Guard Your Heart

Imagine you’re out for a hike on a beautiful spring day and you come to a creek. But there’s something wrong with this picture. You notice that someone has dumped trash into the stream—an ugly sight. Judging by some of the empty soda cans, the trash has been there awhile. And there is an ugly film on top of the water. You can’t just leave the scene as you found it, because it would bother your conscience. So you stoop down and begin gathering the trash.It actually takes several hours before you can begin to see a difference; it’s amazing how much junk is there. You sit back, rest for a moment, and realize you’ll have to keep returning each day until the site is truly clean. But when you come back the next day, it’s as if your work has been undone.In fact there’s more trash than before. Somehow the garbage bred overnight. You think about the unlikelihood of someone coming to this very spot to dump their garbage in the few hours while you were away, and you realize that something smells fishy—so to speak. So you begin to follow the creek upstream.Sure enough, you come to a garbage dump that has been there for years. It’s emptying into the passing creek. Your cleaning job only opened up a gap for more stuff to settle. You could go and clean every day.… If you want your creek to be clean, that means going directly to the source and dealing with what’s there.

Possible Preaching Angles: According to the Bible, your heart is the source from which your life flows. Unfortunately, we spend great amounts of time, money, and energy—even in the church—doing trash removal “downstream.” But real transformation begins when we travel upstream to the source of our heart. Our real battles take place in our heart.

You Have to Protect Your Heart

1. A TRUE HEART—DRAWS NEAR TO GOD

Hebrews 10:22 “let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

2. AN EVIL HEART—DEPARTS FROM GOD

Hebrews 3:12 “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.”

TEXT: “If ye do return unto Jehovah with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods … and direct your hearts unto Jehovah, and serve him only” (1 Sam. 7:3 ASV).

I. What the heart is.

A. The source of evil thoughts: “And Jehovah saw … that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5 ASV).

B. The source of deceit and corruption: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt” (Jer. 17:9 ASV).

C. The source of all evil: “Out of the heart come forth evil thoughts …” (Matt. 15:19 ASV).

II. What the heart should do.

A. Love God (Matt. 22:37).

B. Trust God (Prov. 3:5).

C. Seek God (Jer. 29:13).

D. Serve God (Deut. 11:13).

CONCLUSION: God says, “Son, give me your heart!” I reply, “Father, I give you my heart. ‘Create in me a clean heart’ ” (Ps. 51:10). “With the heart we believe (Rom. 10:10 ASV).