Whose Guarding Your Heart?

Scripture: Proverbs 4:23- 27; Matthew 22:35-40

Theme: Guarding Your Spiritual Life

Title: Whose Guarding Your Heart?

This sermon focuses on guarding your inner sacred space; your Holy of Holies - your heart. It shares how we can protect our heart by allowing God's Holy Spirit to rule and reign.

INTRO:

Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I want to talk to you today about your sacred space or what has been called your secret place. King Solomon called it your "heart space". It is that place where the real you lives. It is where the core of your being is located.

For much of ancient Israel's history that place was seen to be the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies was this 15 cubic foot area of space that existed in the tabernacle and later on in the Temple. It was that place where no one could enter into except for one time of the year - on Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement1

It was only on the Day of Atonement that the High Priest could enter into the Holy of Holies. It was on that day that the High Priest would bathe, put on a clean linen garment and enter into the Holy of Holies to be in the very presence of the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. He would make a sacrifice and intercede for the People of Israel. It has been said that the only light that was ever present in the Holy of Holies was the light of God Himself - His Shekinah glory shinning forth.

To help guard the Holy of Holies from the any type of impurities a curtain was constructed that isolated it from the rest of the Temple. It was imperative that this 15 cubic feet of space be kept uncontaminated and sanctified. No one could look in or treat it with any type of disregard or disrespect.

The High Priest, the scribes and all the other priests would have gladly lay down their lives to protect the holiness of this sacred space - this inner sanctuary. To the ancient Jew this was the place where the Good God of Creation and mankind would come together. This was the place where the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY touched the earth. This was the place where heaven and earth became one.

When our Lord Jesus Christ was dying on the cross for our sins the Bible tells us that the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the outside world split in two (Matthew 25:50 - 51). God was making a statement. No longer did there need to be a separation between the LORD God and His People. No longer was there a need for the daily animal sacrifices. What God had promised the Prophet Jeremiah was now becoming a reality:

Jeremiah 31:31-34 English Standard Version (ESV)

The New Covenant

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

God would now through the power of His Holy Spirit dwell in the inner hearts of humans. All humanity needed to do was to allow God to rescue, redeem and restore them into His Holy Image.

The Holy of Holies would not reside in a manmade dwelling, not in place of brick and mortar but in a place that God creates Himself; the heart of everyone that calls upon the name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST as Savior and LORD.

It is that place; that place where the real you resides that I would like for us to talk about today. For it is from the place that Jesus calls us to "...love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." It is from that place that Jesus calls us to "... love your neighbor as yourself."

It is in that place that the wisest human being ever to walk our planet reminds us to: