Last time I preached, two weeks ago, it was sort of the theme of a new year, old year, new year, and watching and being ready, and as I gave that last sermon from the parable of the ten virgins on watch, you do not know the day nor the hour, I kind of incessantly beat myself up after a sermon about all the things I should have said and didn't say. Sometimes I probably shouldn't say them because of time, but it's important, I think, to help, if I'm going to give a sermon like that, help us to think a little bit more about watching in the new year and what that looks like and how we can be a sanctified people to the Lord. So we're going to consider Proverbs chapter four. Next Sunday, we'll come back and it is the Lord's Supper. We'll be referencing many of the preparation aspects of this, but the Lord's Supper will be next Sunday morning, and then we'll be back in our sermon series through the book of Acts. And don't miss that one, because the next sermon in Acts is the guy who fell out of the window, and he fell asleep because the sermon was too long. You can't miss that one. Proverbs 4, beginning at verse 20. Beginning at verse 20 this morning. Let's give our attention to the word of the Lord. 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 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. And there is the reading of God's Word. It's one of the strangest phenomenons as a pastor that whatever I preach to you in a given week, I seem to go through that struggle and witness myself as a pastor how weak I am to come back Sunday and then preach exactly what I am and what I've struggled with during the course of that week. I suppose that's why they always say that pastors should first preach the most effective sermons are the sermons that pastors first preach to themselves. And that is very much the case in light of Proverbs chapter 4. I am going to give you a message this morning on keeping your hearts. That is undoubtedly one of the most difficult things that you can do in this life. I don't come here this morning preaching this thinking that this is some easy task or this is something that we can just easily decide to set ourselves to do. The Lord has to give us every amount of help and strength to desire this and then to begin to learn how to implement it. But in our sanctification, as I said, this is God's will for you, your sanctification. In our sanctification, there is this great task that is given of guarding your heart. And I don't know if there's any passage that helps us better with that than Proverbs 4. I'm not coming at you this morning saying, do this or else, which I think oftentimes when you hear passages like this preached, this is how it comes across. And I don't believe that's the intention of the author. Of course, that's not the intention of God to his people to say, do this or else, as if the threat of judgment holds over you if you don't do a great job in keeping your own heart. We have to remember the whole framework of what I just discussed about being justified freely by his grace as a gift and then the whole life of struggle and sanctification that follows but i preached this this morning as a way to motivate you to this great responsibility because you have absolutely positively one who is committed to keep you this is what's said all throughout the scriptures and that should mean something to us that he is that committed to keep his sheep all the way to the end. And that kind of love, that kind of commitment to the project that he started to complete it, that kind of showcase of grace in the course of your life should mean something to you, should mean a lot to you. So this morning, we're looking at this great call to consider in guarding the heart. And we're going to look at that great call and understand the problem with the human heart and then how we should keep the heart and why we should keep the heart so again what this calling is how we should keep the heart and why we should keep the heart you'll notice in verse 20 there of proverbs chapter 4 that you have a very tender address of a father to a son. My son, 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. You'll know, and I was thinking, I don't think that I have in 15 years of ministry preached from the Proverbs. I went through all my notes and I have not spent much time in this book and i think i've been remiss i have been wrong and not giving attention more to the proverbs this is wisdom it's beautiful wisdom you know the book is wisdom personified that there's lady wisdom and that that there's this this choice there's two paths in life there's the path of the wise and the path of the fool and the path that you choose and the path that you walk has consequences and here we have this this is set in this framework of of wisdom you're personified but as a a father speaking to his children as a father speaking to his son who is looking out and he's got all of life in front of him and a father who is wise and a father who cares a father who knows all that's coming down that son's path all the temptations all the allure of the world everything that can pull him off he is giving him wisdom that is safe keeping a son who has little knowledge of what is about to hit him little knowledge of what he is about to be tempted with little knowledge of life and how to survive it little knowledge of everything that's coming at him and and all of you fathers who um who care know as you look at your sons and your children you know the struggles and you know what you've been tempted with and you know what you've done and you don't want your children to do it of course not the central piece of wisdom comes in this form of a call that the son would keep his heart with all vigilance with all diligence where he says what comes out of there are the issues of life out of the heart it's one of the the great bible texts that is calling us to most certainly a kind of heart work and the basic point here is so known by experience we don't have to even really prove this you know this we are aware of what he's saying if we have any sort of uh understanding and are able even as calvin used to say the two knowledges that we must have is a knowledge of God and in knowledge of ourselves, if you're going to have any kind of proper knowledge of yourself, if you've ever had any knowledge of yourself, you are immensely troubled at times and shocked by what the human heart can do. So the basic principle that is given right here where he says this right in verse 23, keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flows the springs of life what he's saying is is that whatever is going on in your hearts whatever is there it is directing your lives whatever is coming out of there is where you're headed and where you're going your heart directs in a sense all your your faculties in other words it's a fountain whatever is energizing that fountain is directing you it directs all your actions it directs your thoughts it directs your desires your wills all of it it's the spring of the soul you know this um when you get up in the mornings you you have you have plans you have purposes of things that you're pursuing that you're going to do and you know that whatever your heart is set on everything else that follows in what you do will go get it i was i was thinking a little bit about the words of David when he was dying, his dying words as a father to his son, Solomon. And if you know Solomon, you know this is a really remarkable conversation. Everything that Solomon fell into, and who's the author of many of the Proverbs, when David was speaking on his deathbed, here's what he said. Solomon, my son, Learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve Him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and He knows every single plan and every single thought. If you seek Him, you'll find Him. But if you forsake Him, He'll reject you. David was telling his son that true worship of God to know Him intimately has to do with the heart. And from out of which comes a willing mind to love the Lord with all of his heart was always the command, the central command of the law, wasn't it? The summarizing command of the law. Now, you know how hard this is. I've been reading devotionally Phil Rikens' little book on King Solomon. And in that book, it's a great little devotional book, but in that book he talks about the three sins that ruined Solomon. And the three sins that ruined Solomon were power, sex, and money. And I thought to myself as I was going through that book, that is exactly summarized as you really could put all those categories today. every sort of sin and struggle into those three categories of power, sex, and money. Solomon is writing many of these Proverbs. Solomon knows this struggle. Solomon lived this struggle. And think of all of the things that we've studied about what the Scriptures teach us about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Constantly coming, constantly consuming, constantly overtaking the heart. you go through some of these and you think of some of the struggles of power what are we trying to live for and what are we trying to achieve in life well just just look at what goes on we're all trying to achieve success we all have goals we all have aspirations we all want to make our names great right there we're we're concerned and all this leads from there to consume and consume our hearts with worry and fret over all kinds of things. Think of the allure of sex and all of the challenges that come with that out of the human heart. Where does one little lust lead to try to fulfill it with all that you have to go get it and fulfill it and then it somewhat satisfies you until you're on to the next lust to conquer it and complete it money what is the heart set on a love of it it becomes attractive more than anything else and and you know what this does to the heart we've got to get this thing we've got to have this we've got to do this nothing nothing everything else is pushed out of the way until we have conquered what the desire of the heart is with some material gain as many of you are sitting here right now. And if you could fit it in these categories of money, sex, power, it's consuming us in some way so that it's hard to even focus right now. You know your hearts. If you have any sort of sensitivity to them, you can't even set your eyes right at times. Here's the absolutely bad news in the struggle the bible's assessment of the human heart is as bad as it gets in other words jeremiah you know has that great statement that the heart is deceitful above everything else and desperately wicked who can know it you know in our society not only is society telling you to follow your heart love your heart listen to your heart but we play games with our heart we justify what's going on there and we say oh it's not that bad god doesn't mind i'm always amazed at what what we can do to justify what we're doing and think that god even accepts it after the flood remember what god said before the flood god said i'm gonna i'm gonna destroy mankind which i've made off the earth because what's going on in that heart is evil incessantly it just it doesn't get any better does it did the flood solve the problem obviously not but right after the flood god said the same thing every inclination of the human heart and i'm quoting is evil from childhood think about presenting our children for baptism this morning i would love to believe that every little human heart that is here is good but that's not god's testimony this is a major problem isn't it this is a major problem this is why we need a washing of the heart which this signifies and seals for out of the heart said jesus comes what see we would love to say that it's just what comes into the heart that makes us bad but that's not the testimony of scripture jesus said it's out of the heart that proceeds murders evil thoughts adulteries every lust of a of somebody else it's not your spouse is adultery that came from the inside not just from the out every theft every false witness every gossip every slander everything comes from inside is the testimony human heart who can know it here's a father and his son imagine the father embracing his son or daughter putting arms around him and holding him knowing that this child knows nothing about his heart knowing that he knows nothing about everything that he's going to be faced with every sort of temptation under the sun son listen to my wisdom now as i was thinking of this sermon you of course have to make a huge distinction. The world has no concept of this. You know that. But what has God done for you? Well, the very thing He did in giving His Son when Jesus came, His first public discourse was a discourse on what He had to do to rescue the human heart. Nicodemus, you need to be born again. I don't get that. You mean, how do I go get in a womb that's big enough for me to fit back in there? Uh-uh. You need life pumped into that dead heart. The Holy Spirit has to give you a new heart. He has to cleanse that heart. He has to wash that heart. He has to regenerate that heart before anything, any life is ever going to flow out. You're completely dependent upon the Lord to do that to your hearts. And He does. And as He's given us a new birth, a new life, now we're initiated, you see, into this struggle that I've described. And this is a struggle that we still have not really grasped well or appreciated that really is going on still in the human heart. It was Charles Bridges who once said, the great difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God. And after conversion, it is to keep it with Him. that is just absolutely true. Both are a work of complete grace. You know that. Here's the context in which wisdom comes to us in Proverbs 4. This is a loving father who loves his son. And he's saying to him, he's saying, put it in our categories. This is what the Proverbs are meant to do with wisdom. God has broken sin's dominion over you. God has given you new hearts. The condemning power of the law is shattered. But he's not removed or taken the presence of sin yet away. It still greatly affects your hearts. It still greatly plagues your hearts. You still struggle with this. The same things that you did before conversion, you're still prone to do after. I mean, this is exactly what Paul was saying in Romans 7. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me for sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me and then he goes on to tell you exactly what all that means the things that i don't want to do i find myself doing what in the world is this how could it be i mean i can't be a christian and still do that any of you know the struggle and if you live the struggle the good that i find i desire within me this is often what i don't do it's the war in the heart that's going on paul would even say that i discipline myself i discipline my body and keep it under control after preaching to others i find myself disqualified why is this so serious to take the heart struggle that's going on why is it so important to take that heart struggle seriously. Well, how many examples do you need in the Bible? Achan sets his heart on a garment and steals it. David is your first pornography example in the Bible. Did you know that? He walks out in carelessness, leaving a very relaxed life. Everyone else is off to war. walks out on the roof and there she is, naked. And he's staring. And where did that lead? To a ruin of his life. The Lord saved him. But think of the severity of what happened. It led him to murder. It led him to adultery. All from that look. And then he faced the consequence of a lost son. How many examples do you need? How many children of God, and I say this, children of God have ruined their earthly lives? I'm not talking about heavenly life. You're justified, you're saved as a believer. How many have suffered real consequences and ruined their earthly lives by not listening to this, not listening to wisdom? Son, daughter, listen. They followed whatever lust comes out of their hearts. They're involved in all kinds of things. And they know better. And it's not escaping. There are serious consequences coming. Listen to the command. Guard your hearts with all diligence, with all vigilance, for out it springs the issues of life. It springs where you're going, it springs where you're headed. You've spent enough, the New Testament says, you've spent enough of your past lifetime doing that stuff. Motivating you in a different way. Now the question then is how do you keep the heart, right? That's the question, how do we do it? Hopefully I've made the case for the fact that it's important to keep the heart, but how do we do it? That's the great concern here, and this is where the father's wisdom speaks to his son. He grabs his son, you can picture this. He's heading out into the world, ignorant of the struggles, ignorant of the battles. And his son, his father says to his son, what? What do you tell your son's father? I remember when a man was dying on his deathbed who had died of lung cancer. He'd smoked his whole life. And as his son was sitting on his deathbed with him, The father's advice was, son, don't smoke. It breaks your heart, doesn't it? Is that the advice? Is that the advice you give your son, something earthly? Son, listen to my words. Don't let them escape. Don't let them escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart. Listen, they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. Can you hear the Heavenly Father speaking here to you? How can you not? He gave you a means to keep your hearts. A means by His power by which we are kept. His power. There is a treasure of wisdom when what? You put His word within your heart. Do you know that's the very promise of the covenant of grace? I was thinking of the beautiful promise of the covenant of grace, of what the Lord said he would do. He would never write the word and write the law on tablets of stone in the new covenant. He would do what? 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. The very promise of that covenant, the very promise of the covenant of grace, is that he would write the word on the heart. It's not tablets of stone. And the scriptures are showing us, especially the Psalms, especially the wisdom literature, it's constantly showing us this kind of truth of what is driving and motivating the people of the Lord. Your word I've stored in my heart that what? Somebody's saying it. Go ahead. I won't what? Thank you. I won't sin against you. Isn't that beautiful? I've stored it there. Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Your Word, Romans 10, New Testament, is my Word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart. And if you believe it, you'll be saved. That is the Word of faith we're preaching. The Word of God is always showing you the answer. It's always showing you a Savior. It's always showing you His salvation. It's always showing you His deliverance. It's always guiding your paths. It's always setting you straight. It's always keeping you on the narrow. And yet, how much are we ever in it? Bridges said again, a neglected Bible is proof of an alienated life. What place has the Word in us? To keep the heart, you have to be attentive to the Word. God uses means to accomplish this. To keep your hearts, there's a means to accomplish that goal and it is a word treasured in the heart. It is a word put there. It is you with your children being here on Sundays and letting go of the attitude, I don't have to be at church. Please, you're hurting your children. You want to hurt yourselves, just don't hurt your children. If you're serious about this, you'll store it there. it's a top priority in life what's the second way guard the outlets and the inlets put away from he has three of them here what are the three your mouths your eyes and your feet those are the three those are the outlets of sin and inlets he says put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you what he's saying here is that the outlets of sin become the inlets of sin and have a way of turning the heart away what is the first what we speak about what we say what we talk about what is the value of what we're talking about this was jesus for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks guarding the mouth is a way of guarding the heart letting corrupt speech let no corrupt speech new testament come out of your mouths but that which is for building up of the saints, not for gossip and slander. Second, guard your eyes. Let your eyes, verse 25, look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. The imagery here is the path of life and there's a road that you're on and you're going somewhere and eyes direct what we're seeing and what we're going and the directions we're going. And notice here, eyes straight ahead on what we're supposed to be doing. Healthy, good. but all along that road are all sorts of outlets, all sorts of things coming at us, all sorts of things flashing at us that want to pull us off the path. The lust of the eyes. Jesus again. The eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, How great is that darkness? Again, the eye is the lamp. So the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. So she took of its fruit and ate. That was the beginning of it all. You know what the eye takes into the heart and turns that heart everywhere. Lastly, guard your feet. Ponder, verse 26, the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Don't swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. You know, it's the basic question of which direction are you going. You know it, if you're honest. I can't get out of my head the question to Adam in the Garden of Eden. If we're going to go after Eve, let's go after Adam for a minute. Adam, where are you? I wonder if God asked that question of us. The next chapter of Proverbs, what do we have? Listen to this. Chapter 7. My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments within you. Verse 1 of chapter 7. Keep my commandments and live. Keep my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, you are my sister and call insight your intimate friend to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words. For at the window of my house, I've looked out through my lattice and I've looked among the simple, I've perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense. Passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house in the twilight and the evening at the time of night and darkness. And behold, the woman meets him dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart. She's loud and wayward. Her feet do not stay at home. Now in the street, now in the market and in every corner, she lies in wait. She seizes him and kisses him. And with a bold face, she says to him, I had to offer sacrifices today. I paid my vows. So now I come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I've found you. I've spread my couch with coverings, covered linens from Egyptian linen. I've perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love till morning. Let's delight ourselves with love, for my husband is not at home. He's gone on a long journey. He's took a bag of money with him. At full moon, he will come home. With much seductive speech, she persuades him. With her smooth talk, she compels him. All at once, he follows her. There's the way. As an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver, as a bird rushes into a snare, He does not know it will cost him his life. And now, O sons, listen to me. Be attentive to the words of my mouth. Let not your heart turn aside to her ways. Do not stray into her paths. For many a victim she has laid low. And all her slain are mighty men, mighty throng. Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death. Wow. there's the path all of it there personified in an adulteress the folly of the wrong path out of the heart flows the issues of life and that's the how you see treasuring up listening to the words of God's mouth storing them in the heart and guarding the outlets and the inlets but I have one more point this morning and that's the why isn't it something that god cares over all these things of how we live and what we watch and what we do why is our heavenly father so concerned to instruct us he wants you guarding his hearts your hearts you know why because he's made a promise he has made a promise to guard your hearts to the end and keep you do you know that you know that's the covenant of grace listen to psalm 121 you know this psalm the lord is my keeper the lord is my shade your shade on the right your right hand the lord the sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever more. This is his utmost commitment to keep you. He is calling you to be invested in what he's already promised to do for you you understand that what a god you have but where do we see that most demonstrated to us you know i can't get over jesus's absolute concern for his sheep you know i think sometimes we fall into the discussions and we're so nervous as reform people sometimes that we might be saying things that sound a little moralistic and you've missed the intention behind it and it's a reaction to abuses which you need to be really careful of jesus's concern and giving so much instruction was for what reason remember when he's going to the cross. And he said to his disciples, watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Why did he say that? Well, immediately we start thinking, we're worried that what he's saying is, is if we don't watch and pray, we could be lost and these sort of things. That's not why he's saying it. Why is he saying it? All of his commands to his sheep, all of the way he tenderly guarded, it's his shepherding that's driving him. It's his love for his sheep that's holding on to those whom the Father gave to him. He had utmost care, utmost concern, Because he fully knew what their hearts could do. You think your sin catches God by surprise? Never. He knows fully what you're capable of. He knows fully everything that you've done. He sees it all. Peter would deny him when he even wanted to love him. Peter, with all of his heart, said, I won't deny you. And in the next breath, he's doing it three times. Look at the heart. Look at the heart. Jesus, who had come to save his sheep, who had come to love them and keep them to the end, who said, having loved his own who are in the world, he loved them to the end. He would not lose one. Not one could be removed from his hand. But he didn't want to see any of God's children go down a path in this life that would wreck everything that he had for his children. Everything that the father was planning. everything that was being given and earned for Him. The consequences and the choices in this life that would wreck the entire beautiful thing that Jesus had come to do. He had come that we would have joy now and joy complete happiness. We were made to glorify God. We had lost that. He had come to achieve it again. He had come to keep us from all evil. Jesus had His eye on that cross to keep you forever. I'm always amazed when he is facing the temptations of Satan in the wilderness. And those temptations are everything that we fail at constantly. Lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life he's being tempted with and not one is he failing with. And the whole way, think about it, in the face of the greatest temptations, he never faltered. He never left the path. He stayed straight, not going to the right or to the left. And the thing that he was headed to, the sight that was in front of him, the thing that his eyes were fixed on was what? The cross. To do what? Pay for all your departures. He perfectly kept the way to the cross. And then he entered into his glory. If you can see him going there for you, if you can know that love if you can see his diligence to save you all the way through well what son who's experienced and received that kind of love would ever turn around and walk the other way and you know what you'll try it and the father of the prodigal son every single time receives you back It's the greatest privilege what I have to say to walk in holiness. Not a burden. It's the greatest privilege that He gives us. And He doesn't leave you alone to do it. Sanctification at the end of the day is by God's strength and this is why you use the means He's given. I pray that as we leave Proverbs 4 today and go home and reflect upon all that the Lord's done for us. That even thinking about the whole year that's set in front of us, that it would be a year of thinking about how to guard our hearts, knowing that He is our keeper who has an inheritance for us, imperishable, undefiled, unfading, that is kept right now in heaven for you. That's the motivation that Peter gave pilgrims as he realized his own weak heart. Keep your eye on the prize. Keep your eye on what's set in front of you. you know there's a reservation already made and it's waiting for you it's glory it's being with him forever he's peter says by god's power you are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time so then i think proverbs 4 verse 23 should be the verse for 2019. Keep your heart with all diligence or from it flows the springs of life. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for encouraging us with this word this morning and helping us to think about what is the proper life for those who are your children. And when we stumble and fall, and we will, and we always remember your gracious reply to us, to come back, to bow our knee, to confess our sins, and that You're faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But give us hearts that are steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Let us be a people whose hearts are set on the straight and are not pulled this way and that way, but whose hearts by grace and by Your Spirit are kept with all diligence that we would pursue the heavenly life that is promised to us through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.