Guard Your Heart
Spiritual Heart Surgery
Proverbs 4:20 – 27
When I was in junior high, I played on the football team. What position did I play? Well, it could be said that I played three positions – guard, tackle and end. I sat on the end of the bench, guarded the water bottle, and tackled anyone that came near! But, more seriously, one of my positions was to play guard on offense. I had played that position as far back as Pee-Wee football as an eight year old.
Now, some positions in football are not named very well. For example, a tackle is a lineman that helps to block. They do not tackle people at all. In fact, if they do tackle someone, there will be a penalty called against them. However, a guard is a position that is very aptly named. There are two guards on offensive and they play on both sides of the center who snaps the ball. What is a guard’s job? Their job is to keep the defensive players away from their running back and quarterback. They block and pummel the defensive players in order to protect their players and keep them from getting hurt. Teams find huge individuals who are strong, fast and mean, and they do not get much glory; but, they are extremely important because they allow the quarterback and running backs to do their jobs.
The football field is not the only place you will find guards. All armored cars have armed guards. Their job is to keep people from coming in to take the money from the cars. Many businesses have security guards to keep the peace and take care of trouble makers. Your car may have splash guards to keep mud from coming off the tires and landing on the side of your car. Basically, if you have something important, you need to guard it to make sure that it is safe.
Think about your body for a second. What are the most important parts of your body? You might say your brain. You might say your heart. Whatever you think it is, I think most of us can agree that almost all of our most important parts are on the inside of us. Why is that? It is because the skin, bones, and muscles on the outside can protect them. Our outside parts are put there to guard our inner parts which are needed for life. Think about it. You may think your eyes are important, but you can live without your eyes. You cannot live without a liver or a heart. Therefore, these things need to be guarded.
Well, if everything that is truly important need to be guarded, then what do we need to guard in our spiritual life? There are a number of things that we need to guard, but there is one thing we need to guard above all else. We need to guard our hearts. Turn with me to Proverbs 4:20-27.
My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to a man’s whole body. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; keep your foot from evil.
This morning, we need to take a closer look at the topic of guarding our hearts. Before we go any further, let’s ask the Lord to bless our time.
Why Do We Need To Guard Our Heart?
I’ve had my share of heartache in my life. One of the most difficult times was when I had dated a girl for about a year and we were discussing getting engaged and married. We had planned to go through some pre-marriage counseling with her pastor and I was looking forward to spending the entire summer with her as we both were going to work at the same Christian camp. Then, on the first day of camp, she broke the news that she didn’t want to date me anymore. To make matters worse, she had a new boyfriend within weeks, and she used our prescheduled pre-marriage counseling session with this new guy. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m glad that things worked out as they did, but at the time, this was the greatest hurt I had ever experienced. I had a broken heart and it did not want to go away. It did not help that I had to work with her every day for the rest of the summer. I hurt deep down within and it affected my entire being. I became bitter and angry. I did things I never would have done before. I started listening to country music and liking it. I strayed far away from my Christian walk and it took years to restore my heart to the way it was before it was broken. Our heart is a very sensitive place that affects our entire being, and that is why we need to guard our heart.
In the Bible, the heart is referred to as the seat of all the actions of life. Joe Stowell in “Fan The Flame” says that, “The Heart is used in Scripture as the most comprehensive term for the authentic person. It is the part of our being where we desire, deliberate, and decide. It has been described as ‘the place of conscious and decisive 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.’” Basically, your heart is who you really are. The heart is what is important to God and shows Him who you really are. When God was looking for a king to be over Israel to take over for Saul after Saul sinned, what did He look for? Why did He pick David? 1 Samuel 16:7 answers the question. It states, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” David was not the logical choice even among his own family to be King. Immediately, Samuel noticed Eliab. He was the oldest son of Jesse. He was a tall and attractive man, and he was the oldest which entitled him to the greatest honors of the family. But, God passed him by and the other seven sons and chose the youngest. Why did he choose David? He looked at the heart because that is the true person. And David was described as “a man after God’s own heart.” That says quite a bit about his heart and what kind of person David was.
The writer of this Proverb wanted to get an important message out to us. First, he tells us to pay attention to what he says. Then, he tells us to listen closely. He then goes on to state the importance to his words by stating, “Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to a man’s whole body.” So what message does Solomon, the wisest man to ever have lived want us to get? He says this – “Above all else, guard your heart.” The most important thing we can do according to Solomon is to guard our heart because it is the wellspring of life. What do we need to guard against? Let’s take a closer look.
What Do We Need To Guard Against?
On February 24, 1948, one of the most unusual operations in medical history took place in Ohio State University’s department of research surgery. A stony sheath was removed from around the heart of Harry Besharra, a man thirty years of age. When only a boy he had been shot accidentally by a playmate with a .22-caliber rifle. The bullet had lodged in his heart but had not caused his death. However, a lime deposit had begun to form over the protective covering of the heart and gradually was strangling it. The operation was a delicate one separating the ribs and moving the left lung to one side. Then the stony coating was lifted from the heart as an orange is peeled. Immediately the pressure of the heart was reduced, and it responded by expanding and pumping normally. “I feel a thousand per cent better already,” said the patient soon after the operation.
You would think that having a hard, stony sheath around your heart would help to protect it, but that was not the case. It had to be removed from this man in order for the heart to function properly. We also need to peel away any hardness of our heart as well. How do we get a hardened heart? I think Proverbs 28:13-14 tells us best. “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Blessed is the man who always fears the Lord, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.” We can see from this that when we fear the Lord and confess our sins, we can find mercy and avoid trouble. However, if we keep allowing sin into our lives and we don’t hold the Lord in proper respect, we can develop a hardening of our heart. Let me see if I can explain this concept a little better.
How many of you grew up in a house without a television? You probably grew up listening to the radio and were satisfied with that, but you can probably remember the first person you knew who got a television. Then, you got a black and white television that thrilled you at first, but you soon got used to it. Then, the colored television came out and it was all the rage. Soon, you got used to it as well. Then, there was cable and satellite TV which gave you much more to choose from. But, soon, people became accustomed to this. Now, they have flat panel high definition television sets that are causing a stir. I know it won’t be long however until these are standard and will loose their luster. And, they will eventually be replaced with something new and better.
Here’s the point – if you are around something long enough, no matter how astounding it may seem at first, you will eventually get used to it. That’s the same way with sin and the things of the world. If you are around sin long enough, you will eventually get used to it and you probably won’t even view it as sin. You develop a hardening to it, and that is what we are talking about as a hardening of the heart. I was watching an episode of the A-Team on TV Land the other day and I noticed a number of things. First of all, no one ever gets shot even though shots are always being fires. There is no blood and no gore. There is no swearing. Can you imagine it being shot nowadays? Every action show has death and bad language and we put up with it because it is no longer shocking. We have been around it enough that we have become hard to it. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the new Dukes of Hazzard movie which is full of sex, filthy language, and the like. The original never had this, but the new one contains it to fit in with the current culture. When we allow sin, violence, bad language, sexual images and the like in our lives regularly, we will develop a tolerance to us. God calls that tolerance a hardening of your heart.
What we put in our heart is what comes out of our heart through our words and actions. My advice is to guard your heart by watching what you put in through your eyes and ears. I like the words of a song that came out a few years ago. The chorus states:
My heart is not a junkyard
My heart is not a dump for all the junk around
My spirit’s not a junkyard
No, it’s holy ground
We need to guard our hearts. It is supposed to be the dwelling place of our Lord and Savior, but He will not share room with all the impurities that the world tries to dump into our hearts. We must make sure that we keep them out and don’t develop a hard heart that keeps our Savior out.
How Do We Guard Our Heart?
Well, I’ve touched on this a bit, but I want to look back at our Scripture for the answers. There are three actions that this Scripture tells us to do. First of all, we must, “Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk from your lips.” Did you know that the words that come out of your mouth act as a barometer to the condition of your heart? Jesus said in Matthew 12:34, “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” Basically, whatever comes out of your mouth is what is in your heart. Jesus reiterates this fact in Matthew 15:18. “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean’” So, the first step to protecting your heart is to first find out the condition of it by looking at your words. I dare you to record all of your words in a day or to have someone write down everything you say in a day. What do your words tell you about your heart? If your words contain some filth, so does your heart. If your words contain complaining and murmuring, your heart is unclean. If your words are full of gossip and slander, your heart is not where it should be. We need to allow God to take control of our words and that will allow us to retain a pure heart. After all, James 3:2 promises that, “If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” Our words are connected to our hearts and our hearts are connected to the rest of our bodies. So, in order to guard our hearts, we have to watch our words. Then, we can keep the whole body in check. But first, we need to keep perversity and corrupt talk from our lips.
Secondly, our Scripture says that we should, “Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.” How many of you have horses or have been around horses? Kim’s parents have horses which here sister’s ride. Her sister Stef had a horse once that was a thoroughbred. It used to be a racehorse. It had two speeds – fast and faster, and it threw her off many times. It turned out that this horse was easily distracted and disturbed by things around it. That is why most race horses have to wear black patches over their eyes called blinders. Now, they do not keep the horse from seeing completely. They just keep the horse from seeing to the sides. It forces them to look straight ahead only. This keeps them from being distracted and causes them to keep their eyes straight ahead. To guard our heart, we also have to put on blinders. We have to keep our eyes focused straight ahead on the prize ahead of it. We need to be focused on heaven and not get distracted by the things of the world. If we keep our eyes focused on heaven, we will do what it takes to please God so that we can be worthy of our eternal reward. But, we must beware of all of the things that can distract them. We must ignore the things of the world and go straight ahead in the ways of the Lord.
Finally, we are told to, “Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.” This is a Scripture that is associated with Isaiah 26:7 which states, “The way of the righteous is smooth.” We talked about this a few weeks ago in reference to John the Baptist’s message to prepare the way of the Lord. Basically, this Scripture is telling us to get all moral obstacles out of our way, so that we can have a level path. We can’t keep putting obstacles in our way and not expect to be tripped up by them from time to time. Therefore, we must remove them and keep them out of the way. We have to avoid situations where we may be tempted to sin. We have to avoid certain groups of people that may lead us down a wrong path. We have to cast aside all that hinders and set our feet firmly on the solid rock that is Jesus Christ in order to guard our hearts.
This morning, as we close, I ask you, “Are you careless with your heart?” Do you allow all kinds of things in or do you guard it with your life? Solomon thought this was extremely important, but do you? Remember, when God sees you, He sees your heart. What kind of person is He seeing? Are you guarding against sin that can cause your heart to harden? Are you watching your words, putting on blinders to the world, and removing all the obstacles in the way of making your path smooth? This morning, we need to do two things. First, if our heart has become hardened and used to sin and impurity, we need to ask God to remove the hardness and give us a clean heart. Then, and only then, can we begin to guard our heart – the wellspring of life.
Are you happy with the condition of your heart? Remember, God sees it all. He sees every part of your heart. Does that scare you? Would you show your true heart off to others? If not, it can be made clean today. Come to the altar as we pray and Carrie plays softly. Let’s pray.
