Guard the Heart

Grace doesn’t give us permission to keep living for ourselves. It frees us from the slavery of self so we can live for Christ. In this message from 2 Corinthians 5:15, with Romans 6:1–14, we explore why self-rule only promises freedom but delivers bondage, and why true freedom is found in joyful submission to the One who died and was raised for us. If you have ever confused autonomy with liberty, this sermon points you back to the better kingdom, the better Master, and the better way of life grace makes possible.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you under the path of your feet, and all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Guard the heart, guide the life. It's a pretty simple concept at its roots. We look at it and we can understand what it means, but how are we putting it into practice in our life? How are we allowing the Word of God to change us? How are we allowing our heart to be more entrenched in His plan and in His ways? That becomes our question this morning. As we read this morning, as Connor just read for us, some of those things that kind of put us in that direction. The preceding verses, the main text for our sermon this morning from Proverbs 4 and verse 23, it says, Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. I want you to think about what that means in your life and think about those words. It's one of those verses that is simple enough for a child to memorize, but it's deep enough for us to spend a lifetime learning how to put it into practice. A lifetime of obedience, a lifetime of knowing Him and living in Him and setting our heart on the things of His. The command is clear. Keep your heart. That means guide it, to watch over it, to protect your heart. And the reason is just as clear for from it flow springs of life. And again, the concept's easy to understand. What starts upstream will eventually come down. And if we look at the order of how this works in our lives, it starts with your heart. And how you live, the decisions you make, what people can see is typically a result of where your heart is and where its focus is. Your life has a source. The words you speak have a source. Think about it, the way you react in certain situations, when you're flustered, when you're upset, the way you respond has a source. Your habits have a source, what you do every day on a regular basis. There's a source to it. Your choices, your direction, all of these things come from an overflow of your heart. The Proverbs says that is the source. But the truth is we live in a world that is obsessed with what is visible. What your appearance looks like, your performance. How are you marking off the checklist at your job in your life? Are you proceeding to the next mark of success that the world has set out for us? The world's obsessed with our presentation, with our reputation. Guard it, the world tells us. It's all about what people can see. So we've almost become too good at polishing the exterior. And again, it's a classic example, but it's one of those that we live in every day. Someone comes up to us and says, Hey, how you doing? How do you respond? I'm doing great, doing well. We have these responses clicked into our head and we know what we're gonna say before the question even comes out. Because we've learned to polish the exterior, we've learned to put on a good face, we've learned how to check all the boxes and walk through life. We're almost too good at managing the perception of ourselves to look steady even when we're not. To try to make it look like we're walking in the right path when the reality is we're falling apart inside. But God's not impressed with your image management. We go back to our text from where we started this morning. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. If we go to our case study, we see this young man, David, out tending shepherds in a field. He wasn't very impressive to look at at the time compared to his brothers. But it says he's the one that was chosen because there was something working inside of him. There was something going on in his heart that was different. We'll explore more as we go through about what that means and what that looks like. But the truth is, man looks at the surface. That's just who we are. That's what we can see. But God looks at the source. That means the greatest issue in your life may not be what others can see in you, it may be what God sees in you. So here's the truth that we need to know and understand today. Our stature begins in the heart before it shows in our lives. Or to put it this way, what rules your life will shape life. What rules your heart will shape your life. So what is impacting your heart? What are you allowing in? What is it that's forming what you love and what you care about? Is it focused where it needs to be focused? Do you love what you ought to love? A few years ago in Flint, Michigan, you may remember, it reminded the country of a basic truth. When the source is compromised, the damage moves downstream. Families were not merely dealing with isolated faucet problems when the water came out in a way that was destroying them. Instead, it was an issue upstream. The source was wrong. Everything downstream flowed and reacted because of that. You have a plumbing problem at home. It's not just, hey, let me go change the faucet and everything's gonna be okay, unless that's where the problem originates. But you have to work your way through the pipes and figure out where the leak is. So it comes from the source and it flows downstream. And I think this is exactly the wisdom of Proverbs 4.23. You do not fix a poison stream by pretending the spring is fine. You do not fix a lie by only decorating behavior while ignoring the heart. You do not fix speech without dealing with the pride that is behind it. You don't fix compromise without dealing with the desire that's laced underneath. You do not fix your anxiety without dealing what you fear and dealing with what you trust. You do not fix bitterness without dealing with what the heart is trying to hold on to. So this morning we're gonna walk through the text, the short text, in three simple points. The first one is the heart is the source of life. If you used your outlines this morning, this is the first blank. But the heart is the source of life. Again, the Proverbs says, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. As we take a look at this image, I think it matters because a spring is a source, and what flows downstream begins upstream. If the source is healthy, the stream reflects it. If the source is polluted, the stream reflects that too. So the heart in Scripture is more than just our emotions. There's something deep-rooted inside of us that impacts everything we do. It's the inner control of a person, it's where desire lives, where our trust lives. The heart is where our worship lives, where our motives exist and take on meaning. It's where our decisions are formed before they're ever seen in public. So before you make a choice, it begins in the heart. Before you speak something you ought not have said, remember it started in the heart. Before you live out each habit that you participate in every day. Guess where it started? Within the heart. The heart is the hidden command center of our lives, and that's why Jesus said in Matthew 12, 34, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. It's an overflow that happens within us. He did not say the mouth speaks randomly, but he says it overflows. So words come from somewhere. The truth is they come from the heart. And it's not just true of words, it's true of our actions and our priorities, our reactions. So if I were to ask you what's most important to you at this moment, truth is we would probably have a good church answer to come. But how do we know what's most important? How do we know what your priorities are? And work our way through your life and what decisions you're making on a regular basis. And as we examine those things, your true priorities become clear. The truth is revealed when we look within. And the source of all that comes from the heart. I think when life squeezes us a little bit, what comes out often reveals what's inside. Anybody know what an SOS pad is? Those things that you use to scrape off the pots and pans. Whenever you're done, use them. I have a problem of letting the food sit on there for a couple days and have to go back and really use that SOS pad to get that pot or pan clean. One thing I learned about using an SOS pad, if you use it once and leave it in the uh leave it in the sink, probably don't want to come back to it if you left it in there for a while. Once I'm uh left it in there and and for a few days and I came back to clean another pot or pan, whatever it may have been, and I grabbed that SOS pad and I started cleaning it. And as I did, I noticed it's just getting dirtier as I'm working my way through. Now not only does it have the food on there, now rust is coming out of my SOS pad because I let it sit there. Because I let it rust on the inside, because that water was coming over it. And so it wasn't good the second time I tried to use it because of what had collected within it. But it begins with that nice clean detergent or whatever it may be that you're using to clean your dishes. When you go back to it, when it's been sitting for a while, it becomes unusable because of what is inside of it. Same's true with sponge. When you squeeze a sponge, what's gonna come out? Well, whatever you put in it. It's got water and soap, and you squeeze that sponge, it's a good thing. But if you fill it up with other things and begin to squeeze, what's gonna come out? Whatever you put in it in the first place. Same's true of our life. Life squeezes us often. Anyone being squeezed right now? The pressure, the storms that surround us, these things hurt us at times. And how do we respond in those situations? It's not whatever we decide in that moment, but it's what we've been building up. It's what we've been feeling, filling our lives up with. What's in the heart, what comes out when life begins to squeeze us. So it's not a response in the moment, but it's what is in the heart. Pressure does not create everything, but it certainly reveals everything. And this is one of those points that we've come back to many times this year as we worked our way through wisdom and now through stature and how we grow in the Lord. Because there's so much truth behind it. Pressure doesn't create anything, but it reveals to us what is filling the heart. That means anger is not only a moment problem, but it's a heart problem. But how often when we get angry, we try to blame it on something or somebody else. Can you believe what they did to me? They cut me off in traffic and I couldn't help but respond the way I did. They said something that just hurt my feelings, and I just, it wasn't my fault. That anger brewing up inside of us is coming from somewhere. It's not created in that moment, but it's what we've been filling our hearts with along the way. Lust is not just an impulse problem, it's a heart problem. Bitterness is not just a relationship problem. It's not something we just blame on everyone else, but it's what's filling our hearts. Fear is not only a circumstance problem, but it's a heart problem. It's deeper. There's something set beyond it, something underneath. Pride is not just a personality issue, but it's a heart problem. Something we must diagnose, something we must dive into. Why? Because the heart is the source of life. That's what our text tells us. So, how do we put this into practice? How do we maybe work on this in our lives? Maybe instead of asking something like, how do I stop doing this? Maybe we switch the question to, what in my heart is feeding this? Whether it's those daily habits, whether it's the poor choices, I keep finding myself in a situation that hurts. So instead of just saying, How did I get here? What is it within my heart that's fueling me to get here? So we address the root of the problem instead of just addressing the moment that we're in. Maybe instead of asking, why did I say that? We say, What is it that's been building up inside of me? What am I focused on? What am I filling my life with? Because out of the abundance of the heart, we speak. We don't ask, how did I end up here? But what source have I been living from? What am I plugged into? Because what fills your heart forms your life. Proverbs does not just say the heart matters, it gives a command, it goes beyond. It says, keep your heart with all vigilance. That means watch it carefully, guard it seriously, protect it with intention. Why? Because the heart is both precious and vulnerable. Something we have to pay attention to, something we have to watch over. It's precious because from it flow springs of life. Because there's always something competing to rule it. You have to watch out, you have to be careful. Something is always disciplining your heart. What you watch is disciplining your heart. He shows that mindless entertainment. What you listen to is disciplining your heart, is discipling. What you celebrate discipling your heart. What is it that's most important in your life? Those little wins. What is it you're celebrating? What you excuse discipling is teaching you something. We tend to excuse our own behavior or those that we love much more than that of others. What are you excusing in your own life right now that you need to adjust, that you need to address? What you rehearse in private is discipling your heart. What you love most is discipling your heart. Doesn't it make sense? What you care the most about affects your decision? That begins in the heart. So the question is not whether your heart is being shaped. The question is, what is it that you're allowing to shape your heart? You know, I think we understand what it means to guard something in pretty much every other aspect of our lives. You get a new car. Well, what do you do when you get out? You hit that lock button. You don't want somebody to get inside. We invest in locks and security systems for our home. Why? We don't want somebody getting inside and messing it up and stealing our stuff. We spend a lot of time and effort and money and protecting these important things to us. My guess is you've probably spent a lot of time protecting your children. Because you love them, you care about them. You spend a lot of money protecting them, starting when they're just born. Because it's something that is important to us. We guard our bank accounts carefully. I want to share my PIN number. Don't want anybody to see the account number. We spend money protecting our identities online, and we take careful steps in doing so for good reason. That's important. We guard our schedules when something matters. I'm gonna block this day off, and whatever happens, I gotta make sure I'm here, whatever it is. But we guard so many things in our lives because they're important to us. But how much time have you spent actually guarding your heart? How much time have you spent thinking about what that means? Putting it into practice. Many people do not guard the heart because they let everything in. They let anything in. They dwell on anything, they entertain anything, they excuse anything, they feed every appetite and wonder why their life is spiritually weak all of a sudden. But an unguarded heart does not stay neutral, it gets captured by something. We have to make some choices. We have to lean in to some truth. Because if we leave it unguarded, it will become occupied. It gets captured, captured by bitterness or pride, captured by lust or greed, captured by fear or vanity or even distraction. Even something as simple as distraction can pull our hearts away from where they're supposed to be. Back in 2003, a major blackout spread across large parts of the northeastern United States and into Canada. What many people experienced as sudden darkness was traced back to failures upstream. So there were small problems that were not addressed. Warning systems failed. Again, that's how the heart works. But yet we try to fix these behaviors, we try to fix these choices without addressing the main problem. Maybe it isn't about that decision. Maybe it's about what you're inputting. Maybe it's about what you're paying attention to or watching or listening to. A person says something destructive and we focus only on that one sentence. A person falls into sin and we focus only on the visible act of sin. A person drifts from fruitfulness and faithfulness and we focus on the final outcome, but scripture says, take it upstream. There's something behind that, there's something more important. What was it that was being fed? What was it that was being tolerated? What was it that was being ignored? What was quietly taking the throne? What was the root of the problem? That's why Proverbs says, keep your heart with all vigilance. Guarding the heart means taking the inner life seriously, filling it with the word instead of just noise, refusing to normalize hidden sin, to confessing quickly instead of hiding, to choosing influences wisely, to bringing thoughts captive, to dealing with resentment before it roots deeply, feeding worship instead of feeding the flesh. How often do we get all of those things backwards in our own? Lives. You cannot feed every envy and also expect gratitude. You cannot feed lust and expect holiness. You cannot feed fear and still expect to have peace in your life. And you cannot feed pride and expect gentleness. Before I moved to the shoals area back, I lived in Huntsville and had a little dog. When I came over here, the dog wasn't able to come with me. Instead, it moved in with my parents. His name's Ty. And if you look at him today, he'll be 10 years old next week. Nice little plump dog. And he's uh carrying a few extra pounds with him nowadays because he's fed well at my parents' house. When he lived with me, he got his science diet, and that was it. We fed him that dry food. Maybe he would get a bone every once in a while or a treat. But when he moved in with my parents, my mama took care of him like she takes care of all of her babies. Filling them up, give them all they want. The tie was well taken care of, and guess who he likes now? He likes my parents a lot better than he likes me. Because he gets what he wants, he's filled up. So as a result, there's a striking difference in the way he looks, what he looks like now. And guess what? He's a happy puppy, not a puppy anymore, 10 years old. He's a happy dog because he's well taken care of. He's filled up. But it goes back to what he's been fed, right? It goes back to what's being given to him. So what are you using to fill your own life? Because it's going to make an impact on the way you live. It's going to make an impact on the decisions you make. What is feeding you in this moment? You cannot feed yourself. Envy and expect gratitude. The heart must be guarded because an unguarded heart becomes an easy number three this morning: a guarded heart produces a guided life. And this is where it all comes back to. We notice what happens right after Proverbs 4:23, as we read this morning, verses 24 through 27. Put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. You see the order? Do you see how that plays out? First it's the heart, then the mouth, then the eyes, then the feet, and then the path. There's a reason behind that order. It's not accidental. The heart guides the whole life. An unguarded heart changes speech. A guarded heart changes focus. A guarded heart changes the way we step and each move we make. A guarded heart changes our direction ultimately. This sermon is not saying the outside does not matter. That's not the point. But it's saying the opposite. The outside matters so much that you have to start with the inside. Want to make a change, it doesn't happen externally, but yet how often do we try to use the external to change what's inside? If it's got a bad engine, it's gonna do much good, is it? Pretty. Got a good paint job. But if it won't crank up, what's the point? Yeah, how often do we focus on what's on the outside? Putting on the right face, checking off all the boxes. But God's calling for more from us. God cares about your words, He cares about your purity, He cares about your integrity. God cares about the decisions you make, He cares about your path, but He does not want a polished life hiding an unguarded heart. See it. It's about what's inside. That's why 1 Samuel 16, 7 matters so much. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. When Samuel looked at Jesse's sons, he saw what everybody else would: appearance, height, stature. He saw some impressive dudes standing there. But God was looking deeper. David was not chosen because he looked like the obvious king, but God saw beyond. God saw the heart. That means spiritual stature is not image, it's not polish. It's not sounding right in public. It's outward oppressiveness. You know, there's this interesting thing we see when we begin to study more about these kings. And we look at Saul, the first king chosen to rule over God's people. You know where they found him? He wasn't out in a field taking care of sheep. Do you know what the trade of his family was? He took care of donkeys. He was a donkey herder. So that was his job, to take care of the donkeys. And you know there's something behind that because he's basically herding them and pointing them in the right direction. But what Israel needed, what God's people needed in that moment, was a shepherd. They didn't need a donkey herder. They needed someone to guide them, to be gentle with them, to direct them. They wanted someone with the right heart. And that was the difference between a donkey herder and a shepherd, a caring shepherd, the one that laid his life on the line for his sheep. David did it over and over again. And God could see within his heart there was something special. Godly living is the overflow of a God-ruled heart. So if you want your priorities to change, start with the heart. If you want your marriage to change, start with the heart. If you want your faithfulness to change, start with the heart. Do you see the pattern here? It begins inside. I'll end with this. Some of us are frustrated by what keeps coming out of our lives. We're frustrated by where we end up. We're frustrated by the words we say. We're frustrated by the results of the choices that we make. We're tired of the sharp words of the recurring temptation. We're tired of the anxiety and the inconsistency. We're tired of the drift that seems to happen in our lives. Or maybe it's the hidden sin. We're tired of just trying to look better without actually being better. Proverbs tells us where to begin. Not with the image, not with the performance, not with what others can see, but it begins with the heart. So not only ask, how do I look, but what is it that's ruling inside of me? It's not what came out of me, but it's what's been filling me. It's not how do I manage this behavior? How do I surrender to the source? I want to go back to where we started this morning with. We look at David's life, and if you just simply look at the choices he made, you may not be inclined to think that he had a very good heart. Because the truth is, David made some horrendous decisions at times. So what is it about him that was so special? What is it about him that made us, that made him such a great king? I think when you examine his heart, it comes back to how it was surrendered to God. More so than just the everyday decisions. But what happens when we get off track? Because I think every one of us can examine our lives and look back just as we look at David and say, man, I made some horrendous decisions. Anybody with me? Can you look back at your life and say, man, I made some very poor choices? And hopefully, I hope we all live with some regret. Because it's in that regret that points us to the grace of God. It's that regret that reminds us of how good Jesus is, of how he came to save us despite our flaws. Because on our own, we can't make it, because on our own we're damaged. We're unrighteous. We have no standing before him. So we need someone to rescue us. But it's in that hurt and that pain and in that regret that the heart is realized. It's in those moments we understand what the source truly looks like. When you examine your life, how are we responding to that sin? What are we doing? Do we recognize who we are and come to Jesus? Because we know it's only through him that we find righteousness. It's only through him that we find life and peace and hope. Is your trust in him? How are you responding? Because we're all sinners, because we've all fallen short. We've all made some really poor decisions. So where do we go from there? I want to close by reading for you, and I don't have a slide for you. I just want you to open your Bibles if you have it and mark this text. Uh highlight this one, come back to it this week. When David found himself immersed in sin, he was called out, making some really bad decisions, letting his lust win the day, and then he ends up killing Uriah. In this moment, he comes to Psalm 51 and he pours out his heart to the Lord. And us as Christians, when we recognize who we are, we should come back to this, standing before him, pouring out our heart to him. I want to read this together with you this morning. Psalm 51. He says to the choir, Master, a psalm of David, when he was confronted by Nathan the says, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. He says, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you. You only have I sinned and done what is evil in the sight, in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. He says in verse eight, let me hear the joy and gladness, let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. And in verse 10, you might want to highlight this one Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. He says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach your transgressors your way, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from my blood guiltlessness, my blood guiltiness. O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise, for you will not delight in sacrifice, for I would give it. You will not be pleased with the burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, you will not despise. Do good, O Zion, in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then will you delight in the right sacrifices and burnt offerings and the whole burnt offerings when bulls will be offered on your altar. Create in me a clean heart, O God. And this is why David was called a man after God's own heart. Because when he found himself in these situations where he fell short, where he was broken, where he made horrendous decisions, he fell on his face before the Lord. Because he knew the source. He said, Create in me a clean heart, O God. And that's my prayer this morning for myself and for each of you. Create in each of us a clean heart, and there's only one way to get there. It's through the blood of Jesus Christ, who died on that cross, to take your sins with him. So we invite you now into his fold to be baptized for remission of your sins, to be raised up to walk a new life. If you've never made that decision, we implore you to do that this morning, to create in you a clean heart. You need to make that choice, or if you just need the prayers of the congregation, you need to turn your life back to him. If you just need to repent this morning, we invite you to come. If there's anything we can help you with, come forward as together.