In today’s sermon, Pastor Babij outlines the fourth characteristic of authentic Christ-like discipleship: a disciple’s uncanny awareness to watch over his heart. Examining the Parable of the Sower, Pastor Babij teaches believers that they must guard their hearts by bending their ear to biblical wisdom and instruction. Pastor Babij also explains that a disciple guards the heart through several disciplines, such as keeping his eyes from evil, not keeping unfit company, and practicing constant prayer.
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let’s take our Bibles this morning and turn to the Gospel of Mark of course I am finished preaching through the Gospel of Mark but I am going back over the Gospel of Mark to glean some of the core characteristics that are important for all disciples of Jesus Christ now the last few messages I’ve been really pointing out these eight core attitudes and behaviors that are fundamental to the development of Christ like disciples and of course because of the finished work of Christ and the receiving of the Holy Spirit of God at conversion these eight characteristics emerge under the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit of course the Spirit of God uses the word of God to sanctify us so the Word of God is an important tool by used by the Spirit of God to develop christ-like attitudes and behaviors in us so as the Holy Spirit of God works in us we are to cooperate with him and cultivate these eight characteristics in our daily experience and of course as I mentioned they’re not all the characteristics the Holy Spirit of God is developing in us however these do give rise to further godly attitudes and behaviors that should be present in all growing disciples now the first one that I already preached on is the first characteristic of authentic disciples is the unconditional surrender surrendering to God’s will another way of course is saying that is being obedient to the Lord a second characteristic of authentic disciples is uncompromising faith in God and of course in mark chapter 11 which we looked at already the is this necessary characteristic of faith where Jesus challenged his disciples to have faith in God meaning that the disciples source of all power is to be God himself and so the disciples inner attitude is that of trusting God in all things a third characteristic of authentic disciples is an uncommon desire to pray unto the Lord that the disciples bear the necessary characteristic of prayer where of course again the Lord said in mark chapter eleven therefore I say to you all things for which you pray and ask believe that you receive them and they will be granted to you so a disciples action of faith is definitely prayer that prayer that would be according to God’s will and in harmony with God’s purposes and of course along with that is that the disciple bears this necessary characteristic of forgiveness whenever and when when you are standing praying the Lord said forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your father who was in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions but if you do not forgive neither will your father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions so the disciples attitude in prayer is a forgiving attitude it is an attitude where they are trusting God where they’re loving the Lord and of course we know that we ought to forgive because God has forgiven us a multitude of our sins in fact completely where we do not have to fear that we would stand in judgment of our sin because of Krait what Christ has done for us on the cross all right so that leads me today on this Lord’s Day to the four and the of the eighth characteristics of authentic christ-like disciples and the fourth one is this the fourth characteristic of an authentic disciple is in an uncanny awareness to watch over and guard one’s own heart an awareness to watch over and guard one’s own heart now let’s take our Bibles and turn to mark chapter four and then we’ll look at mark chapter seven just to again glean from the scripture that this awareness to watch over and guard one’s heart brings a disciple to a place where they understand three things about their heart the first would be the sight that the disciple understands the true inability of a human being to change his own heart to make his own heart right with God and of course that of course leads me to the chapter 4 passage of Scripture about the parable of the sower now I’m not going to go into all the details of this parable I’ve done that I’m just want to give you the overview about starting out enforcing this particular point that a disciple of Jesus Christ who has come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and now is growing in the truth of God’s Word and that they’re being transformed and renewed in their mind they do come to understand that they have an intimate they’ve always had an inability in their heart to change it now this is of course made clear in the parable of the sower in the parable of the sower it shows us how the human heart hears and responds to the Word of God of course Jesus explains this story to us and he tells us the different characters the scripture tells us the different characters of the story the sower goes out to sow seed this is Christ himself this is also preachers of the gospel or anyone who broadcast the seed of the gospel of the kingdom by using the Word of God and then of course what does the seed represent the seed represents the gospel the Word of God and of course the word of the kingdom and of the message of how to enter the kingdom of God and the gospel of salvation of course the evil one mentioned in this passage is Satan and the four souls mentioned in this parable of course the soils represent the heart and how various people receive the Word of God the heart of the here is the spiritual equivalent of soil receiving the farmer seed now as we look at this parable take notice that there is nothing wrong with the sower or the seed the problem is the condition of the soil see the soil that is not properly prepared will never bear a crop the important point in the spiritual lesson of this parable is a person’s response to the gospel depends primarily upon the preparation of a person’s heart that this parable showed that the necessity of the divine work in the heart of a person before they can even have spiritual understanding before they can be brought into the kingdom of God and before they can actually bear fruit now let’s look look at each one the four classes of heart hearers or the heart in verse number 15 of mark chapter 4 we have the roadside soil and this would be the hard heart it says there in verse 15 these are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown and when they hear immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them now this person hears the Word of God but does not receive it this is the hard-hearted double or tough-minded unresponsive negligent sometimes scoffing hostile individual and they are those who the proverbs described as the one who hate knowledge and shun instruction the truth seems to bounce off them so the word never penetrates their heart it remains a heart that has never been loosened up by the conviction or the sorrow or of sinful behavior or wrongdoing and because of the outpouring of sin upon the heart it just gets harder and and harder and more unresponsive to God and his word of salvation so they did not seriously here or carefully consider the message of salvation and as a result the Word of God is snatched by Satan from the surface of their understanding and so they are hardened to the gospel and they receive nothing and then there’s secondly in verse number 16 and 17 the shallow rock based soil or the shallow heart it says in verse 16 of Mark for in a similar way there’s these are the ones whose seed was sown on the rocky places who when they hear the word immediately they receive it with joy and they have no firm root in themselves but our only temporary then when affliction or persecution arises because of the word immediately they fall away now this person receives the word notice Lee notice as a novelty without really fully acting upon it their response here is enthusiastic but lacking any thought of counting the cost to follow Christ see the person is happy to hear the word of God but their commitment to Christ is superficial they endure for a while and even show signs of possible moving forward in their understanding and just as a plantus sprouts quickly grows well at first and then looks promising and then ends up not being promising so we see here as soon as trouble persecution trials arise or stand or they have to take a stand or sacrifice must be made because of the Word of God they abandoned the faith as first John tells us they went out from from us but they were not really of us because if they were had been of us they would remained with us so they just have no root to support growth nor do they endure harsh weather or knew that neither do they bear fruit they just wither away they have a non saving faith there’s no true repentance of sin or brokenness over sin they were never alive in Christ and then there is the third soil and that’s in verse number 18 and 19 of Mark chapter 4 and this is the thorn infested soil the strangled and distracted heart it says in verse 18 and others are the ones on whom the seed was sown among the thorns these are the ones who have heard the word but the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires of other things enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful so here we this person hears the Word of God again but attempts to mix with the pleasures of life they are more preoccupied with worldly matters they quickly are distracted by the pursuits of career a house a car sports getting wealthy prestige riches are everything to this person is model maybe I want Christ in the world and all the world has to offer this present life to them is more important than the life to come they love money and find more pleasure in cash than in Christ the world were of course will soon choke out whatever original flimsy intention the person had to live for God their stuff is more important than their Savior the soil of their heart was full of malignant weeds and could never bear fruit just like this morning when Dave quoted first John 2:15 do not love the world nor the things in the world if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him so they just allow it to be choked out and so brethren this is really a good lesson for us too who attempt to sow the good seed of the gospel that we will run across the shallow the short term would be convert we all run across converts or people who will be a double-minded and people who want Christ and the world and they’ll not let go of that so we’ll always encounter these three consistent enemies like the world and the flesh and Satan but today the encouragement that we have is that the Lord of the harvest can and will break up the stony hearts and the world list of hearts and the shallowest of hearts and give them ears to hear and respond properly to the message of the gospel as we see in our passage in again in mark and then in in Matthew 13 and the one on whom the seed was sown among the thorns this is the man who hears the Word of God and the worries of the world the see fulness of wealth choke it out but of course then you have in verse number 20 the fertile soil the cultivated and fruitful heart it says in verse 20 and those are the ones on whom the seed was sown on the good soil and they hear the word and accepted and bear fruit thirty sixty and a hundredfold now of course we see this that it’s all about the heart of man and how the heart of man needs to be cultivated by divine act so the person can actually receive the Word of God and respond to it in a proper way where the seed begins to be embedded in their heart and then that seed begins to grow and bear fruit so this person receives the Word of God with an honest and an understanding heart and of course necessarily they bear fruit for if there’s no fruit there’s no salvation the proof of salvation is fruit even Christ said you will know them by their fruits so then the Christian continues to grow the Christian disciple continues to grow by the Word of God tribulation trouble persecution does not deter them worry wealth personal desires sinful credit cravings do not distract them their ears are wide open their hearts are receptive to the word of God and the Word of God is received and takes root and bears fruit and the real fruit of a Christian is the fruit of holiness and Christian character and good works and passion for others to come to Christ a desire to use their spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ sharing what they have a thanking the Lord of praising the Lord a worshipping the Lord of sinning less not becoming sinless but sinning less and of course enduring whatever the Christian life throws at them no matter what happens they don’t stop following Christ so in this whole process of sharing the faith with lost sinner’s we must understand it is the heart the mind and the emotions and the will that need to be transformed and only God through the Gospel message can change and regenerate the heart if you are sitting here this morning and you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior you know now that it wasn’t merely your decision that brought you to that point a whole lot of sovereign activity was used upon you to bring you to the place where now you understand the gospel of Jesus Christ you understand that you’re under the judgment of sin and God has every right to hold judgment upon you and that if you don’t escape the judgment by trusting in Christ as your Lord and Savior you will be lost forever so when somebody understands that then they receive the Word of God and then God plants his seed in your heart and that seed begins to grow and throughout church history there has been a vast amount of preaching but the result has always been the same only some hearts are penetrated and produce fruit only some here and want more and get more and that’s part of being a believer you never are satisfied you want more you’re never satisfied with your growth you want more Christlikeness you want more holiness you want more godliness that’s the desire that the Spirit of God produces in your heart and so you start throwing off baggage you’re you know if you’re lightening the ship and you’re thrown off sin in all kinds of distractions and even things that are not sinful you’re thrown off because they hinder you from running the race and running the Christian living the Christian life in a way that honors God so in other words there must be a divine work in the heart before there can be spiritual understanding before there can be salvation before there can be fruit-bearing now you have to ask yourself a question of several questions actually are you already listener when the word of God is being preached are you receptive and sensitive to God’s truth do you allow the Word of God to settle down into your life and into your thinking so that it turns you from sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and do you see and do others see the Holy Spirit of God producing fruit in your life and have you had and do you still have the desire the craving for the Word of God that a baby has for its mother’s milk see do you have that that is important to know so a real disciple is up a person who comes to understand listen I didn’t get saved because I made a decision I got saved because there was a divine work on my heart that brought me to repentance and faith in Christ and now I am believer and now I should be bearing fruit that’s the first thing the second thing a disciple comes to understand about their own heart from the Word of God is this the disciple understands the true nature and source of the human beings filthy heart now let’s look at mark chapter 7 and verse 14 through 23 and here in this particular passage Christ calls his disciples to himself in order to correct the gross error of the religious leaders of the day in verse number 14 he gives a general principle he says in verse 14 and after he called the multitude to him again he began saying to them listen to me all of you and understand and verse number 15 there is nothing outside the man which going into man can defile him but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile a man and verse 16 if any man has ears to hear let him hear so it is really in this passage and then in verse 17 a person is not defiled morally by what they eat of course is the passage of Scripture about eating that they the the religious leaders thought everything you you had a wash our hands and do a ritual before you can eat so you don’t get defiled by food and Jesus is simply saying listen a person is not to file morally by what what he eats even if his hands are not ceremonially washed the phylum is not physical but moral and spiritual in verse number 17 it says and when leaving the multitude he had entered the house his disciples questioned him about the parable and he said to them are you so lacking and under also do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him verse 19 because it does not go into his heart but into his stomach and then it is eliminated so in spite of all our efforts to be pure to be good to be moral to be cleansed to cleanse ourselves God sees our heart and our hearts are full of Filth but see we don’t see ourselves like that we didn’t see ourselves like that before we got converted because the world tells us that we all will all all our good and we have goodness inside of us and we have you know a divine spark inside of us and therefore all of us are somehow have some element of producing something good from our heart but no according to scripture in our natural state we are all unfit for the presence of God Jesus again in verse number 20 of chapter 7 were and through 23 now since food does not pass into the heart how can it possibly defile it can’t what really produces the phial meant nothing that comes from the outside and makes us unclean defilement again is moral and spiritual and it always involves the heart the heart is the center of personality where its will and its thoughts dwell when the contents of the heart spill out how do they spill out of us they spill out in words they spill out in actions and behaviors these are the things that defile a person in verse number 20 of Mark 7 and he was saying that which proceeds out of the man that is what defiles the man for from within out of the heart of men see what the file’s a person is their own thoughts their own words their own actions which are the product of their own heart in other words it’s already all there in their heart in verse number 21 he lists 12 sins here’s not these are not all sins but he lists 12 sins and these are born in the human heart and appear in thoughts words and deeds notice in verse 21 proceed the evil thoughts and fornications and thefts and murders and adultery is verse 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness as well as deceit sensuality Envy slander pride and forces all these evil things proceed from within and these defile the man now what is really wrong with the world why can the world be such a miserable place to live at times why is there so much strife between nations and races and tribes and classes why do relationships tend to fray and follow part well Jesus is saying to his disciples we are what’s wrong it’s what comes out from inside it’s the self-centeredness of the human heart it is sin in fact these evils that come from the heart is what makes us so unclean and we could never clean ourselves up but thanks be to God that God the Father clothed jesus christ with our sin where it tells us he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we may become the righteousness of God in him he took our penalty and our punishment so that we can be made clean through Jesus Christ he paid an infinite cost to himself and God clothe us in costly clean garments where it says in Revelation let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to him for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has been has been made ready it was given to her to clothe herself with fine linen bright and clean for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints so it cost him his blood and it is the only thing that can deal with the problem of our evil heart our defiled heart are filthy heart we come to know that when we become disciples of Jesus Christ but there’s a third thing a disciple comes to understand about their own heart from the Word of God and it’s this the disciple understands the importance of watching over and guarding their heart now the Proverbs gives us some help in this area so I’d like you to turn back to proverbs chapter 4 and notice in this passage that we do glean some very good wisdom God’s wisdom in this area in fact this third thing a disciple comes to understand about their own heart from the Word of God is in the pot is in the process that their heart is in the process once they become a believer of spiritual transformation and as that takes place their own heart must be guarded and watched over so the wisdom book of Proverbs is saturated with information concerning and dealing with the human heart a person who fears God and grows in and seeks godly wisdom will have an advantage over the sinful heart Jesus disciples will keep did will keep actually actually that advantage when they stay true to the wisdom that has been they have been learning along the way from the Word of God now the first way a disciple keeps this advantage is found in verse number 20 through 22 the first thing is by maintaining a dogged attentiveness to familiar truths notice what it says in verse number 20 it says my son give attention to my words now if you look up to chapter 4 of Proverbs verse number 1 in 2 it says here my oh my son the instruction of a father and give attention to that you may gain understanding for I give you sound teaching do not abandon my instruction instruction in other words that the first thing the teacher positions himself as one who has authority over the knowledge of his son the intimacy he has intimacy with his pupil the teacher prods the student to see how weighty and serious the wisdom teachers words are for skillful living therefore the path that God laid out in wisdom is both all demanding and all rewarding it offers its prizes of life and honor and esteem and security and success it also asks for total surrender to its claims and its direction so this particular person who’s seeking wisdom there’s no half-hearted fence Strout straddling type of commitment here the way of life calls for a constant vigilance self-discipline and the singleness of mind and purpose and so if you notice it says the first thing the person does is they bend their ear to the instruction meaning that they take it seriously it says in verse number twenty incline your ear to my sayings in other words don’t stop listening we have imperatives here in this case if you want to reap the results of wisdom you must dog idli maintain the attention of the teachers words my son give attention here we have the consecrated really the concentration of a craving and single-hearted devotion to discovering and doing what is right in the midst of the powerful drive of will and heart in other words if if you will remain a pupil of wisdom if you will remain a pupil of the Word of God and give yourself regularly to it that this wisdom from the Word of God will match the intense cry that is in your heart and the powerful inclination you have in your own heart to go in the opposite direction it’s that rebel inside of you that I’ve been talking about that there your ears are to be attentive but then and notice in verse number 21 again because these things are going to come out of you it mentions the ears and now it mentions the eyes it says in verse 21 do not let them depart from your sight this leads into the very thing that can cause wisdom to be lost from view our own heart why because there’s a fundamental fact about your own heart it doesn’t like to take orders from the mind especially when the mind is being transformed by the Word of God there’s that spiritual battle that you have inside of you that the Spirit of God is leading you one way and transforming your mind and the old remaining corruption is saying I don’t want to do that I want to do the complete opposite of that and of course the time will come for all of us when we don’t feel like doing the godly thing we don’t feel like responding in the right way and but that’s the most dangerous position that any one of us will ever be in and the reason for the danger is when you take a brief intermission and stop looking at the teaching of wisdom you make yourself vulnerable to your own will and affections in other words your rebel voice inside of you becomes louder than the voice of God the voice that comes to us through the Word of God and so we’re left to our own affections and our own feelings and our own will it was Elizabeth Eliot in her book passion and purity who wrote as I grew into womanhood and began to learn what was in my heart I saw very clearly that of all things difficult to rule none of them were more difficult to rule than my own will and affections now hopefully in your life in your Christian walk you have discovered that so that means if I’ve discovered that then I must guard over the inclination to go the opposite direction of what God wants in my life if I pay too close attention to my own fragile heart if you play too close attention to your own fragile heart you will listen to your rebel voice and it will sway you in the wrong direction that means discern the sooner you and I become acquainted with the contents of our own heart the better in fact this is the teaching of wisdom this is what Jesus disciples are aware of as you look through the Gospels this is where they become aware of and then of course if you notice in verse 21 of chapter 4 they also have a retentive heart it says notice this teaching that I’m receiving from the Word of God it says keep them in verse 21 in the middle or the midst of your heart we are not to let the wisdom we have been taught leak out from the vault of our the core of our being we are to guard it there keep it there like two centuries two guards armed guards guarding your heart to keep what you already have there so you don’t lose it so we can’t relax we can’t let down our guard as believers in fact we were admonished this in chapter 2 of proverbs where it says in chapter 2 and verse number 3 it says for if you cry for discernment lift up your voice for understanding and then also it tells us there – in that section of Scripture – write them on the tablet of your heart so writing is more of a permanent way of say saving things heard and the Hebrew word for tablet means to begin to shine it signifies the tablet prepared for writing by means of Polish that means the truth and kindness are to be impressed deeply with within the inner inward man so that they impelled that person to live from the inside out not from the outside in that the teachers instruction in wisdom also is embedded in the heart and it influences every choice and every movement so that means that as the Word of God is in plant in my heart the Word of God becomes louder than that rebel voice and I begin to make decisions based on the truth of Scripture instead of the old ways I used to now there’s a benefit to that in Chapter four proverbs the result of a dogged attentiveness to the Word of God and to wisdom if you notice what it says in verse 22 where they are life to those who find them and health to all their whole body so living by wisdom brings its own reward and here again we have the promise of a full qualitative life that is rich and meaningful and fulfilled and remember the general tendency that keeping the divine precepts issues a prolongation of life and the preservation of Health and health in Proverbs the wear and tear on the Constitution and the spirit are lowered by because of the general prosperity and the well-being of a person who pursues God who pursues wisdom so that’s the first thing in maintaining or guarding the heart is to maintain a dogged of 10 attentiveness to the spiritual truths found in the Word of God and secondly the second way a disciple keeps an advantage is by maintaining a diligent state of readiness he goes back now and notice in verse number 23 it says this be on guard in all your strength at verse 23 watch over your heart with all diligence guarded guarded from danger a good way of thinking of this is to picture guarding your heart as if your heart were a criminal tied in a chair who would like to break free and knock you over the head and take over in other words guard yourself from your hearts sinfulness from the remaining corruption that is still there and think of wisdom as a century standing guard over inner man see we must be realistic about our on a heart if we’d really examine our hearts we would find in them lies and selfishness and self-centeredness and lust and envy and hatred and anger and pride just the name of few and we bounce in and out of those on a weekly and a daily basis so then keep a wary eye on your heart knowing that it can do you damage if you its riff it’s really not carefully watched over and why is that – because the world doesn’t help us the message you hear in the world is follow your heart if you’re gonna do anything follow your heart right you got to feel your heart what do you feel right it’s all about that it’s not about learning truth it’s not about hiding that truth in your heart and keeping it there it’s not about being led by truth and knowing the stuff that’s really going on in your heart it’s about just follow your heart well you know where your hearts going to follow you it’s gonna follow you into it’s gonna file it’s gonna lead you right into a lustful relationship it’s gonna lead you into to a place that you are gonna get yourself in trouble quickly it’s gonna lead you down to just the self-centered selfish life a life that becomes greedy and envious and angry and prideful it’s gonna lead you there see God’s Word warns us that the heart can lead in a wrong to a wrong and even a deadly place so now in verse number 23 we come to the heart of the meat of it and notice what it says it says be on guard in what you are and what you are notice it says from it watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life what flows out of your heart is the very springs of life flow out of the heart see the heart is the central organ in wisdom literature it is often paraphrased as the mind that sense it does have an intellectual component to it but it also pictures the basic orientation of a person embracing desires and emotions and attitudes so it’s really literally out of the keeping of the heart in wisdom is life when that is laid aside someone can getting into real trouble and what is really interesting and even heartbreaking is that the person who wrote and influenced much of Proverbs Solomon the son of David didn’t follow his own advice the wisest man the smartest man the richest man who ever possibly lived on the earth didn’t guard his heart and what happens when you don’t guard your heart you get led astray by the old rebel inside of you now to enforce that I want you to take your Bibles and turn to first Kings chapter 11 verse 3 through 6 first Kings chapter 11 verse 3 through 6 all right I’m to cut to the chase look at verse number three now this is going to be a description of the downward spiral of Solomon’s own heart it’s really a more of a picture of his mental lapse is not guarding his heart it’s a downward move away from the wisdom of God and a willful giving into the powerful inclinations of his own heart see David who taught Solomon and Solomon who taught his sons jettisoned wisdom and turned away from the wisdom Giver and if you notice in verse number three it says and he had seven hundred wives princesses and 300 concubines and his wives turned his heart away verse four for it came about when Solomon who was old his wives turned his heart away after other gods and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of David his father had been for detestable idol of the ammonites and Solomon and verse six and Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not follow the Lord fully as David his father had done now the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord the God of Israel who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing that he should not go after other gods but he did not observe what the Lord had commanded so Solomon was deceived by the sinfulness of his own heart and he followed it and then he followed the idolatrous women that he was involved with then he began to turn his heart away from God and he did not even put into practice his own wisdom so in other words we need to guard our heart now we have this permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God to strengthen us to guard our hearts and so we need to depend on that and the reason why it is necessary to guard the heart is to protect it from wrong thinking as I mentioned several weeks ago guard the heart the thoughts the emotions the will and the spring will be clean the spring of your heart will be clean when you guard those things and when you are constantly transformed by the Word of God so maintain a good objective observation and of observational skills of the Word of God because inside your heart flow the very springs of life the Bible tells us in some in Proverbs 23 give me your heart my son and let your eyes delight in my ways now not only are you to guard be on guard and all your strength not only are you to be on guard in what you are but you’re also to be on guard verse number 24 of proverbs chapter 4 in what you say it says put away from you a deceitful mount and put devious lips far from you now here we have another imperative for us Collin Delich the Old Testament commentary says the man’s utterance is understood to express and be identical with the his thoughts and purposes in other words speech reveals your inner thoughts so crucial our words as windows to the inner life of a person the purpose here is to put away devious and crooked speech thus to avoid the superficial habits of speech like cynical talking and just the seed in lies and grumbling and complaints and also including gossip and rudeness and sarcasm and half-truths and exaggerations all will come when there’s a well-established habit of thought but if there’s a well-established habit of guarding the heart then you’ll be checking off what not to say you’ll be looking for the right words to say and a wise person will be a straight talker but notice in verse number 25 of Proverbs 4 or also to be on guard in what we see it says let your eyes look directly ahead of you ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you in other words the eyes are synonymous with direction and decision to make the right choices there’s two words for eyes a second one seems to mean eyelids or eyelashes and the root Hebrew word relates to flying or indicates the fluttering of the eyelashes or the eyes see youth have kind of like tunnel vision and they usually have do that without blinking but here we see that wisdom is in the presence of one who has understanding and the eyes of the full flutter they are on the ends of the earth they go all over the place to find out how they can fulfill their sinful desires and passions where someone who is living by wisdom is someone who keeps their gaze straight they keep it straight ahead of them the perceptive person looks straight ahead at wisdom and fixes their eyes on the goal and allows nothing to turn them to the left or to the right in other words Gold is spiritual transformation the goal for a disciple is Christlikeness and then of course one other thing that we’re to be on guard to is in verse 26 and 27 but simply is where you go and who you go with it says watch the path of your feet the place where you actually put your feet surely reveals your plan of action so the results of maintaining a state of readiness is found in verse 26 it says and all your ways will be established literally you will have a firm foundation you will as a result of picking your way carefully of guarding your heart you will have firm ground underneath your feet the preparation of the way is by removal of what prevents you from reaching wisdoms destination the plain and the solid way in life is to be secured by accepting the instruction of the wisdom teacher of the word of God or they are life to those who find them and health to the whole body and living by wisdom brings its own reward we have a promise of a full qualitative life that is rich and meaningful and fulfilled so that’s what we’re to do were to stay on the straight and narrow the narrow path for believers don’t turn to the right left hand or to the left turn your foot from evil it says in verse 27 so the right hand and the left hand symbolizes the tendency to roam aimlessly to one side or to the other side of the path of wisdom instead of staying on the path of wisdom so that means the guard the heart from it’s own remaining corruption is to be that the eyes that you have would stay fixed on the right teaching sound teaching that your feet are to stay on the right path the narrow path and following Christ that your mouth and lips must shun using twisted words but speak the truth and love and all else the heart must be guarded by sound doctrine if the Sun or the pupil or the student in Proverbs the disciple listens to his father’s instruction the wise instruction then there are benefits that come with that so the goal and the destination for God’s wisdom is right living enjoyment of God’s blessing and control of sin so wisdom in other words we’ll keep you aware of your own remaining corruption wisdom will give you the right knowledge of the source of temptation which exists an abundant variety and wisdom will provide discernment for the snares of temptation and wisdom will enlighten to identify the people of sin and the bottom line would be this that God wants us to develop a clean heart like David said o created me a clean heart O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me God wants us to develop a glad heart it says in the Psalms therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices my body also will rest secure and God wants us to develop a steadfast heart where the Bible says in Psalm 37 my heart is steadfast Oh God my heart is steadfast I will sing I will sing praises my heart is steadfast Oh God I will sing and make music with my whole soul and the bottom line is this some in proverbs 23:7 for as a man thinks in his heart so is he so in other words that our heart is like a fountain it’s going to spew out good water or it’s going to spew out bitter or bad water so we ought to take great measures when we understand what’s going on in our own heart that will keep it from and protected from going the way of the rebel voice and listening to the Spirit of God and the Word of God and when we do that then we will begin to take very seriously this all understanding of guarding our heart now let me just end with this Peter Marshall a former chaplain of the United States Senate loved to tell a story called the the keeper of the spring this simple tale really beautifully illustrates the importance of constantly maintaining the purity of our hearts an elderly quite quiet forest dweller once lived high above an Austrian village along the eastern slope of the Alps many years ago the town council had hired this old gentleman as keeper of the spring to maintain the purity of the pools of water in the mountain crevices the overflow from these pools ran down the mountainside and fed the lovely springs which flowed through the town with faithful silent regularity the keeper of the spring patrolled the hills remove the leaves and the branches from the pools and wiped away the silt that would otherwise choke and contaminate the freshwater and by-and-by the village became a popular attraction for vacationers graceful swans floated along the crystal-clear spring the mill wheels of various businesses located near the water turned day and night farmlands were naturally irrigated and the view from the restaurants the water sparkled years passed and one evening the town council met with its sim for semiannual meeting and as the council members viewed the budget one man’s eye was caught by the salary Pape paid to the obscure keeper of the spring who is this old man he asked indignantly why do we keep paying him year after year no one ever sees him nobody even knows him this man does no good he isn’t necessary anymore and by unanimous vote the council dispensed of the old man’s services several weeks nothing changed but by early autumn the trees began to shed their leaves small branches snapped off and fell in the pools hindering the rush the rushing flow of sparkling water one afternoon someone noticed a slight yellowish brown tint in the spring a few days later the water had darkened even more within a week a slimy fill film cover the sections of the the water along the banks and a foul odor emanated from the spring the mill wheels moved slowly some finally ground to a halt business is located near the water just stopped the swans migrated to fresher waters far away tourists no longer visited the town eventually the clammy fingers of disease and sickness reached deeply into the village the short-sighted Town Council in enjoy the beauty of the spring but underestimated the importance of guarding its source see we can make the same mistake in our lives like the keeper of the spring who maintained the purity of the water you and I are the keeper of our hearts we need to consistently evaluate the purity of our hearts in prayer asking God to reveal the little things that contaminate us and as God reveals our wrong attitudes our longings and desires we must remove them from our hearts because as the scripture tells us we are to guard and keep our hearts so we obey the Lord and not the old rebel inside amen let’s pray lord thank you again for the Word of God lord I just pray for all of us today I pray that Lord as we just think of ourselves and we put ourselves in the equation because Lord we all deal with this we all know very well that we can easily fall into sin we know sometimes our desires win over and usually sometimes desires that are not good that our evil even so I pray Lord that you would definitely challenge our hearts today challenge our minds that we would take more seriously what’s going on in our our thinking more than ever before and I pray Lord as we find things that are impure as we find things that contaminate the spring I pray Lord we begin to jettison throw them all overboard and I pray the more we do that Lord the more we will guard our heart the more we will be serious about being attentive to the Word of God making sure the word God has retained in our heart and then Lord the Word of God has actually practiced in our life and as we do that Lord I pray that we would be disciples who come to the place where we realized that we have to guard over and keep our heart so Lord we can offer a heart to you that is honorable thank you Lord Jesus for what you have been doing in our life and all that you’re going to do I pray you would bless our are the rest of our day and week I pray these these truths would be embedded upon our mind I prayed that we would actually begin to use them so Lord we can be disciples of Jesus Christ that are pleasing and have good understanding and put our knowledge into practice and I pray this in your name in that