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1 Message for THE LORD'S DAY EVENING, January 13, 2019 Christian Hope Church of Christ, Plymouth, North Carolina Prepared and preached by: Reggie A. Braziel, Minister Guard Your Heart! Proverbs 4:23-27 NIV Please open your Bibles to tonight's scripture text in Proverbs chapter four. And let's read verses For tonight's message I am going to be using the New International Version. PROVERBS 4:23-27 (NIV) 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[a] 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. ***************************************************** Introduction Illustration: When our little great-granddaughter Clara Rain was born a little over five months ago she came into this world with both physical and mental challenges. Mentally, she was born with Down Syndrome. And physically, she was born with a defective heart; instead of four chambers, she was born with just one.

2 Clara Rain has spent a little over the past two months in two different hospitals and she just went through her fourth heart surgery this past Friday. And during this time she has been kept in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Duke University Hospital so her heart can be carefully monitored 24/7 by the ICU Nurses. Well if you were with us in Bible Study Wednesday night I told you that we nearly lost Clara Rain last Monday when the alarm on her heart monitor failed to go off either by human or mechanical error and Clara Rain flatlined and turned blue. And had Kelsey, her mother not been in the room with her to alert the nurses it would have been too late to have saved her. That alarm acts as a guard over Clara Rain's heart. And for a few precious minutes when that alarm failed to go off, Clara Rain's heart was left unguarded and it nearly cost her her life. ********************************************************************************** In verse 23 of our scripture text, Solomon writes Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. In the Old Testament the word heart is used 800 times and while most of those references are about the physical organ that pumps blood throughout our bodies, over 200 of those references to the heart deal with the thought life or the wellspring of our life that govern our emotions, our attitudes, our motives, and our actions. This is the heart Solomon is talking about in verse 23. He is warning us to guard the control center or the command center that governs every area of our life.

3 analogy: Think of a computer. Every computer has a harddrive That hard drive is literally the very heart of the computer. It is the control center. Every action of the computer originates from the hard-drive. If the hard-drive is left unguarded or unprotected a Trojan virus can easily worm its way in and it will affect the performance of the computer and potentially lead to a complete crash of the hard-drive, rendering the computer useless. This is why we install anti-virus protection on our computers. The anti-virus software guards the hard-drive or guards the heart of the computer so the computer can fulfill its intended purpose. When GOD created man, man had no need to guard his heart because sin had not entered into it. Man's heart was in-tune with God. Man's heart longed for fellowship with God. Man's heart was in love with GOD. But then came the fall. And sin entered into the heart of man and man became vulnerable to every evil influence imaginable. This is why we read in... Genesis 6:5,6 (NIV) 5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and His heart was deeply troubled. For the remainder of the message I want us to zero in on this 23 verse in our text. Look at it again very closely. 23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. 23 rd

4 There are two main thoughts I would like to share with you regarding this verse. First of all, let's consider... I. The PRIORITY of Guarding Your Heart 1. Notice the proverb begins with these words, Above all else. (repeat) The New King James Version reads: Keep your heart with all diligence... The Message says it this way: Keep vigilant watch over your heart Regardless of how it is worded in different translations, the point is the same and that is the matter of guarding your heart should be a top priority. 3. When something is of great value to you, you guard it or protect it very carefully don't you? You don't guard your garbage do you? No! You bag it up and set it by the edge of the road so the garbage man can pick it up. And if someone should come along and take your garbage before the trash man comes you probably aren't going to make a big deal out of it, because that trash is worthless to you. But when it comes to the things that are of great value to us, we guard it closely, we protect it.

5 Illustration: When Linda and I were visiting my mom and step-father in Indiana before Thanksgiving last year, my step-father wanted to show me his collection of expensive guns. He didn't have them sitting out in the open or hanging on a gun rack on his wall. He has his gun collection stored inside a steel gun safe with a combination lock on it. My step-father is guarding something of great value to him very carefully. Illustration: Recently I sold one of my guitars to put the money towards the purchase of a 12 string Ovation guitar that I have wanted ever since I was in Bible College over forty years ago. I don't leave my Ovation guitar sitting out in the open on a stand or keep it in a cheap pasteboard guitar case. I keep it in a heavy duty solid mold case that will protect the guitar from scratches or getting crushed. 4. If we guard or protect the material things that are of great value to us, how much more should we be diligent in guarding our hearts? Solomon doesn't tell us to guard our heart when you get around to it...or whenever its convenient or after you have tended to all the other important matters in your life. He says, Above all else make the matter of guarding your heart a top priority each and every day. 5. Our hearts do not guard themselves. Our hearts don't automatically block all evil influences from entering in. Guarding our hearts means feeding the new spiritual man and starving the old sinful man.

6 6. Guarding the heart requires hard work...and constant work every moment of every day because it is in those times when we leave our hearts unguarded that we render ourselves the most vulnerable to an attack from Satan. As this proverb says, Above all else guard your heart, because everything you do flows from it. EXAMPLES FROM THE BIBLE The Bible is filled with many examples of what happens when one leaves his or her heart unguarded. CAIN left his heart unguarded from jealousy and hatred towards his brother ABEL and he murdered him. THE CITIZENS OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH didn't guard their hearts from homosexual desires and other perversions and GOD destroyed both cities from the face of the earth. In the wilderness THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL did not guard their hearts from grumbling and complaining against God and a whole generation of Israelites died in the wilderness without ever seeing the Promised Land. SAMSON didn't guard his heart from lust for Philistine women and it cost him his strength, his freedom, his eyesight, and ultimately his life. KING SAUL didn't guard his heart from jealousy towards David and that jealousy consumed him so much he ended his life by suicide on the battlefield.

7 KING DAVID didn't guard his heart from lust for Bathsheba and he committed adultery with her and committed murder against her husband by a direct order to abandon him on the battlefield so he would be killed. KING SOLOMON who wrote the warning to all of us about guarding our hearts didn't do a very good job of guarding his own. He wasted much of his life chasing the wind pursuing the desires of his heart. JUDAS ISCARIOT didn't guard his heart and he became so full of greed he was willing to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver and wound up committing suicide. ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA didn't guard their hearts and lied to the Holy Spirit about the money they had given to the Church, and they were struck dead by God. PETER didn't guard his heart from cowardice and fear and he denied Jesus three times. DEMAS didn't guard his heart from greed and worldliness and abandoned the faith. And I could go on and on with more examples. I believe the HOLY SPIRIT inspired the writers of the scriptures to include these accounts of spiritual and moral failure to warn you and me of the dangers of not guarding our hearts. From these many examples we learn that the failure to guard our hearts can poison every area of our lives; our attitude, our reputation, our physical and emotional health, our relationships with people, and worst of all our relationship with GOD.

8 Well now that we have considered The PRIORITY of Guarding Your Heart let's consider... II. The PROCEDURE of Guarding Your Heart 1. If guarding our hearts must be a top priority each and every day we need to now how to do it don't we? We need to know the procedure for guarding our hearts. 2. Many Christians isolate verse 23 all by itself and reach their own conclusions as to the best way to guard one's heart. Typically, many conclude the best way to guard one's heart is to be careful about the TV shows and movies they watch; and to be careful about the things they look at on the computer; and to be careful about the kind of music they listen to; and to be careful about the places they go and the kinds of people they hang around with. And certainly all of these are good disciplines for us to practice and the scriptures counsel us to exercise caution in all of these areas. 3. But we need to understand when it comes to the matter of guarding our hearts it requires much, much more than refraining from doing certain things. 4. When you look at this command to guard your heart in the context of the verses immediately preceding it, we discover the procedure for guarding our hearts. Let's back up to Proverbs 4, verse 20 and read down to verse 23, (again I am reading from the NIV)

9 PROVERBS 4:20-23 (NIV) 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. 5. These verses are telling us the best way to guard our hearts is to fill our hearts with the word of GOD. You and I cannot guard our hearts by our own human strength. That word guard in the Hebrew language literally means to place a watchman over our hearts. That watchman is the WORD of GOD. The Lord wants us to guard our hearts by filtering our emotions, our desires, our thoughts, our actions, and our decisions through His Holy Word. 6. How do we guard our hearts? By reading, and studying, and meditating upon the word of God; and by obeying and living by the word of God. 7. There are many scriptures that reinforce this truth: PSALM 18:30 (NIV) As for God, His way is perfect: The Lord s word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him. PSALM 119:9 (NIV) How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. PSALM 119:11 (NIV) I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.

10 8. You and I need to understand that our failure to read and study the word of GOD on a regular basis is much more than a matter of laziness or negligence, it is to leave our hearts unguarded and unprotected from Satan's sinful influences over our lives. To leave our hearts unguarded leads to defeat and discouragement. 9. So let me encourage you as I have encouraged you so many times over the years to get into the word of GOD each and every day. Don't leave your heart unguarded! Get into the word and let the word get into you! **************************************************** C O N C L U S I O N A former park ranger at Yellowstone National Park tells the story of a ranger leading a group of hikers to a fire lookout. The ranger was so intent on telling the hikers about the flowers and animals that he considered the messages that were coming in on his twoway radio a distraction, so he switched it off. Nearing the tower, the ranger was met by a nearly breathless lookout who was on duty in the Lookout tower that day, who asked why he hadn't responded to the messages on his radio. A grizzly bear had been seen stalking the group, and the Lookout had been trying to warn the Ranger and his group of hikers of the danger that was lurking nearby. (Harold Wiest, Power For Living, page 109) Any time we tune out the messages God has sent us in the form of His Holy Word, we put ourselves in grave danger of being attacked by the enemy of our souls. Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23 NIV)