Wisdom for Our Hearts | Proverbs 4:20–27

Connect with us!
https://www.lifebaptistchurch.com/connect

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, welcome to life. My name is Chris. I am the student director here. I get the privilege and honor of bringing God's word to you this morning, and I count it that. I count it a privilege and an honor. We're gonna continue in our series, Walking in Wisdom, as we journey through the book of Proverbs, as we glean wisdom from God, his word, and from the words of King Solomon. In the last couple of weeks, we've covered a different uh couple areas of wisdom. The first is being uh the beginning of wisdom, then wisdom for the home, wisdom for health and work, wisdom for our words, wisdom for our relationships. And this morning we're gonna be in Proverbs chapter 4, verses 20 through 27. So if you would turn with me there. Proverbs chapter 4, verse 20 through 27. And as we turn there, let's remember and approach it with reverence, remembering that this is God's holy word preserved for us as we humbly submit to it. Proverbs chapter 4, verse 20 through 27 says this, My son, be attentive to my words, incline your ear to my sayings, let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from fro for from it flow the springs of life. 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, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left, turn your foot away from evil. Amen and amen. If you notice, in in in verses twenty through twenty-two, Solomon, King Solomon, he's he's he's almost setting up this entire passage that we just read. And he's talking to his son, and he's telling him, be attentive. He's saying, Pay attention, incline your ear, let my sayings, let my words not escape you, but rather keep them within your heart. Parents, I don't know if you've ever done that before. I know I've never done this, where I've been, hey, listen up, listen to me. I'm like trying to get their attention, especially my young ones. I've got a four-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter, and I'm constantly saying, hey, listen up. I need you to focus, incline your ear, listen to what I'm saying. Another way of seeing this is the exact opposite, where they're constantly trying to get your attention, right? Daddy, daddy, daddy, listen to me, look at me, watch this. Like I've watched it a thousand times, Carson. Yes, I get it. Or Carson, or uh, my my little girl, Caden, she will constantly pull me down to her level. And she wants to whisper something in my ear. And in those moments, I am to incline my ear to her and say, I will give you my full attention to the words and the message you are about to say. And while that message is mostly moist air and saliva, uh nonetheless, I incline my ear and give her my full attention. And this is what King Solomon is calling for his son and for us this morning to do. Let us incline our ears. Let us pay attention to the words he is about to say. Because what he's going to do is he's going to drop some wisdom on us right now. In verse 22, he says that this wisdom, these words, are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. This is meaning the words bear importance. The words that I'm about to say, they are impactful. They will affect your life. They are life-giving. So don't miss them. That is King Solomon's plea to his son and to us this morning. And that is, that is the plea that I have for us is that we would not miss the words of wisdom that God, through King Solomon, has given us this morning. So this this morning, we should incline our ears to the words of wisdom that God has given, and that is going to, we're going to see this in verse 23. So let's look at verse 23 together. It says, Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. And the this picture that Solomon is painting of keeping your heart, of guarding your heart, is that of soldiers guarding a fortress. And their job isn't to react to the enemy after the enemy gets inside. No, it's to make sure that the enemy never gets in at all. They are to stand, watch day and night, alert and vigilant, because they know that a fortress isn't usually lost by one massive attack. It's usually lost when the enemy finds an unguarded gate. And so that's the image behind King Solomon's command: keep your heart with all vigilance. Don't allow the enemy even one single foothold. Because what gets into your heart will eventually shape your life. What gets into your heart will eventually shape your life. In fact, I love how the NIV states verse 23, and I'm going to be saying this a lot throughout the sermon, so you might get a little tired of it. This is what it this is what the NIV says. It says, above all else, guard your heart. Above all else, guard your heart. It's not saying, well, some other things can take top priority. No, above everything in your entire life, it is most important to guard your heart. See, every night before going to bed, many of us go through the same routine. We lock the doors, we close the garage, some of us may even set an alarm because we protect what matters. We protect our homes, we protect our finances, we protect our families, our health. Yet God in his word tells us that there's something even more valuable than all those things, and that is your heart. We are called to guard our heart. And that leads us to our big idea this morning. Walking in wisdom requires intentionally guarding your heart. Walking in wisdom requires intentionally guarding your heart. See, every day our hearts are being shaped by what we love, believe, and pursue. And Solomon reminds us that if we want to live wisely, we must intentionally guard the very source from which our thoughts, words, and actions flow. So we are called to guard our hearts. And we're not talking about the organ that's pumping blood through your body right now. This is when the scripture talks about the heart, we're talking about the center of who you are. Your thoughts, your desires, your affections, your will. Above all else, guard your heart. So if walking in wisdom requires guarding my heart, what does a guarded heart actually look like and how do I guard my heart? Those are the two questions that we're going to answer this morning. What does a guarded heart look like and how do I guard my heart? And in answering those two questions, I want us together to have kind of a moment of just checking our heart. Do some self-reflection and heart check and saying, is that a description of my heart? So incline your ear, listen to the words of wisdom from the Lord, and let's look to see what a guarded heart looks like. We'll lead in this way a guarded heart, number one, produces sanctified speech. A guarded heart produces sanctified speech. We see this in verse 24. It says, put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you. See, a heart that is affectionate towards God and is living in the will of God, a heart that is guarded for the Lord does not have crooked speech or devious talk, but rather is speaking kind, speaking encouraging, speaking truth and speaking in love, speaking godly things. See, the first place Solomon looks, it's not our hands, he doesn't address our feet, he addresses our mouth. And you might be asking why. And the answer is this is because our speech is the clearest indicator of what is happening in here. Our speech is the clearest indicator of what's happening in your heart. See, your words will reveal what rules your heart. Your words will reveal what rules your heart. So if you are gossiping, that's an indicator of where your heart is. If you're lying, if you're making crude jokes, the the list goes on and on. It reveals what rules our hearts. And Jesus confirms this in Matthew 12, 34. If you're joting down notes, we'd love for you to jot that down. Matthew 12, 34. It says, Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. This is when Jesus was addressing the Pharisees. He had just finished calling them a brood of vipers, and he's calling them out for their wickedness. He's calling out their wicked hearts, and he says, Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so I read that and I'm like, is that true? And then I'm like reflecting, and I'm like, well, sometimes when I drive and someone cuts me off and all of a sudden a bad word slips out. That reveals what's in my heart. Or maybe, maybe some of us can't stop speaking negatively about others. We're constantly gossiping or tearing others down. It's all sourced from the heart. That's an indicator of what rules your heart. Again, our words don't create our hearts, they reveal them. And in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 29, it says this let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such is good for building up. Above all else, guard your heart. Now the question is, how do I guard my heart in this aspect, in this area? How do I guard my heart in speech? Well, I'm gonna give uh for every point, I'm gonna give uh a three-step rule. We're gonna recognize, reject, and replace. We're gonna recognize, reject, and replace. So recognize, we're gonna pay attention. Pay attention to your speech. Don't just let it let it let it out unaccounted for. Watch your speech, pay attention. Pay attention to the recurring sinful speech, gossip, sarcasm, uh, sarcasm that is wound like wounding, complaining, constant criticism, lying, crude humor, angry outbursts. In fact, this is a telling question right here. If somebody were to read a transcript of the past week of all the things that you said, what would they say is the condition of your heart? And as I was writing that down, I was like, ouch. I would probably be very embarrassed by some of the things that slipped out of my mouth. Above all things, guard our hearts. Because here's the thing I'm not saying fix your speech, I'm saying address the heart. See, this is not this is not a speech problem, this is a heart problem. So that is the recognize, the second is reject. Before speaking, ask, is this true? Is what I'm about to say, is it true? Is it loving? And this is this is in in line with uh that Ephesians 4 passage. Is it building others up? Is it pointing others to Christ? Are my words doing these things? If not, just don't say it. What was it that our our moms always said? If you've got nothing nice to say, don't say it at all. In fact, I I will often tell the students, if you're unsure if you should do it, whether that's talking or in action, ask the following question: Does this glorify God? And if the answer is no, that's your answer. Don't do it. So I want to ask, is your speech or the speech of others that you surround yourself with, is that glorifying to God? I'm not telling you to answer that to your neighbor. Just self-reflect, just think about it. But we are to guard our hearts by refusing, refusing, rejecting to let sinful speech become acceptable. Because it's a slow drift. When we start to say, oh, that's okay. That's okay, I can say that. That's okay. No, no, no. We need to say, is this glorifying God? Is this building others up? Is this pointing people to Christ? If the answer is no, we need a heart check. Next step is replace. Instead, we speak words that encourage, forgive, build up, show gratitude, point people towards Christ. And allow every single conversation to become an opportunity to display the gospel. Could you imagine? God gave you an opportunity to share the gospel and you are cursing like a sailor, and you are saying all these crude and terrible things, how can that be an opportunity to share the gospel? We need to allow our speech to set us up to have an opportunity to display the gospel, point others to Christ. So, again, it's not just about our words, it's about our heart. So, above all else, guard your heart. And a guarded heart not uh doesn't only change our words, a guarded heart also captures, uh changes what captures our attention. And that's our second point. A guarded heart maintains a guided gaze. We see this in verse 25. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. See, Solomon moves from from our mouths to now our eyes to our gaze, and he's and he he wisely commands us to keep our eyes directly forward. He's saying, Don't be distracted to the to the things of the left or to the right, but keep your eyes straight before you, because often distractions can turn into disasters. I don't know about you, but whenever I am driving and I am either handing something to my kids in the back row, or I just turn to talk to my beautiful wife in the passenger seat, I notice that as I'm holding on to the steering wheel, as I look this way, all of a sudden I'm merging lanes and then I don't have my blinker on. It's the same idea here is that often wherever our eyes are, that is where we're headed. And so this is not just by accident that God has placed these words of wisdom and saying, keep your eyes fixed. Keep them straight ahead. Don't look to the left or to the right, look directly forward. And so we guard our hearts by guiding our eyes. And throughout scripture, the eyes are often often represent our focus, our desires, and our priorities. And so I don't want you to miss this. What we continually look at shapes what we love and ultimately shapes what we do. What our eyes are set on, whether that is physically looking or uh hypothetically looking, whatever that may be, whatever we continually look at shapes what we love and ultimately what we do. And that's why David in Psalm 101.3 writes this. See, David did not want to go in the direction of worthless things. So David was intentional about where his eyes and his attention went. See, today everyone wants to get your attention. Everything can be a distraction. News, TikTok, politics, sports, money, success, fear, notifications. I mean, when our phones go off instantly, what do we do? We grab it. I'm probably the most guilty here. That I have like the phantom buzz. You've ever had that? You're like, oh, my phone went off. And you're like, oh, actually that wasn't. Then all of a sudden, next thing you know, I'm on it. It's like it's it's bizarre, it's crazy. But again, where my eyes are, where our eyes are, is where our hearts will eventually follow. So the question is, what has my heart's attention? What are my eyes set before? Because over time, your attention becomes your affection, and your affection becomes your direction. And this is why Jesus said in Luke 9.62, jot this down. Luke 9.62. This is what he says. He says, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. No one who puts his hand on the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. This is this is uh this is when he's addressing everyone is saying, Jesus, I'll follow you, but first let me take care of all these things first. Jesus, I'll follow you under these conditions. And Jesus is saying, No. If you're gonna follow me, you can't look to the left, you can't look to the right, you can't look back, you look straight on. If you are to follow me, you look straight on, strictly on Christ. So, again, if your career, as an example, has your attention, it then becomes your affection, then your job rather than Christ becomes your direction. You live for your job. So, again, what are we you can put in the fill in the blank for with whatever that is. Maybe it's not your job, maybe it's your kids. These are all good things, by the way. These are good things to to pay attention to, but our our entire focus, our entire eyes cannot be set on temporary things. They should be set on Christ. Don't allow the world to distract you. Keep your gaze focused on Christ. So the question is how do I guard my heart in this area? Number one, recognize. Ask yourself, where do my eyes constantly go? Take some time, reflect. And if you need some more answers, I tell the students this all the time. I said, there's a there's a super convicting part of your phone that tells you how much screen time and what you're looking at. And it's embarrassing when you look at it, you're like, oh my gosh, I spent that many hours on Instagram today? That's crazy. So the question is, where do my eyes constantly go? What has most of my attention? What about this question? What occupies my thoughts when I have nothing else to think about? I was like, ouch. That one hurts. What occupies my thoughts when I have nothing? Because sometimes we can distract ourselves with good things with whatever it is, but when we're quiet, where does our mind go? That's an indicator of what our eyes are fixed on. That's an indicator of where our affection lies. So recognize those things. Second step, reject. Limit the things that constantly pull your heart away from Christ. Sometimes guarding your heart means unfollowing or deleting or turning whatever that thing is off or walking away. And then replace. Fill your eyes with better things. This is all practical stuff. This is all stuff that we know. This is not news. I know this. But as I was preparing, as I was doing all this, I'm like, this is such a good reminder. This is again, we we want to do a heart check. That's that's the whole point of this. Say, where is my heart in this? What does my heart look like in comparison to this? So fill our eyes with better things. Read scripture before social media, look people in the in their eyes, have conversations. They're God's creation. Witness to other people. Share the gospel. Pray. Serve others. Fix your gaze on Jesus. I love what Philippians 4.8 says. Some of you guys probably have this memorized. This is a great verse to memorize. Philippians 4.8 says this. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. This is Paul's way of saying, think about God. Think about God. Our minds should be fixed on Christ and godly things. See, we guard our hearts by intentionally directing our attention toward what honors God. In fact, Christ mentions in Matthew chapter 6, verse 22 through 23, that our eye, our eyes are the lamp for our body. And this is what that means. It means when we set our eyes on things that are godly and good, we are filling our hearts with things that are godly and good. But it also works the opposite way. If we are filling our eyes and setting our minds on things that are ungodly and things that are wicked, that's what we're filling our heart with. So Jesus is warning them, he's saying, listen, this is our our the eye is the lamp for the body. So the question is, where should I look? And we've I've already talked about this, but we should look to Christ. And Hebrews 12, 1 through 2 talks about this. It talks about how we are to run the race that is set out before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith. We are to live this life, not looking to the left or to the right or looking back. We look straightforward at Christ. Again, this is not just about our eyes. This is not a behavior modification. This is, we're checking our hearts. Again, what our hearts love is the things that we will look at. So let's do a heart check. Is your affection for Jesus? If so, your eyes will be set on him. If your heart, if your affection is for Jesus, your eyes will be set for him. So above all else, guard your heart. Above all else, guard your heart. A guarded heart, number three, lastly, we'll cover this. A guarded heart produces sanctified speech, it maintains a guided gaze, and number three, it pursues and ponders the path. Verses 26 through 27. This is what it says. Ponder the path of your feet. Then when, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. See, notice Solomon first tells us to ponder, and the Hebrew word here means to level or straighten and examine. And we'll come back to this word in a little bit. But we must understand that walking in wisdom doesn't just happen by accident. You can't just turn on autopilot and think you'll get to that destination. No, what we see from God's word and we see from King Solomon is that we must ponder and consider the path. So before we move our feet, we should evaluate, we should consider. And then verse 27 completes this picture by saying, once you've determined, once you've considered God's path for you, stay on it. Don't deviate from it. Don't drift from it. Don't compromise and don't wander. Think about if you've ever been hiking, if you go on like a mountain trail, every few couple hundred yards, there's like markers for the trail. And some of you guys are like, why is that? And the reason is so that people don't drift without realizing they've gone off the wrong path. Because it's easy. It's easy to drift onto something else, especially when you don't know exactly what's lying ahead. People just simply stop paying attention. So the markers are there, just indicators. This is where you need to go. Stay here. And the Christian life is much the same. We can often drift without realizing and slowly, slowly drift farther from the Lord. Whether that's neglected prayer, unchecked temptation, ignored conviction. Eventually we look up and we wonder, how did I get this far? I don't know if you've ever been to the ocean or to the beach, but I love going out into the water. We'll go, I'll go out deep. That's if it's not like 40 degrees. But if it's if it's nice, I'll go out there and I'll go as far as I can. I remember I was a teenager in the youth group uh not that long ago. But anyways, I was, I remember we went out there and we were out there for a while. And we were just swimming, we were playing, having a good time. Next thing you know, we look up. I look over at the beach, and I'm like, where is everybody? Slowly just started drifting away. Didn't even realize it. Listen, we we need to be careful. We need to make sure we guard our hearts that we don't drift, that we stay in alignment with God's will. Solomon says, ponder the path, and he says, Do not swerve. Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. I love what it says. It says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understandings in all your ways. Acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. You notice that Proverbs 3 and Proverbs 4 complement each other. It says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and guard your heart and walk his path. Another great one is 1 Corinthians 9, 24 through 27. This is where Paul is talking about, again, running the race, this Christian uh race. And in verse 26, he says, I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. So we as Christians in this Christian life don't live aimlessly. Rather, we ponder the path. We seek God, we keep from swerving left and right, and we turn from evil. So the question is, how do I guard my heart in this area? Well, first we pause before we proceed. The world will tell you, follow your heart. You know what you want. God says, examine the path. Ponder and consider it. So before making a decision, this is what it looks like to ponder and consider. Ask the question: does this align with Scripture? Have I prayed about this? Have I sought wise, godly counsel? And again, does this glorify God? A guarded heart doesn't react impulsively, it responds wisely. And then we reject. Second, is we reject all of these compromises. We reject the drifting. John MacArthur said this on the topic. He says, people don't suddenly fall into sin. He says they drift there by neglecting the disciplines that keep the heart close to God. It doesn't just happen in an instant. It's a slow drift. And it's when people neglect the disciplines that keep the heart close to God. And third, this is the practices that we're talking about, practice daily faithfulness. This is how we guard our heart from drifting, is we practice daily faithfulness. Because often, I don't know about you, but this is, I was uh convicted by this. Often I want like this dramatic spiritual victory. But in reality, God often just usually calls us to ordinary faithfulness. Reading your Bible, praying, gathering with God's people, confessing sin, forgiving others, serving others, repenting often, and choosing obedience today. And then tomorrow you do it again. See, Colossians 1, 9 through 10 is a prayer that Paul has for the church in Colossae. And let me just read this for you. It says, And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased praying for you, asking that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will and all his and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him. See that word, we're gonna come back, that word ponder that we discussed earlier. In the Hebrew is palas, and it means to level or straighten with the implications of tearing down or destroying. And so pondering is not just think hard on a specific thing. It's saying rather consider your path and be ready to tear down the obstacles that are in the way for you to walk in godliness. And this is that prayer from Paul. His prayer, as you saw in verse 9, he's saying, I pray that you would be filled with the wisdom and knowledge to know what needs to be removed, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Did you notice the progression of this proverb? A guarded heart produces sanctified speech, a guarded heart maintains a guided gaze, a guarded heart ponders the path. Speech, sight, steps. See, everything Solomon describes flows from one place, and that's the heart. So above all else, guard your heart. Um if we're being honest, this passage I hope is both encouraging and convicting. Because every single one of us has failed to guard our heart in one aspect or another. We've spoken words we wish that we could take back. We've looked at things that we know we should not have looked at. We've allowed our attention to drift from Christ and we've wandered. See, Proverbs doesn't simply expose our need for wisdom, it exposes our need for a savior. See, and the good news of the gospel is that Jesus didn't merely come to teach us how to guard our hearts, he came because our hearts needed rescuing. And God promised in the book of Ezekiel, he says, I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes. See, through the perfect life of Jesus Christ, through his death on the cross, and through his resurrection, Jesus makes that promise possible. And when we repent and we trust in him, he doesn't simply improve our hearts, he gives us a new one. Praise God. So today, if you're a Christian, I don't want you to hear this sermon and think, I need to try harder. I want you to hear this and say, I need to walk closer with Christ. Again, every day something is competing for your heart. The world wants it, sin wants it, even your flesh wants it, but there is one who deserves it. And that is Jesus Christ. And long before you ever thought about guarding your heart, he gave his life to rescue it. So tomorrow morning, when you wake up, don't simply ask, how can I be better? I want you to ask, who has my heart today? Who has my heart today? Don't ask, how can I avoid sins? Ask, how can I stay close to Christ today? Because when Christ has your heart, your words begin to change. Your eyes begin to change, and your path begins to change. So again, we're not talking about changing behavior modification. We we want our hearts to be transformed by the one and the only one that could do it. The one who is willing to die for you and for me. So today I've got a couple of uh truth to life, and those being uh basically just a couple of questions that we want you guys to not only hear the truth, but also live it out and ask these questions as we go through. I know I gave you plenty of questions throughout this entire sermon, but I'm gonna give you three more. Okay. So the first one being this before I guard my heart, I want to ask the question, who has my heart? Before I even attempt to guard my heart, I need to answer the question, who has my heart? Is my heart surrendered to the King of Kings? Have I placed faith in Christ Jesus as my Lord and Savior? Question number two. Is there an area in my heart that is not being guarded? Is there a gate that's wide open? Where have I struggled to surrender to God? Am I trying to just change my behavior or am I allowing Christ to transform my heart? Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal and to convict and to show us. And question number three. How can the condition of my heart become a testimony that points someone else to Jesus this week? How can the condition of my heart become a testimony that points someone else to Jesus this week? Who needs to see the new heart? Who needs to see the redeemed and transformed heart? Walking in wisdom requires intentionally guarding the heart. So above all else, guard the heart. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the reminder that we are called to guard our heart, not in our own strength, but allow you to transform us. God, would you just help us in the practicality of it to be aware of where we just need to daily surrender to you? God, it's not for anything, not for anything that we could receive any praise, but it we we ask this so that we can in turn point others to you and say, only God did what he could do. God, we thank you, we love you, and we ask that you would be honored and glorified in this, uh, the rest of this service, in our worship and in our lives. We ask and pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.