Guard Duty 1/20/02 Prov. 4:23
Introduction
This week, a team from the International Red Cross is paying a visit to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba to determine whether the detainees captured by U.S. forces are being kept in conditions which are acceptable according to the terms of the Geneva Convention.
The fact that there is a document such as that which was signed in Geneva in 1949 indicates that there’s a good way and a bad way to guard somebody –
The bad way devalues the person – it says, “You’re my enemy, so you are not worth being treated like a human being.”
The good way protects and values the person – even our enemies. The good way says, “You’re my enemy, and I am going to restrain you from fighting me and my country, but I value human life so much that I will not mistreat you now that you are in imprisoned and unable to defend yourself.”
That is what lies at the heart of the Geneva Convention’s protections of POW’s.
If we are so careful to guard our enemies in such a way that they are not harmed, how much more careful we should be when we guard something that is precious to us.
Last week as we looked at this verse, we saw that our hearts are the place where God Himself dwells and from which He speaks to us. We saw how the condition of our heart determines the quality of our lives. I gave the example of how, in my own life, it was through my heart that God revealed His calling to me. We saw that the heart is, as this Proverb tells us, the wellspring of life.
What would happen if you built a brand new house – everything is shiny and beautiful
You haul the very last box in on moving day, and go out to the kitchen to get a glass of nice cold water.
You turn on the faucet and the water comes out brown and slimy.
It even smells terrible
Well, you think, maybe I just need to let it run a bit, maybe something’s settled in the pipes.
So you let it run… and run… and run
And it doesn’t get the slightest bit clearer.
You think, “I watched them put that plumbing in – the pipes were brand new and clean.
I put it in a nice clean glass
What’s the problem?
Why is the water so filthy?
So you take a little walk over to the reservoir your water comes from
And you crouch down and scoop up some water, and immediately, you know what the trouble is:
the water in the reservoir is polluted!
It’s brown and slimy, just like the water in your kitchen.
How are you going to fix that problem?
Either you need to clean up the water in the reservoir, or you need to filter out the junk that’s coming in.
Our hearts are like that reservoir
They are “the wellspring of life”
The quality of our life depends on what kind of “water” is in our hearts.
If you were here last week, you heard Cindy give a wonderful children’s message.
I was tempted to just read the Scripture and say, “Just like she said…”
Do you remember it? Cindy had a tube she claimed was magic, and she would put something in one end and – lo and behold! – it would come out the other end.
Somehow the kids weren’t too impressed with her magic tube. I mean, what do you expect? What goes in, comes out.
But what’s more silly is that we expect something different in our lives.
We want good things to come out of our lives, but that’s never going to happen unless we’re putting IN good things
If we want to respond to situations in godly ways, we need to fill our hearts with godly words, godly truths, godly wisdom.
Jesus didn’t die to make us wise
He didn’t die to teach us more about the Bible
He didn’t die to make us more fervent in serving God
He didn’t even die just to show us God’s love – although His death certainly did that.
Jesus died to make us holy
Some of you will say, “Jesus died so we could be forgiven”
Or, “Jesus died so we could have a relationship with God.”
And those things are true.
But listen to these Scriptures, and these are just a few of many I could share:
Comparing the sacrifice of Jesus to the actions of the High Priest when presenting a sin offering, the writer of Hebrews says this:
Hebrews 13:12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.
NIV Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Colossians 1:22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death – [why?] – to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation –
NIV 1 Thessalonians 4:7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.
NIV Hebrews 12:14 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.
All the things we talk about receiving through the death of Christ: forgiveness of sins, a relationship with God, eternal life with Him forever, are really just side benefits of what God wanted to accomplish:
He wanted to make us holy!
For we could not have a relationship with God unless we were made holy
We could not spend eternity with Him unless we were made holy
And unless our sins were washed away, we certainly couldn’t be holy.
Jesus didn’t die so we would be religious people
Jesus died that we might be HOLY people.
Oswald Chambers is one of my favorite devotional writers. If you don’t own the classic daily devotional “My Utmost for His Highest,” you should!!
This year I’m going through a lesser known devotional by Chambers called “Daily Thoughts for Disciples”
I was struck with something he said in this Friday’s reading:
We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, that is, into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something. (Oswald Chambers, “Daily Thoughts for Disciples,” January 18th )
Sometimes I hear people say, “I know I’m supposed to learn something from this, I just don’t know what it is.”
Or even “I need to find out what it is so it will get better.”
“I want to learn the lesson so I don’t have to go through any more tough times.”
But that’s not the way it works
God isn’t always trying to “teach” you something, he’s making you something.
He is cleaning out the polluted reservoir of our hearts, and that sometimes takes pretty drastic measures.
If we are to be Holy People, we need to have holy hearts
And if we are to have holy hearts, they need to be guarded
Well, what does it mean to guard our hearts?
First of all, where does a guard stand?
Let’s think about something concrete, like airport security
That’s obviously become a huge priority since September 11th.
What happens when you go into an airport?
Well, before they even take your luggage or let you go toward the gate, somebody asks you a bunch of questions about
who packed your luggage,
did anybody ask you to carry a package;
were your bags ever out of your sight?
If you give all the right answers, they send your luggage to go onto the plane and give you a boarding pass
When you get to the gate, you go through a metal detector and your carry-on bags go through an X-ray machine
When I was going to Germany, I had put my film in a lead bag to protect it from the X-ray machine.
Because they couldn’t see what was inside with the X-ray machine, I got pulled over to the side and an airline employee opened my lead bag, opened every single film canister one by one, swabbed it with something that would detect explosive powder, took out each roll of film and looked at it, then put each one back.
And this was BEFORE Sept 11th!
Why do they do all that?
They are guarding something precious
They are guarding the lives of the passengers
Even though I didn’t feel like standing there while they went through my film, I didn’t complain
I never complain about security precautions (OK, I try not to!!)
Why? because they’re for MY protection
But you know what? They never check you on the way out.
As you walk out of the gate into the main part of the airport, you don’t have to pass through a metal detector
Nobody scans your luggage.
Why not?
Because it’s TOO LATE, then!
Because if you place a guard over what goes in, you don’t have to worry about what goes OUT!!
Hudson Taylor was a missionary to China in the 19th Century and the founder of China Inland Mission.
It’s said when he would interview someone who wanted to join the mission, he would have tea with them. Sometime during the tea, he would bump the teacup, spilling the tea onto the table. “What came out of that cup?” he would ask the candidate. Puzzled, the reply was, of course, “Tea.”
Taylor would go on to say, “What is true with this teacup is true with your life: What’s inside comes out when it’s bumped.”
Most of us can be pretty nice folks, as long as nothing bumps into us.
But when troubles come,
when you’re tired or afraid or confused or lonely;
when your finances are strapped,
when your kids won’t behave,
when the car won’t start,
what is it that comes out?
Is it: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” = the fruit of the Spirit?
Or is it something else?
What comes spilling out in times of trouble will depend on what you’re putting in.
Jesus said:
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45 NIV)
What comes out depends on what’s inside
There are a LOT of things we could talk about in terms of putting good things into our lives so that good things will come out. I’m just going to talk about one
Let me ask you a question: Where is your Bible when you need it?
When you need to respond to something in a biblical way, where is your bible?
When your boss or your spouse or someone else criticizes you, where’s your Bible?
When you need wisdom in raising your kids, where’s your Bible?
When you’re afraid of the future, where’s your Bible?
In at least some of those times, at least some of you find your Bible and start looking for answers.
{SCRIPTURES RE: MEMORIZING}
NLT Joshua 1:8 Study this Book of the Law continually. Meditate on it day and night so you may be sure to obey all that is written in it. Only then will you succeed.
Deut. 6:5 And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.
6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today.
7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again.
Psalm 119: 9 How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word and following its rules. 11 I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
The Psalmist knew that he couldn’t OBEY God’s word if he didn’t KNOW God’s Word!
If it isn’t in our heads, how will it EVER get into our hearts?
NLT Colossians 3:16 Let the words of Christ, in all their richness, live in your hearts and make you wise. Use his words to teach and counsel each other. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.
If we don’t KNOW the Word, we cannot LIVE the word!
Very often, we relegate Scripture Memory to children, perhaps because they seem to remember things more easily than we do when we get a few gray hairs
In seminary, learning Greek, I constantly walked around campus (like many other students) with a pack of vocabulary cards.
Being older than many of the students, it sometimes frustrated me that they could “cram” the night before a quiz and do OK. My mind couldn’t “cram” anymore. I had to actually learn the stuff!
But I was encouraged one day when I read something that said that while younger people can memorize faster in the short term, they forget faster, too
Older people (and I’m including myself in that) take longer to memorize, but once they get it, it sticks.
If God’s Word isn’t in your head, how will it ever get into your heart?
If “Above all” we are to “guard our hearts” – that is, guard them in a good way, a way that promotes and protects life – then we need to put the Word of Life INTO our hearts.
But if we can’t get it in our heads, how can we ever get into our hearts?
As I was nearing the end of college, I started a program of Bible memorization, and it was perhaps the most meaningful spiritual discipline I ever undertook.
For over a year, I memorized 2 verses a week. Then something “broke down” and I stopped.
I have been convicted in the last few weeks that I need to get the Word of God more deeply planted in my heart. And the only way I know to do that is to get it more deeply planted in my head!
You see, I realize I don’t just need my Bible for a few quiet moments in the morning
I don’t just need my Bible when I’m getting ready for a sermon or some other ministry opportunity
I need it when I’m living
I need it when I’m in traffic
I need it when I’m busy doing other things
I need it when I don’t have the time to read it
And the only way I can HAVE it during those times, it to do what the Psalmist does: to “hide it in my heart”
Conclusion
Like me, maybe you recognize that you can’t live God’s Word unless you know it, unless it’s rattling around in your head, it’ll never get down to your heart.
Maybe you think you can’t memorize, but it’s not true. What you lack is not a memory, what you lack is probably just the tools to memorize effectively
If you realize that you need to get God’s Word into your head before you can get it into your heart, I’d encourage you to sign up and learn more about how to do that.
Because as the Proverbs teach us, “the heart.. is the wellspring of life.”
Let’s learn together how to purify that well.
