I was inspired today by another YouTube post, can you believe it? The only thing is, I don’t remember it. I don’t remember which one, exactly. I have a faint idea, but there was a phrase used that popped out at me. I had heard this phrase used now and then, and it’s one of those Christian phrases that you hear, you shrug your shoulders, you say, “It must mean something, I’ll look into it later.”
Well, this week was that later.
So if you have your Bible, we’re going to a passage out of Proverbs today. Proverbs 4, verses 20-17. I have to admit, I do refrain from sermons out of Proverbs because it’s hard sometimes to get a full thought out of that book. A lot of proverbs, by definition, are short snippets of wisdom; and as useful as these Biblical proverbs are for our daily lives, it’s kind of hard to put together a whole sermon on such one small, short nugget of wisdom.
But, that Christian phrase I talked about is small. It’s simply, “Guard your heart.” Now, it is a phrase that is in The Bible, in a couple of places, one is right here in Proverbs, but if you were to just take that one phrase, it’s hard to figure it out on your own. I can see guarding your mind. Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”
Paul talks about our minds in a couple of places in the New Testament:
Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Ephesians 4:22-24 says, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
I’m going to reference other scriptures later on, but first, let’s take a look at what Solomon had to say about guarding our hearts.
Scripture: Proverbs 4:20-27
20 My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words.
21 Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart;
22 for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body.
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
24 Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.
26 Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.
27 Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.
When reading through this, I’m suddenly transported back to when I was about four years old, standing with a few other tykes my age, some summer evening in the Presho Methodist Church singing with motions,
“Oh be careful little eyes what you see; oh be careful little ears what you hear; oh be careful little tongue what you say;…for the father up above is looking down in love, oh be careful little eyes what you see…”
I had to look up the lyrics to see what order the lyrics are in; and when I did, it turns out there are more lyrics than what I remember and probably more than what we sang–the song goes on to be careful what your little hands do and where your little feet go. Of course, to a four-year-old, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it’s the song and we gotta get it right before the big show on Friday night so…one more time.
So the song ends with, O be careful little heart whom you trust, and O be careful little mind what you think. I don’t remember those lyrics, maybe we sang them, but I’m sure this song came from this set of verses.
And as I mentioned before, I can understand guarding your mind, but what does it mean to guard your heart? When I was looking up the meaning of “guard your heart,” I realized it wasn’t that much different than also guarding your mind. You can see it in this set of verses and in the song, the two–guarding your heart and guarding your mind–go hand-in-hand. In fact, this whole set of verses–all of these functions of the body–all go together in a way that is similar to 1 Corinthians 12, but different.
Similar but different.
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul compares the parts of the human body to The Body of Believers. In it, he says that we are all different parts of one body who have our own purposes which we are to contribute to the larger body–or to each other. But here, Solomon is making a more literal comparison as to how each part of our body has the potential to do either harm or good. So guard your hearts and minds so that who we are and what we do is not only pleasing to God, but will cause us to live a better and more fulfilling life as a whole.
And that’s what the Book of Proverbs is all about, words of wisdom, words to live by.
Going back to verse 23, Solomon advises “Above all else.” If you are the type to write or highlight in your Bibles, circle that about 100 times. “Above all else,” in other words, Solomon is telling his son, “Everything I said is important–but!”
It’s kind of like Paul again in 1 Corinthians 12. Here Solomon says this before using the analogy of the body, but in 1 Corinthians, after Paul equates the human body with the church body, he goes on to say, “And yet I will show you the most excellent way.” Then Paul goes into the next chapter defining what Christian love looks like, ending that chapter with, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
You can’t help but see a parallel here, because love also has to do with the heart and mind. Love is not just how we feel, love is an action towards one another that we must consciously make. It’s more of an art than a science. Kind of like when a doctor or a lawyer practices law or medicine. Have you ever wondered why they say practice? Doctors and lawyers, just like musicians, will say that they never fully learn all there is to know about their profession. Same with pastors, we’re always learning. So that’s why it’s called a practice.
So love is a constant practice of the heart and mind. And in the midst of this, Paul says, “Love never fails.” Another phrase that you could call a proverb if you wanted to.
And so to love as Paul instructs or to live ‘the better way,’ we have to above all else guard our hearts, for everything we do flows from it.
Jesus said, 43 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. 45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
So as Jesus said, our heart is the source of our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Jesus said that the second greatest commandment is to love one another. How do we practice this love? By guarding our hearts above all else.
In the words of author and speaker Zig Ziglar, “Your input determines your outlook. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future.”
I’ve done this a couple of times over the past month or so, might as well do it again.
Here’s another quote from a classic Petra song, “Everything that you do and see, one more event in your memory; Every bit takes another bite without control over wrong or right. You must screen every entry made, the consequences must be weighed; The only way to security is every thought in captivity,”
That last part probably sounds familiar. It’s a quote–another quote from Paul the apostle–and instead of being in 1 Corinthians, it’s one book over, in 2 Corinthians.
He says, “4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Cross-referencing that with what Paul said to the Ephesians, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
And we went more in-depth with a whole sermon series called, The Weapons of our Warfare. And tying that in with today’s sermon, those weapons are so that we can defend ourselves or defend our hearts and minds, from the fiery darts of the Devil.
Paul said to the Romans, 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
See, we’ve got God on our side. He’s helping us. So only through Christ can we conquer by making those thoughts obedient to what Christ has to say–not what the Devil has to say. Our thoughts are either slaves to our natural self or slaves to Christ. We must guard our hearts and minds, and make our minds captive–or slaves–of Christ.
Paul again in Romans, said, 16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
So how do we do this? It’s one thing to understand the concept, it’s another to understand how we go about fighting this spiritual warfare of the heart and mind.
Going back to that Petra song again, the chorus says,
Computer brains, put garbage in; Computer brains, get garbage out
Computer brains, programming you; Computer brains, what can you do?
Break out
Going back to the words of Solomon, “Above all else, guard your heart,” Why? Because as Jesus said, “For everything you do flows from it.”
Gotquestions.org, yes, again, says, The heart is a powerful force that drives our actions and influences our thinking and behavior. It can either lead us down a path of righteousness or a path of destruction. Our hearts are susceptible to sinful thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs. Hence, we must be mindful of what we allow into our hearts; everything we do flows from it.
Guarding our hearts is about protecting ourselves from external and internal factors. We must be mindful of the things we think about, the things we set our affection on, and the things we give our attention to. Negativity, bitterness, and anger can take root in our hearts and lead to sinful behavior.
I heard a sermon this past week, and it was one out of a series called “Redeem the Screen.” Now, I don’t have access to the whole series, and to be honest, I’m not really interested in a whole series on redeeming the screen, but, there’s something to be said about what we take in from our TV, phones, and computers. Like the song, “Computer Brains,” there is this plethora of anything and everything available at the touch of our hands. We carry access to anything and everything in our pockets. That’s both wonderful and frightening at the same time.
What makes it one or the other is what we choose to click onto and thus feed ourselves with. I talked about how guarding our hearts has a connection with loving one another. We have to be careful also how we act with one another on this device. How should we text and talk with one another? How do we respond when someone says or posts something socially/politically or even religiously offensive on social media? We have to guard not only our tongue but if that children’s song was written today, it might say, be careful little hands what we text.
Another verse out of Proverbs, Proverbs 21:23 (New King James Version) says, “Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles.” Proverbs 13: (NKJV) “He who guards his mouth preserves his life, But he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction.”
There are a lot of proverbs on how to not open our mouths and be fools. And if you want to delve a little more into controlling the tongue, do a study on the Book of James.
Here’s one, James 1:19, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,”
I’m hitting you with a lot of verses today, but they all compound together. There is so much said, and so much warning in scripture about how our heart controls our actions. Like I said earlier, Jesus said, “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
Going back to Proverbs again, this is from a different chapter.
Proverbs 18:21 “The tongue has the power of life and death.” Think of what someone said decades ago still rings in our minds and how that affects us today. There are things I remember saying that I wish I could take back.
So again, what do we do? How do we live? How do we keep our hearts and minds in check so that all of our actions are kept in check? For those of you who circle or highlight your Bibles, Solomon answers this question with the next few verses:
- “Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.” Easier said than done. Especially if we are in an environment where that is rampant. But again, we can accomplish this through the help and conviction of The Holy Spirit.
By not practicing this kind of talk outside of that environment helps a lot too. I was watching an interview with Weird Al Yankovic. And I don’t know if he’s a Christian, but he was taught at a young age not to swear. His parents were very strict on that, so here he is, now in his mid-60s, and he can’t bring himself to swear. And 99.9 percent of his lyrics are very clean.
- “Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.” A number of years ago, I did a sermon about keeping our blinders on–like horse blinders. Enduring Word said, “We often depart the path of the just out of distraction. The blinders used on horses do them much good and would do many of us good as well.” Similarly, Solomon says this next:
- “Give careful thought [or make level] the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.” I talked about God making our feet level, and I used the analogy of those mountains our GMC truck had to climb out West. They had to level those paths in order for our truck to make it up that mountain. Life is going to be a bumpy ride. And again, similarly, Solomon goes on.
- In verse 27: “Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” There are a couple of Psalms on this: Psalm 121 begins with “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
Here’s another one, Psalm 94:18 says, “When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, Lord, supported me.” Reminds me of Peter walking on water.
This also reminds me of when Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” To many outside of the faith or for those in progressive churches, Christianity seems rather narrow-minded. Guess what, it is. And that’s a good thing. We must stay focused and footed on the narrow road, not being distracted by the enticing of the wide gate because it leads to destruction. Again, having those spiritual blinders on, as horses do, is a helpful thing so that we don’t get distracted and end up off course.
If you’re taking notes, there are a couple of things that a ministry called Abundant Life out of Kansas City, Mo. added. Not to add to scripture, but here are three things that we can add in a very practical sense to how we can guard our hearts and minds.
- Pray and Store Up God’s Word
Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” When you store up God’s Word in your heart, the Spirit will remind you of it in your time of need and guard your mind.
When Jesus was in the wilderness, what did He do when He was tempted? He spoke God’s Word. This is why Ephesians 6 references the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. God gives you a weapon to wield in spiritual warfare to cut down any lies that try to creep into your heart and mind. Check out the verses below, pray, and store up God’s Word in your heart.
- Purpose Your Heart
Daniel 1:8 says, “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself…” Another way to guard your heart and mind is to “purpose in your heart” like Daniel. In other words, before a temptation or situation arises, decide to lean into God’s truth and stand for Biblical morality.
Daniel likely went through many circumstances and hours of studying and meditating on God’s Word to develop the kind of character required to stand firm in his faith in Babylonian culture. You can do the same. Allow God to mold you spiritually and sanctify you in challenging circumstances.
- Plug into Community
The Bible says iron sharpens iron. We are to bear each other’s burdens by praying and encouraging one another. We can only do this according to God’s design when we’re in a Biblical community.
Getting plugged into a community of believers protects your heart and mind. In a community, someone is there to pray with and for you, hold you up, guide and correct, and walk this faith journey with you.
When I asked O.C. the other day how Lorna was doing, he said that although her condition is not getting any better, there’s this reciprocal blessing that they’ve found from the churches that they have ministered to. And she attends a weekday women’s ministry at another church where she’s found a lot of support there, too. People say they don’t need church. They don’t know what they’re missing. We need that. We need this kind of fellowship. That same day was a minister’s gathering, in fact, O.C. was one of our speakers, and I just can’t tell you how there were only a half dozen of us, but boy, it was just what the doctor ordered.
No powerful prayers or getting into a huddle and so on, it was just wonderful and refreshing to just be with fellow Christian men.
So in addition to the strength of each other, we also need the active, ever-present help of The Holy Spirit.
Let me leave you with a few other passages as we close:
Ezekiel 36:26-27: 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Galatians 5:16-26
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Philippians 4:4-7:
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
I’m calling today’s sermon, “On Guard!” so let me finish with this last verse out of 2 Peter.
This is how he ends his letter:
17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.
So you see, guarding what comes into and flows out of our hearts and minds is what helps develop our Christian character. It isn’t just what does flow in, it’s also what doesn’t flow in. The characteristics of the Christian life don’t come from strictly obeying a list of rules and calling it holiness. This is a heart issue, and it is a lifelong practice that’s filled with constant learning, and many times we learn from our mistakes. But it is a practice that we must initiate. God isn’t going to twist our arms and force-feed us. We have to yield to His Spirit tugging at our hearts to pick up our Bibles and search through the scriptures, being sensitive to the leading of The Holy Spirit, and seeking help and guidance from well-trained teachers and from each other.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by NoName_13 from Pixabay
