Introduction:
Guard Your Heart… (Proverbs 4:20–27)
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With the WORD OF GOD (Proverbs 4:20–22)
Psalm 119:9–11 (ESV) – How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
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Because it BRINGS TRUE LIFE (Prov 4:22a)
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Because it BRINGS LASTING HEALING (Prov 4:22b)
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With UNWAVERING VIGILANCE (Proverbs 4:23–27)
Luke 6:45 (ESV) – The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
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By Watching WHAT YOU SAY (Prov 4:24)
Proverbs 13:3 (ESV) – Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
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By Controlling WHAT YOU FOCUS ON (Prov 4:25)
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By Directing WHERE YOU GO (Prov 4:26–27)
1 Kings 11:2–4 – ...for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love... For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods...
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Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:45-00:52
The Lord saved me at a young age, but my relationship with him wasn't really deep until I was a senior in high school.
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At that time, I became a serious student of God's word, and I bought myself a nice new Bible.
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Do you wanna see that nice and new Bible 16 years later?
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All right, thanks.
01:06-01:07
I'll show Jay, Jay wants to see it.
01:08-01:09
Here's how it looks now.
01:10-01:10
How's it look?
01:13-01:17
Some of you get it, yeah, it does look good, in some ways, doesn't look great in other ways, though, does it?
01:17-01:21
You may be wondering, did you get run over by a lawnmower or something while you were reading it?
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Well, nothing as dramatic as that, but for years, this Bible went everywhere with me.
01:26-01:31
I took it to Haiti, twice to Kenya, all the missions trips I led as a youth pastor.
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I preached a lot of sermons and taught a lot of lessons from this Bible.
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When I first bought it, I protected it, I guarded it, I kept it in the box it came in whenever I put it into my backpack or went on a trip.
01:46-01:51
But as years went by, I stopped protecting it with the box and I just hoped for the best.
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And I kept getting more worn out, kept getting more beat up.
01:56-02:01
With each passing year, I kept looking worse and worse and worse and worse.
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It really bummed me out to look at this Bible and what it had become.
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Other people would comment on it as well, like, "Dude, you need to buy a new Bible "or get it rebalanced.
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It's gonna fall apart any minute.
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So I eventually took people up on that and I bought a nice leather-bound Bible.
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And I learned my lesson with my old Bible because I still have the box for the new one and I still keep it in there all the time whenever I travel or put it into my backpack.
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I am resolved to guard this copy of God's word moving forward.
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It has immense value to me.
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"It is precious to me, so I want to take care of it "by any means necessary." According to God's word, there is something of immense value within you that you often fail to consider and guard properly.
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Your heart.
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Your heart should be precious to you, and you should want to take care of it by any means necessary.
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Over this past year, we have focused on one major theme from scripture, God wants your heart.
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God wants your heart, but what if you don't want God like you used to?
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What if you don't wanna give God your heart like you used to?
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This is the final week of our latest series, Heart Problems, What to Do When You Don't Want God.
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Every single person in this room has a heart problem of some kind.
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It could be apathy in prayer, spiritual laziness and gratitude, an unrepentant sin in your life.
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Thankfully, God has solutions to every single heart problem you can experience.
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And over the past few weeks, we've discovered three of God's solutions to these heart problems.
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evaluating your heart, confessing sin from your heart, and giving thanks with your heart.
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Maybe at this point you're thinking, well Taylor, I'm good to go, I've done all those things, I've evaluated my heart, I've confessed sin from my heart, I've given thanks with my heart, time to move on from this series and go back to the Sermon on the Mount, thanks so much, I'm done with this.
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Well not so fast, you are missing one important piece of the puzzle, and that is guarding your heart.
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'Cause if you fail to guard your heart, you will lose all the progress that you've made over the past few weeks, and all the old heart problems that you had will return and intensify.
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New heart problems will pop up and spiral out of control.
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You must protect yourself from this danger.
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You must do your best to resolve these heart problems when they first pop up, instead of ignoring them and leaving them undealt with.
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We'll spend the rest of this message talking about what it looks like to guard your heart in action.
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I want you to walk out of this series with a confidence that you can resolve heart problems right when they appear through God's power and with God's methods.
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So before we continue, let's go to the Lord in prayer.
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Please pray for me and I will pray for you.
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Father, we come to you with a sense of weightiness, but we all have a heart problem of some kind right now.
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None of us can say that we don't.
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I pray that we can be honest about it this morning.
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to bring those things to you so that you can change us, so that you can convict us, so that you can build us up.
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Lord, I can do none of those things.
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All I can do is share your word, but you are the only one who can use your word to change lives, and I ask that you would do that this morning.
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I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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So over the past two Sundays, we spent a lot of time with King David in the Psalms.
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This morning we're gonna spend some time with King David's son, Solomon, in Proverbs chapter four, verses 20 through 27.
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So if you have a Bible with you, please turn to Proverbs chapter four, verses 20 through 27.
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And as you turn there, let me give you a quick crash course on King Solomon.
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At a young age, this man was given a blank check by God himself.
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Name what you want, and I'll give it to you.
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You ever think about how awesome that is?
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Just imagine that.
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What do you think you would ask for if God gave you that blank check?
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Well, Solomon didn't ask for what was expected.
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He didn't ask for riches, for honor, or the ability to fly.
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That would've been really cool, though.
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No, what does he ask for instead?
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Wisdom.
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Wisdom, which is the ability to apply God's word to every situation you experience and every decision that you make.
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Wisdom is knowledge in action.
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And God was so pleased with this answer that he still gave Solomon all the stuff he didn't ask for, minus the superpower of flight, he didn't get that.
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But Solomon was blessed with so much material stuff, most importantly, with wisdom from God.
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And he used this wisdom to accomplish a lot of great things like building the first temple, but later in life, he squandered that wisdom, which we'll talk about at the end of this message.
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But the first nine chapters of Proverbs are written from the perspective of a father speaking to his son.
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Solomon is addressing his own son, but he's also acting like a fatherly figure to anyone who listens to what he has to say.
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His wise words should not be ignored.
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They should not be forgotten.
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They should be treasured.
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And in these chapters, Solomon tells his son that wisdom is the most valuable thing.
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It's better than silver, gold, or precious jewels.
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He needs to seek after wisdom and get it.
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He also warns his son against many things that he should not do.
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But our main focus this morning is Solomon's words of wisdom about his son's heart.
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That is the thing that Solomon is most concerned about because if your heart is wrong, it doesn't really matter what else you get right.
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Solomon gives his son and everyone who reads Proverbs 4, 20 through 27, the same command, guard your heart.
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So on your outline, guard your heart with the word of God.
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Guard your heart with the word of God.
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Let's read verses 20 through 21.
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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.
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These verses remind me a lot of conversations with my dad when I was younger, when he made it very clear that I should listen to what he had to say and not tune him out.
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And I have very similar conversations with my own son that vary in their level of effectiveness and success.
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In those moments, I want my son Sam to close his mouth, open his ears, and heed my warnings to listen to what I have to say.
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But you have to remember that this instruction from an earthly father isn't the only thing happening in this passage.
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Remember, this is the authoritative word of God.
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It's not just the end of the Andy Griffith Show when Sheriff Andy sits down with Opie to give the major moral lesson.
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No, your heavenly father is sitting you down to give you commands and instructions.
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God himself is calling you to be attentive to his words, to incline your ears to his sayings, to not let them escape your sight, and to keep them within your heart.
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That sounds very similar to Psalm 119, nine through 11.
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How can a young man keep his way pure?
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By guarding it according to your word.
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With my whole heart I seek you.
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Let me not wander from your commandments.
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I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
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You cannot guard your heart, fight sin, and lead a pure life apart from significant time in the Bible.
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It's just not possible.
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It's like trying to build a deck on the back of your house without any tools or any supplies of any kind.
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You can have the best of intentions, but you will get nowhere fast.
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It's not enough just to read the Bible.
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You need to keep it, store it up in your heart.
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How do you do that?
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You push out other things to make room for it.
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You kill the bad habits in your life.
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You let go of those hobbies that hold you back and that vie for your attention.
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You make room for God's word by memorizing it.
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I know what some of you are thinking, Taylor, I can't memorize stuff, I have a horrible memory.
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Let me share a universal truth with you.
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you memorize what you care about.
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You memorize what you care about.
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If you love sports, you have a ton of information about players, games, teams, right at your fingertips at all times.
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If you love golf in this room, you have a lot of information downloaded into your brain about the perfect golf swing, all the courses you want to play at in the world.
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If you're a movie freak, you have film knowledge, directors, actors right in your brain.
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What is the focus of your memorization?
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What do you make the most room for in your heart?
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John Bunyan, the man who wrote one of the best-selling books of all time, The Pilgrim's Progress, hundreds of years ago, was described in this way.
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"This man is a living Bible.
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"Prick him anywhere and he will bleed the Bible.
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"The very essence of the Bible flows from him.
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"He cannot speak without quoting a text, "for his very soul is full of the word of God." Is that description true of you?
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I wish I fit this description far more than I do.
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But this can describe you, it can describe me, if we grab a hold of the right motivations.
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And let me tell you this morning, I have no desire to guilt you into spending more time in the Bible.
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Do you want to know why?
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Because that motivation won't last beyond the end of this week.
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You may be diligent in studying, reading, praying this week, but it won't last any longer.
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You need the motivation only God can provide. You need to believe that this book is far more important than anything else you can set your mind to or fill your time with. You must truly be convinced from your heart that that reading this book, studying it, living it, applying it, blesses and benefits you in every way and in every area of life.
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My yelling, my nagging, my pestering may make you feel like a shamed dog who got bopped on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
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But those tactics will not make you love the instructions of your heavenly master even one bit more.
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So let's talk about two motivations that will inspire you to guard your heart with the word of God.
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So on your outline, guard your heart with the word of God because it brings true life.
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Because it brings true life.
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Let's check out the first half of verse 22.
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For they are life to those who find them.
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You are only as healthy as what you consume.
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As the old saying goes, you are what you eat.
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That is true both physically and spiritually.
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Your physical well-being cannot rise above what you put into your body.
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Your spiritual well-being cannot rise above what you put into your heart.
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When he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8.3, "Man shall not live by bread alone, "but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Maybe you are spiritually starving this morning because you have never feasted on the word of God.
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You have never tasted the goodness of Jesus Christ in the gospel.
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Listen, nothing and no one can satisfy your longings or cravings apart from Jesus Christ.
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Stop poisoning yourself with the junk food of this world.
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That diet will do nothing but make you sick, hurt your heart, and kill your eternal soul.
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Life is offered to you today in the word of God.
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Let go of the junk food of this world and grab a hold of Jesus Christ, who suffered, died, and rose again, so that you can have eternal life it starts now and lasts forever.
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Grab ahold of Christ by faith and you will have that life.
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Guard your heart with the word of God because it brings true life and because it brings true healing.
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Because it brings true healing.
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Let's read all of 22.
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For they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh.
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The word of God provides a remedy for every ailment.
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It provides a solution to every heart problem.
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This book is like the ultimate Swiss army knife.
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It is multifaceted, multipurpose, and useful for every situation.
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It is a genuine lifesaver.
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I can't guarantee you much, But I guarantee you there is no trial, there is no discouragement, there is no relational issue that you cannot come to the word of God and find wisdom for.
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There is no issue you'll come across and be like, ah, well, the Bible can't help me with this, time to buy a self-help book or watch that Lifetime movie, maybe that'll help me.
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No.
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The healing help you are looking for is in the word of God, it's right at your fingertips, you can have access to it every single second of every single day.
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And the Lord has brought me so much healing personally by praying through scripture, especially through the Psalms.
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The Psalms provide you a vocabulary for how to pray to God as you experience every emotion, anger, fear, frustration, confusion, sadness, excitement, joy.
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Do you pray through scripture?
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If you don't, let me teach you how to do it.
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This is very complex.
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Are you all ready for this?
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All right, really pay attention.
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Read a verse and then pray about it.
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Read the next verse and then pray about it.
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Read the next verse and then pray some more about it.
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Rinse, wash, and repeat.
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Can you do that?
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You can do that.
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Pray through God's word.
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Pray through the Psalms.
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Are you overwhelmed right now?
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Are you at the lowest point that you've been in a long time?
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Are you in need of healing?
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Push out what the world has to say about you and your issues, make room for what God has to say about you and your issues.
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Guard your heart with the word of God and you will experience the healing and the life that you are so desperate for.
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Guard your heart, secondly, with unwavering vigilance.
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With unwavering vigilance.
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Verse 23 is the centerpiece of this entire passage.
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It is one of the go-to verses when it comes to the importance of your heart.
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Solomon writes this.
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Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
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After a year of repetition, you may be tired of hearing it, but I'm going to say it again.
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Your heart is who you really are on the inside.
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Your heart is like a spring or a fountain.
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Everything that you think, say, and do flows from it.
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Most fountains only pour out what they are filled with.
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If a decorative fountain is filled with contaminated water, it will only pour out unclean water that you shouldn't drink.
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If a fondue fountain is filled with cheese and chocolate, you shouldn't be surprised when it only pours out cheese and chocolate.
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Your heart is a fountain that will only pour out what it is filled with.
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Have you ever come across a person who is rude in every situation and constantly rags on everyone?
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And then someone comes along to defend this person.
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Oh, well, you know, they might be rough around the edges, but deep down, he or she really is a nice and kind person.
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What do we think about that?
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Is that true?
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Incorrect.
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What is in that person's heart spews out of their mouth.
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Their heart is full of resentment and disrespect, so it comes out in how they talk to everyone.
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I can't put it any better than our Lord, when he said, "The good person out of the good treasure "of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
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You show who you really are by what you say and by what you do.
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And with that essential truth in mind, Solomon says, "Keep your heart with all vigilance." Vigilance.
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Do you know who I think of when I hear that word?
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McGruff the Crime Dog.
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Does anyone remember McGruff?
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He was a character in the '80s who was created to increase personal safety and awareness of crime.
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He was a bloodhound in a trench coat who had a really deep and intimidating voice.
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Does anyone know what his tagline was?
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Anyone remember?
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"Take a bite out of crime." McGruff set his sights on important issues like bullying, drug use, home invasion.
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And he would just be so emphatic that you have to defend yourself, you have to have alarm systems, you have to have a deadbolt on your door.
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McGruff wants you to be constantly aware and unwaveringly vigilant in order to guard your loved ones and yourself from the crime that wants to take a bite out of you.
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Well, God himself wants you to be constantly aware and unwaveringly vigilant in order to guard your heart from the sin that wants to take a bite out of you.
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You cannot take breaks or vacations from this vigilance.
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Heart security is infinitely more important than home security.
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Spiritually, your head needs to be on a swivel at all times.
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You must be circumspect, not careless, cautious, not casual.
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So what should you be on the lookout for?
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How should you guard your heart with unwavering vigilance?
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Well, next on your outline, guard your heart with unwavering vigilance by watching what you say, by watching what you say.
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Let's read verse 24.
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Put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you.
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Crooked speech and devious talk, what does that mean?
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Well Solomon is saying don't mess around with lying and deception.
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Do not bend the truth to fit your narrative.
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Do not fudge the facts to get out of trouble with your spouse or your boss.
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Don't stretch the truth to make yourself look more impressive than you actually are.
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It's really tempting to believe that lying isn't a big deal as long as you only do it sometimes and don't make a habit out of it.
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That is a stupid thought that you and I both fall for.
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We've already established that you show who you are on the inside by what you say on the outside.
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So let's run that through.
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If you lie to others on the outside, who does that make you on the inside?
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That makes you a what?
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A liar.
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It's that simple.
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You cannot call yourself a lover of the truth if you constantly indulge in one of the activities that God hates the most.
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Elsewhere in Proverbs it says, "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord." So should you mess around with something that is described so harshly?
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No, we really shouldn't.
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The pathway of Christian speech is straight, not crooked.
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You need to walk the straight highway of God's truth instead of stumbling down those side roads of deception.
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Put away crooked speech and devious talk by fessing up to how you've been deceitful.
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Sit that person, sit those people down to unravel every single lie that you've told.
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Those conversations sure won't be fun, but they sure will set your heart free.
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Put away crooked speech and devious talk by entering into tough conversations, by praying to God, God, I know I'm gonna be tempted to be dishonest, I know I'm gonna be tempted to stretch the truth, guard my heart, help me to only say what is true, even if it costs me.
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Put away crooked speech and devious talk by diving into Proverbs that talk about how you speak.
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Proverbs like the one we're studying this morning, or Proverbs 13.3, whoever guards his mouth, preserves his life, he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
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Be vigilant in guarding your heart by guarding your mouth.
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Be vigilant in what you say and what you don't say.
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Guard your heart with unwavering vigilance by controlling what you focus on, by controlling what you focus on.
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So Solomon moves from what you say to where you look in verse 25.
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"Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you." Where you look is where you'll end up.
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Where you look is where you'll end up.
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Imagine that after church, I take a nice long scenic drive.
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I find myself on a row with a really steep embankment.
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And for some reason, I stop looking directly ahead and my eyes start to wander to the embankment.
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Keep looking at it, keep looking at it, keep looking at it.
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If I keep doing that, where am I going to end up?
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Smashing into the guardrail or through the guardrail and rolling down the embankment.
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I will most likely get in a very serious accident.
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I could have avoided that if I had kept my eyes looking directly forward where I should have been looking.
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Where are you looking right now?
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Are you looking where God wants you to look?
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Or are you looking where the enemy wants you to look? Where the world wants you to look?
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If you keep up with watching those corrupting movies and shows, you'll end up with those movies and shows rewriting your thinking.
27:44-28:02
If you keep up with mindlessly, endlessly scrolling on social media all hours of the day, you'll end up as a spiritual zombie, as an undisciplined slacker who doesn't give his or her family the time and attention that they deserve.
28:04-28:12
If you keep up with that pornography addiction, you will end up feeling very alone and ruining the good connection that you have with your spouse.
28:13-28:15
You become what you behold.
28:17-28:22
Be vigilant in guarding your heart by controlling where you look and what you focus on.
28:24-28:34
Finally, guard your heart with unwavering vigilance by directing where you go, by directing where you go.
28:36-28:39
Let's wrap up with verses 26 through 27.
28:40-28:44
Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure.
28:44-28:46
Do not swerve to the right or to the left.
28:46-28:49
Turn your foot away from evil.
28:52-28:54
Staple this truth to your brain and never forget it.
28:55-29:00
You are one decision away from life-shattering disaster.
29:01-29:06
You can destroy all the trust that you've worked so hard to build up in an instant.
29:07-29:11
You can tear your reputation to shreds with one choice.
29:13-29:17
You can do serious damage if you're not careful of where you go.
29:19-29:21
Don't do what feels good.
29:21-29:23
Don't do what feels right.
29:23-29:24
Do what is good.
29:24-29:26
Do what is right.
29:26-29:28
Ponder the path of your feet.
29:29-29:32
Direct yourself to where you should go.
29:34-29:35
But here's the thing.
29:36-29:39
You can't ponder the path of your feet on your own.
29:40-29:44
You will go to the right or to the left if you isolate yourself.
29:44-29:49
You will not turn your foot away from evil if you try to go this way alone.
29:50-29:54
Direct yourself towards worshiping with God's people every single week.
29:55-29:59
Direct yourself towards intentional Christian community in small groups.
30:00-30:06
Direct yourself to honest and accountable relationships in the body of Christ.
30:08-30:17
If you have been on the outskirts of this church for weeks, months, or even years, I want to encourage you to dive in.
30:18-30:21
Take a risk, be vulnerable.
30:22-30:28
Listen, you may have been hurt in the past by a church, and I in no way want to nullify that or minimize that pain.
30:29-30:32
But that pain will not go away if you don't get involved in this church.
30:33-30:36
it will only get worse and worse and worse.
30:37-30:44
To truly be in community, to be truly known, to truly know others, it's always a risk.
30:45-30:47
It always requires you being vulnerable.
30:48-30:51
Take that step in faith and trust the Lord.
30:52-31:00
Trust that He will direct you to where you should go, that He will direct you towards greater maturity and connectedness in the body of Christ.
31:01-31:05
Please know that we love you and we want you here.
31:07-31:10
Be vigilant and guard in your heart by directing where you go.
31:12-31:18
At the end of this message, you may be thinking, well, Taylor, all this stuff that Solomon is saying is very obvious.
31:18-31:20
I already know all this stuff.
31:20-31:21
It's not complex.
31:23-31:23
You're right.
31:24-31:29
Keeping your heart, guarding your heart is not complex, except when it comes to actually doing it.
31:30-31:39
when theory becomes reality, when rubber meets the road, when your worldly desires experience a head-on collision with your godly affections.
31:43-31:49
Before we close a curtain on this series, I want to give you a word of warning from Solomon himself.
31:51-31:56
It's actually a warning from his own life because Solomon didn't listen to his own words.
31:58-32:02
As time went on, he didn't guard his heart with the word of God.
32:03-32:06
He didn't guard his heart with unwavering vigilance.
32:07-32:13
He was told time and time again, don't marry foreign wives from pagan nations who worship other gods.
32:14-32:18
If you do that, they will cause you to not be faithful to the Lord.
32:18-32:21
Solomon knew that, but he didn't listen.
32:22-32:26
Which leads to one of the saddest passages in the entire Old Testament.
32:27-32:29
Solomon clung to these in love.
32:29-32:35
He had 700 wives who were princesses and 300 concubines.
32:36-32:39
And his wives turned away his heart.
32:41-32:45
For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods.
32:46-32:52
And his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
32:54-32:57
What a heartbreaking end for Solomon.
32:58-33:01
What a serious warning for you and for me.
33:02-33:03
Solomon knew it all.
33:04-33:07
He knew what the right thing to do was, but he didn't do it.
33:08-33:10
He didn't guard his heart.
33:13-33:16
It's tempting to think, well, my heart seems like it's fine right now.
33:18-33:22
But then you fail to think, well, I'm gonna have heart problems moving forward.
33:24-33:29
You may not think that you have heart problems right now, and that you're free from them, but what about tomorrow?
33:31-33:32
What about next week?
33:33-33:34
What about next month?
33:34-33:35
What about next year?
33:36-33:36
Are you ready?
33:38-33:44
Evaluating your heart is not a once in a lifetime appointment it is a daily appointment with the Lord.
33:45-33:49
Confessing sin from your heart isn't something you just do once at your conversion, no.
33:49-33:52
It is a daily acknowledging and repenting of your sin.
33:53-33:58
Giving thanks with your heart isn't something that you just do in November when you're eating turkey with your family.
34:00-34:06
It is a daily discipline that shapes how you view God and how you view your own life.
34:07-34:11
Guarding your heart isn't just something you do when you have the time.
34:11-34:16
No, it's something you do 24/7, 365 days a year.
34:18-34:25
Guard your heart with the word of God because it is the only source of help, encouragement and strength that you can find.
34:26-34:32
Guard your heart with unwavering vigilance for from it flow the springs of life.
34:33-34:38
Your heart problems can only be solved by God's solutions.
34:39-34:39
Let's pray.
34:42-34:43
Father, we come to you.
34:46-34:50
And we acknowledge that there is something going on within all of us.
34:52-35:02
doubt, severe anxiety, constant complaining, a sin that we don't think anyone knows about, but you do.
35:04-35:06
Would help us to lay all those things at your feet.
35:07-35:13
Help us to seek after you for help, for encouragement, for strength.
35:13-35:16
Lord, we don't have the energy in ourselves to guard our hearts.
35:17-35:21
We don't have the passion that's needed within ourselves, but you do.
35:21-35:31
Give us your strength, give us your encouragement, give us your passion, so that we can guard our hearts, not just today, but every day moving forward.
35:32-35:35
We ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Proverbs 4:20-27
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
How do you guard your heart with the Word of God? How would you describe your devotional life and the ways it needs to improve?
What does it look like to be vigilant in guarding your heart? How have you been lazy in guarding your heart in the past?
What actions steps do you need to take moving forward?
Breakout
Pray for one another.