Your Heart Matters

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

When you are traveling down the path of your life, there will be times that you have to STOP and re-evaluate the path that you are going down.

There are two questions that I want to answer for you today.

Question #1 - Why Do We Find Ourselves on the Wrong Path?

When we are traveling down the path of life, there are going to be times that you need to stop. Today’s sign is a Stop sign. This sign is a big red sign that tells you to stop and do not go any further until the path is clear. What happens if you run that stop sign? There is a chance that you could get in an accident.

My grandfather would run a stop sign and he would tell me. I’ll just stop twice next time. In life, there might not be a next time if we continue down the path that we are going on.

So, why do we find ourselves on the wrong path?

How many of you like to be happy?

I believe that all of us here like to be happy. We like to laugh and smile. We want what we want. Sometimes we don’t care the people that we have to hurt in order to get what we want. Because we want to be happy.

Our heart is on a happiness quest, not a truth quest. Sometimes the truth will not make you happy.

Our heart chooses the happy-now rather than the happy-later path. We want instant gratification. People go to the casino because they think it will give them an instant win and it will solve all their problems. People try diets that will make them lose weight fast because they think it will make them beautiful today. People try quick education schemes because they want the degree now.

We live in a get it now society. But if it sounds too good to be true, then guess what? It probably is too good to be true.

Our heart wants the Happy-now rather than the happy-later path, but the truth is God may want you to go a different way. And God’s way is always better. That is why we find ourselves on the wrong path.

That is when we have to stop and reevaluate the path we are on.

We began this series talking about how each of us are on a path. The direction that we are headed will determine our destination. And sometimes on that journey we will find ourselves on the wrong path and we will need to make a course correction or a detour if you will.

Today, I’m telling you that the heart wants what the heart wants. Your heart matters. So, there will be times that you will have to stop and reevaluate the path you are on.

That brings me to my second question.

How Do I Get on the Straight Path?

Go with me in your Bibles to the book of Proverbs. I want to read several verses from chapter 3. Many of you have probably memorized the first two verses that we are going to read, verses 5 and 6. But my text this morning is through verse 12.

Proverbs 3:5–6 NIV

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

There is your answer to my second question, but we will get back to that in a moment. Let’s continue. Verse 7

Proverbs 3:7–12 NIV

7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. 8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. 9 Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; 10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. 11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, 12 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.

So, how do I get on the straight path? Look at verses 5 and 6 again.

Proverbs 3:5–6 NIV

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

So, an easy answer to that question is...

1. Trust 2. Lean Not 3. Submit

Look at what Solomon says here...

Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart. He didn’t say some of your heart. The challenge is to not lean on what your heart says is right, not on what your heart wants to do, not on your understanding.

How many times have you said to someone, “Just go with what your heart is telling you”? Or “Follow your heart.” All of us have said that.

Jeremiah 17:9 NIV

9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Do you know what Jeremiah meant by that? He meant sometimes our hearts lie to us. Almost every time we want to do something that feels good short term that we intuitively know is not good for us long term, our hearts come up with reasons to do the thing we want to do rather than the thing that’s best for us over the longer term.

So, what Solomon is saying to us is, when you find yourself at a fork in the road, don’t trust your heart—trust God. Don’t lean on your own understanding, lean on God. Don’t submit to your motivations, your intentions, your ambitions, submit to God’s. If you do this, he will make your paths straight.

Have you ever submitted to God in all your ways? Think of it this way. When you asked God to come and save you. It was like you invited him to come into your living room.

Many of us have invited someone to come into our living room. Right. That takes us about two seconds to clean up. We stuff all the stuff into places that we didn’t know that stuff would fit in until we started stuffing it there. It’s easy to invite someone into our living room, but the bedroom is another thing. That is our secret place. That is the place that will take a little extra cleaning to do.

We don’t want anyone to come in there not until we can give it a better cleaning job. Growing up my mom always had the living room that was always clean. The only time that Greta and I were allowed to go in there was to do homework or if we had a slumber party. But 95% of the time that room was full of furniture that we never used it was clean so that if someone came to the front door they couldn’t see how we really lived.

We will let God in the living room of our life but it’s hard to let him into the secret places like the bedrooms or even the closets. But if we follow these verses, we surrender everything to God. We no longer want control of our life. We want God to have full control.

Verses 5 and 6 tells us how to get on the straight path. The rest of our text, verses 7 - 12 gives us three action steps to take to continue down the straight path.

So, you are headed down the path and you decide to stop to reevaluate the path that you are on. You know how to keep the path straight because you have heard it all your life. So, now here are 3 action steps that you need to take

Action Step #1 - Don’t Be Wise in Your Own Eyes.

Proverbs 3:7–8 NIV

7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. 8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.

Is there anyone here today that is an expert at something?

Don’t ever think, “I don’t need to consult God on this one, after all, I’m an expert at it. I’ve taken classes in it. I’ve taught others about it. I’ve done this type of thing a thousand times before.” Every decision, every fork in the road is a new fork. Wherever you are today, you’ve never been there before. So resist the temptation to think you know it all. That’s when you get into trouble. Consult God in all your ways, with all your forks in the road.

Action Step #2 - Honor God’s Provision for You

Proverbs 3:9–10 NIV

9 Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; 10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.

God owns everything. Everything that this world has to offer is God’s. Is that clear?

If you want God to direct your paths, first, let him direct your wallet. For most of us, our wallets are somehow connected to our hearts, aren’t they?

Think of it this way. You can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.

Before Kelly and I had kids, we would scrap together everything we had and we would buy each other an expensive gift for Christmas. When we had kids, our priorities changed. We don’t buy each presents, but we spend what we can on our kids. Our priorities have changed now. We have other people that we love and we want to give them all that we can. We sacrifice what we want to give them what they want.

You can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.

There is something that happens when you give. Look at Matthew 6:21

Matthew 6:21 NIV

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

This seems backwards. If you love, you’ll give. But God knows that if you give, you’ll love. So he says, “If you want my direction for your life, if you want me to guide you, honor me with the firstfruits of all your crops—the first of everything you earn for whatever kind of work you do.” Then I’ll be able to fill your barns to overflowing.

I have said this before. If you aren’t tithing, try it. If it doesn’t work then I will issue you a money back guarantee. Try tithing for three months and if God doesn’t bless you, then I will give you back what you gave for those three months.

Solomon says, “If you’re going to submit to God in all your ways, one of them is your financial ways.”

Action Step #3 - Don’t Blame God for Your Pain

Proverbs 3:11–12 NIV

11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, 12 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.

Sometimes you caused what is happening to you. And sometimes God knows you need some correction, which he provides like every loving father does.

I’ve heard people say, “Why did God let this happen to me?” Usually, they are in too much pain to hear the truth at that moment. But the truth is, in most cases, God didn’t let that happen to them. God didn’t want that to happen to them. God tried to prevent it from happening to them. He tried to stop it, but he couldn’t stop them.

Have you ever had to discipline your child because they did something wrong. You didn’t like doing it but it needed to be done. God disciplines us to get us back on the right path.

Here are your next steps for this week:

Be sure to come back next week. We are going to look at choosing your path at an even deeper level.

Keep reading the book of Proverbs.

Make plans to be with us on Wednesday nights.

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