Heart Trouble
Proverbs 4:23
How is your heart today? Both physically and spiritually, this is the most important question you will ever answer. Very few things compare to the condition of your heart.
1. The best education in the world.
2. All the wealth you’re able to attain.
3. Prestige, position and power.
All are of little importance in relation to the condition of your heart.
You may be sitting there agree with me as far as the physical heart is concerned. Heart trouble is a major killer in America. It doesn’t discriminate based on age, sex or race.
Mississippi has more deaths due to cardiovascular disease than any other state. We also rank 40th in death by coronary heart disease and 44 in deaths by stroke. That is not good.
Our state lawmakers saw this and started passing legislation to take care of the problem. They wanted to fix the heart trouble we have in Mississippi.
As important as our physical heart is for our very existence, I believe that the Spiritual Heart is just as important. You might not be ready to admit it today, but there is a time coming that you will believe.
I. HOW IS YOUR HEART?
• Is it healthy or diseased?
• Is it right or wrong?
A. The condition of your spiritual heart affects your whole life.
1. Just as the physical heart is the center of your physical life, the spiritual heart is just as important to your spiritual life.
a) Listen to these spiritual truths from the source of ALL spiritual truths:
(1) “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
(2) “For as [a man] thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7)
(3) “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Matthew 12:34)
(4) “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” (Matthew 15:19)
b) Scripture is pretty clear: What we are at heart is what we are:
(1) Men are liars because we are liars at heart.
(2) Men are murderers because we are murders at heart.
(3) Men are thieves because we are thieves at heart.
(4) Men are evil because we are evil at heart.
2. The breeding ground for sin in our lives is the heart.
a) So if you would like to clean up your life you must clean up your heart.
B. How do we clean our heart?
1. We Go To A Doctor.
a) Now if I were having problems with my physical heart I would want to see a specialist.
b) There is a specialist that takes care of the spiritual heart that we can see – without an appointment.
(1) He was sent from the courts of Heaven to cure the hearts of men.
(a) He was sent by God himself.
(b) He is God.
c) Jesus can take your spiritually diseased heart and clean it.
(1) In fact He is the only one who can really do anything about it because He made it.
2. How does He do it?
a) We don’t know how a medical doctor cures us.
(1) We just take the medicine.
(2) We then trust and believe.
b) It is the same way with Jesus.
(1) We may not always understand.
(2) Just take the prescription – i.e. the Blood of the Lamb, and apply as directed.
(3) But we should always trust and believe.
3. Humans doctors may be limited;
a) But Jesus is not.
(1) There is NO heart so steeped in sin that He can’t reconcile it.
(2) There is NO heart so diseased in sin that He can’t heal it.
(3) There is NO heart so calloused by sin that He can’t repair it.
II. God Sees Your Heart.
A. God sent Samuel to find Saul’s replacement.
1. Saul had sinned before God and was no longer fit to be King of God’s chosen people.
2. God gives Samuel some specific guidelines when searching for the new king.
a) But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his stature, because I have rejected him. Man does not see what the Lord sees, for man sees what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.” (1 Sam 16:7 - HCSB)
B. This is both comforting yet shocking.
1. Comforting:
a) Many will look down on us for what we do.
(1) We will be:
(a) Persecuted,
(b) Detested,
(c) and Scolded.
(2) All because of what people see of us.
b) But God looks down inside our hearts and sees what the condition of our heart really is,
(1) What does it matter what people think about you?
(2) God knows the real condition of your heart.
(a) As long as our heart is honest.
(b) As long as we desire to please Him.
2. Shocking:
a) God knows the REAL condition of our heart.
(1) He knows that sometimes we are not as honest as we say we are.
(2) He knows that every once in a while we might have other motives and aren’t sincere.
(3) He knows that our heart might not be a pure as it should be.
b) In His sermon on the mount Jesus repeated over and over, “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly…” (Matt 6)
(1) He looks down in our most secret place.
(a) The secret part of our heart.
(2) Here He finds what really motivates us to do what we do for Him.
(a) Why we give.
(b) Why we pray.
(c) Why we worship.
(3) It is in accordance with what He finds on how He rewards us.
III. A Pure Heart Sees God.
A. The condition of our heart determines our seeing God.
1. “Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)
2. Will You See Him?
a) My Friend, if you are here and not sure about your salvation - please come.
