through the heart. It has a grip greater than that of one's fist. The two ventricles of the heart hold an average of ten ounces of blood, which is pumped out at each beat.

What a miracle is this little organ. It does about one-fifth of the mechanical work of the body and exerts enough energy each hour to lift its own weight 13,000 feet into the air.

To send the blood as far away as one's two feet, the heart must overcome a resistance of 12,600 pounds.

Encyclopedia of 15,000 Illustrations: Signs of the Times.

It is the greatest muscle of the body, but it is much more than that.

The heart is where we are impacted the most spiritually. THE HEART INDEED IS KEY TO EVERYTHING. The heart is the difference between life and death, the heart is the difference between heaven and hell.

That is why I’m preaching a sermon entitled “The Heart is Key.”

The heart and its attitude and its willingness to work on our behalf in the right way is the difference for everything. is unlike anything else in the body.

While the mind and and thought are mentioned 275 times combined in the Bible the heart is mentioned 954 times.

The heart is used in Scripture as the most comprehensive term for who you are as a person before God. It is the part of our being where we desire, deliberate, and decide. It has been described as “the place of conscious and spiritual activity,” “the comprehensive term for a person as a whole; his feelings, desires, passions, thought, understanding and will,” and “the center of a person. The place to which God turns and He appeals to.”

J. Stowell, Fan The Flame, Moody, 1986, p. 13.God places much importance upon the heart.

Proverbs 18:12 AV

Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility.

Matthew 6:21 AV

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

But God calls out to us for us to give him our hearts.

Proverbs 23:26 AV

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.

I can guarantee you this, your heart belongs to someone. All of our hearts do.

Look at what a man treasures and I will show you where his heart; were his allegiance is.

Psalm 57:1 AV

Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.

Where is our heart, what is it trusting in – to whom does it belong. Too often our heart first reaction is to turn to somethin else rather than God. We must make and effort to give it to God. We must make a conscious decision to put things in our lives to help us to do this.

In this chapter we see the type of heart that keeps God as it it focus - we will see things that show that it is evident that God is the focus.

Notice again v.1 of Psalm 57

I. A Heart that looks to God for its Comfort

Look at the second part of the verse "in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast."

David knew where to go to in times of trouble.

Psalm 17:8 AV

Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,

While he is hiding in the shelter of the wings of the Lord he is crying out,

"Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me" He is crying out Mercy, Mercy!

Note that he cries this out twice. He needed it bad!

David knows that this storm of life is temporal; he says " until these calamities be overpast".

Your storm that you are going through right now is just temporal.

He compares his struggles, to a passing storm that comes and goes, while he is resting safe in Christ.

Psalm 31:20 AV

Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

Psalm 32:7 AV

Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.

The heart’s attitude is key here - keep it looking to Christ for comfort. Whatever it is you find comfort in is of no comparison to the comfort that is found in the Lord.

v.2 I will cry unto God most high”

II. A Heart that cries out to God

You can tell what you depend on when trouble comes into your lives.

Sometimes it is self that we depend on. We go to our own intellect, our wisdom or ingenuity.

Others go to friends, many go to the internet - and still more to entertainment or to the drink or drugs.

I’ve been known to lurk around a half gallon of ice-cream.

But a Believer whose heart close to God’s heart will cry out to God.

Notice that David said "I will cry"

He knows that when he sends his prayers up to Heaven that God will send him help down from Heaven.

Psalm 102:1–2 AV

Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.

This Psalm is a blessing to me because he asked God to answer him "speedily" - he expected God to answer him quickly.

He was is dire need of help in verse one. As we said that he seeks God to send mercy to him twice.

Aren't you glad that God hears us when we call?

Aren't you glad that we have someone to call out too?

Could you picture your life with no one to call out too?

David said "God that performeth all things for me".

He knew where his help was coming from. He knew he needed to cry to God to depend on God. Do we know that?

Notice the next verse:

Psalm 57:3 AV

He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.

III. A Heart that trusts God for His Help

Notice that David says "save me" in verse 3. Save me with what?

From him that would swallow up.

David asked for God to send His mercy and his truth

It is through mercy and truth that the Lord’s work is accomplished.

Proverbs 16:6 AV

By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.

Psalm 118:5–6 AV

I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place. The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?

David is saying I do not need a doctor, nurse, saints, angels, or anything else but the "mercy and truth" of the Lord.

The Lord knows exactly what we need, and sends exactly what we need.

The Heart is Key to keeping our anxiety low, our faith high, and positive outlook in this dark world, but if our heart be far from God, anxiety high, and faith low, there is a real problem, I will not have a positive outlook no matter how hard I try.

You can’t fake a heart that trusts God, you either do or you don’t, but you can ask God to help

IV. A Heart that is awakened to its purpose

The human heart bends toward what the eye sees. Today’s image makers fling into the world digital spectacles of sex, wealth, power, and popularity. Those images get inside us, shape us, and form our lives in ways that compete with God’s design for our focus and worship.

Taken from Competing Spectacles by Tony Reinke, © 2019, p.118. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.

We combat this by saying no to the constant barrage of messages of the world; and look to fill our lives with God and His purposes for our lives.

In these final verses in vv. 7-11 we see the Psalmist asking God to help his heart to awaken to honor and praise God; to wake him up to sing and declare the glories of God.

How often we fail God in this area, how often our souls never truly awaken at all to honor and praise God. How few times we start the day honoring Him; instead we are so often down, even depressed usually already licked and then we never do anything in order to awaken the our heart and soul again.

God called us to sing His praises among the nations.

How can this be done with out having our heart renewed and awakened again to God’s mercy and grace.

This is why our devotional life is so important - to walk with God on a daily basis early and then meditate upon the things that we have learned.

Once we are awake we ought to then honor and praise God; not in pride or rebellion or in anyone’s face – but simply seeking to bring honor to our God.

It is related that once when Queen Victoria was in the Highlands, she stopped at the cottage of a poor woman, sitting for a few minutes in an old armchair. When the party was leaving, one of the number told the old woman who her visitor was. She was awed by the thought of the honor which had been hers, and taking up the old chair, she carried it into the spare room, saying, "No one shall ever sit in that chair again, because my queen sat in it." How much more sacredly should we keep from other occupancy the place in our heart where Christ has been received as Guest! How is it, just now, in your heart? Is there any need for Christ to come with His whip of cords to drive out the traders, the sellers of cattle and doves, and the moneychangers?

—J. R. Miller Bible Illustrations - Bible Illustrations – Heartwarming Bible Illustrations.

Ultimately, he was saying his heart was fixed on God.

That means that is where it was staying. One would have thought that with all the trouble David faced, that he would have said, "My heart is fluttered;" but no, he is calm, firm, happy, resolute, established.

When the central axle is secure, the whole wheel is right. If our great anchor holds, the ship cannot move, if we are in the Lord we are in the perfect spot.

The Heart is the key to everything in our Christian life. Give God your heart today. He loves you, He sent His son to die for you. When you give your heart we are saying that you are placing your faith in Him and repenting of your sin.

Fix your heart on God, attach yourself to him, know him like no other.

The Heart is Key

Psalms 57:1-11