The Heart

Sermon by Michel Philippe, elder at the Evangelical Church of Villeurbanne-Cusset, Lyon, France and manager of a Christian books edition house (Editions Clé) Online service (YouTube) held on 06 December 2020.

Proverbs 4:20-27

All Bible passages taken out of the NKJV – New King James Version (unless otherwise specified).

The date and time are May 14th, 1974 at 8 PM. I am 9 years old and I am watching the [French] presidential debate on TV. There was not much on French TV for kids to watch in the 70s! François Mitterrand challenges Valéry Giscard d’Estaing on ways to share the country’s wealth. He says: “It’s almost a matter of intelligence; it’s also a matter of the heart”. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing then replies a sentence that became famous [in France]: “But you do not have, Mister Mitterrand, the monopoly of the heart”. He would say later that those 10 words [in the original French] allowed him to win the election 2 weeks later to become the 3rd elected President of France’s 5th Republic.

When we speak about the heart, we deal with a very important part of the human being. Nobody is indifferent to the subject matter. That is why romantic movies and love stories always fascinate us. The heart is our central organ, it circulates blood in our entire body. We can hear it beat, more or less rapidly depending on the situation but when it does beat rapidly, it is always during important times in our lives. When a person loses consciousness, a heartbeat is the first thing we check for. In our common language, the word “heart” is more often associated with emotions, strong feelings, sensations. It is almost always synonym of “life”.

We can be “heartless” and have a heart that works very well.
Our heart can be “broken in 1000 pieces” and still have a heart in one piece.
We can have a “good heart” and suffer from chronical cardiac malfunctions.

This shows us that the word “heart” can be quite paradoxical depending on the context.

The Bible uses the word “heart” 836 times, but it is rarely used to talk about the blood pumping organ.

What does the word “heart” mean in the Old Testament?
1. Is it our intellectual endeavors? Proverbs 14:33 “Wisdom rests in the heart of him who has understanding, But what is in the heart of fools is made known”
2. Is it our emotions? Proverbs 14:10 “The heart knows its own bitterness, And a stranger does not share its joy.”
3. Is it our personality, the inner man? Proverbs 27:19 “As in water face reflects face, So a man’s heart reveals the man”
4. Is it the physical organ? Proverbs 15:30 “The light of the eyes rejoices the heart, And a good report makes the bones healthy”
5. Or finally is it our ambitions, our plans: Proverbs 19:21 “There are many plans in a man’s heart, Nevertheless the LORD’s counsel – that will stand.

All the answers are correct, but each definition is used at various degrees of frequency in the Old Testament:
· “Heart” is used 257 times with the meaning of personality, inner person or character of a person in general
· 204 times meaning intellectual activity
· 195 times as our will or plans
· 166 times for our emotions
· And only 29 times in the physical sense of the organ.

We see that the word “heart” more often designates our inner life, our spirit, our thoughts, our will rather than just simply our emotions. In fact, we could almost say that our heart is all in our head!

In the New Testament, the meaning is almost identical as in the Old Testament. We find the Greek word “cardia” which gave us “cardiology”. It designates our rational thoughts, our intelligence, our understanding, our conscience. It also means our emotions such as desires, worries, love, sadness and also our will and plans. In summary, in the New Testament, the heart includes the entire person, our entire being.

As you understand from this introduction no doubt, the subject of “the heart” in the Bible is a very important one.

The book of Proverbs alone mentions the word “heart” 79 times. Those Proverbs were written to teach us wisdom. They help us with our daily life, to make wise decisions in all matters, decisions that reflect our profound respect for God; that is what the Bible calls the “fear of God”. In other words, the fact of thinking and acting according to God’s Word.

The portion of Scriptures we are studying more closely today is Proverbs Chapter 4, verses 20 to 27:
(20) My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.
(21) Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart;
(22) For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh.
(23) Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
(24) Put away from you a deceitful mouth, And put perverse lips far from you.
(25) Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you.
(26) Ponder the path of your feet, And let all your ways be established.
(27) Do not turn to the right or the left; Remove your foot from evil.

This morning I will focus more specifically on verse 23: “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” or more emphatically in the Amplified Version: “Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.”

We will develop the following points:
1. How important it is to guard your heart
2. Why you must guard your heart
3. How to guard your heart

1. The Bible tells you to “keep and guard your heart”. It is a commandment and therefore it is important to do so. That alone should be a motivation to do what is being told to us. Note that the verse says “Guard your heart”, not “God will guard your heart”. It is not something God does for you, but it is our responsibility, each one of us to do so. God does a lot for us in our lives but this, he entrusts it to us. God gave us all we need, everything necessary for life and godliness. Peter tells us so in 2 Peter 1:3: “as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,”
Consequently, we have to do our part to grown in Him and to “guard our heart” is our part to play in the sanctification, in our walk with God.
Cardiac arrest is the most common cause of death in the world. Even so, God does not require us to do cardio training to guard our heart. Guarding our hearts is meant as guarding our inner person, thoughts, will and emotions.

But this verse says even more. It tells us to guard our heart “above all that you guard”. So what else are we “guarding” in our life? Our passwords, car, smartphone, credit card, reputation, physical appearance? Keep your heart more than your body. By the way, how much time do you spend in front of the mirror putting on makeup or chiseling your abs? Don’t forget to embellish or exercise your heart too…
We are also to guard our heart more than we guard our money. Proverbs 4:7 says: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.” The heart is the recipient of wisdom. Guard your heart more then you watch over your kids or your immediate family. This might seem shocking to some and I am not saying you should not watch your kids carefully when they cross the road or when they are roaming around the kitchen. What I mean is that if guarding your heart does not take priority over guarding your children and your loved ones, they are the one who will suffer first from the damages your heart will cause in their lives. You must put “spiritual vitamins” in your heart every day so that trials and day to day frustrations do not cause you to pour out anger onto your loved ones. God asks us to guard our heart above all else, with care, attention and eagerness.

But why guard our hearts?

2. Verse 23 says that from our heart “spring the issues of life” or “flow the springs of life”. That is the main reason to guard our heart as from our heart flows all we do in our lives: our speech, thoughts, acts, affection towards others, will and desires. Our heart affects all these aspects that make our lives. The phrase “spring of life” suggests the idea that our heart is like a water spring and that the purity of our life depends on the purity of the water flowing out of that spring. So, how is your spring? Is it dried up? Is the water barely trickling out of it? Or is it producing clean water, pure and refreshing, springing powerfully from the depths of your heart to hydrate and refresh the lives of those around you?
A passage from Matthew’s Gospel helps us understands this verse even better. Matthew 15:18-20 “(18) But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. (19) For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. (20) These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”
This passage does not conform very well with COVID-19 protocols but we are not talking here about physical impurity but rather spiritual impurity. What makes us impure, Jesus tells us, is what comes out of our month, not what comes in; what comes out of our mouth comes from our heart. Note that all the sins mentioned in verse 19 are a result of our covetousness: those sins have to be thought out before they are acted upon. That is exactly what the word “premeditation” suggests: we don’t commit adultery by accident; it is not something that suddenly falls on us without us knowing about it beforehand. And the same goes for all the sins mentioned in that verse: fornication, theft, false witness, etc. We sin in our head before we sin in with our body. Yes, we sin when we let our evil thoughts take root and let our will submit to these thoughts. It is in our heart that we ponder and meditate on our actions. And it is in our heart also where we find the will to go through with our actions, whether they are for good or for evil.
Yes, it is vital to guard your heart as everything that comes out of it will impact your life and the life of those that are close to you.

So how are we to guard our heart so that what comes out of it is pure, fresh and overflows? That is the third point; how to guard our heart.

3. Several types of efforts are necessary to guard our heart.
First, Jesus must be the owner of your heart
Proverbs 20:9 says: “Who can say, “I have made my heat clean, I am pure from my sin”?”
Proverbs 6:14 “Perversity is in his heart, He devises evil continually, He sows discord.”
We are not born with a pure and clean heart; since the fall of mankind, as it is described to us in the book of Genesis, we know the man and the woman chose to do what they wanted instead of obeying God. They decided to no longer trust His words and instead chose to believe lies. Thus, they set aside God and elected to lead their own life. In a way, they became their own gods. Their hearts were stained, soiled; their hearts became unbelieving, disobeying, evil. The sin, that is their rebellion against God, disobeying, messed up their hearts.
But the Gospel, the “Good News”, is that God has a plan to give us a new heart. God sent His son Jesus to pay for my sins on my behalf the sins that I committed. And not just for me but for you as well if you want it to be so. If you recognize that your heart is also messed up by sin, if you ask Him for forgiveness with sincerity for your sins then know that Jesus can and wants to give you another heart.
It is free for you but Jesus had to pay the ultimate price for us and give His life. It is free but it is worth it. The new heart that God gives you, when you confide in Him, that new heart will naturally want to be consecrated for God, love God. You will have in your heart the desire to give your entire life to Him in return to thank Him for His precious gift. You will realize that God has freed you from the power of sin.
When Jesus makes a new person out of you, with a new heart, He also gives you His Spirit. This Holy Spirit will accompany you all your life and show you not only how to guard your heart but also also how to accomplish the good deeds that God has prepared for you in advance.
Ephesians 2:10 (AMP) “For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined [planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].”
It would be unrealistic to try and guard your heart if it has not been purified by Jesus first. That’s what He does every time someone bends the knee of his/her heart before Him. If God gave you what the Bible calls a “new birth”, you are now to guard your new heart.

So, how do we do that?
Let’s pay close attention to verses 20 through 22:
(20) My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.
(21) Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart;
(22) For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh.
Most of the Proverbs were written by Solomon. Even if the Proverbs we are looking at today were addressed to Solomon’s son, we can still apply it as if our Lord Jesus Christ is asking us to do the same.

The second effort to guard our heart is to give attention to the Word of God with your ears and your eyes.
Did you notice that we live in a society where everyone wants our attention? TV networks sell to advertisers “minutes of available brainpower”. Your attention has a price. We are actually the victims of an attention war: social media, advertising, television, YouTube, video games are all world champions at wrestling for our attention. And now God is added to the list: Him too wants our attention. But our God wants us to know Him personally; He is not trying to sell us stuff. Rather He’s the one that paid a high price for us. He loves us; he deserves a lot more than our mere attention. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to know him without listening, listening to Him intently. Practically, let’s turn off our smartphones’ notifications what we are praying or reading our Bible, avoid any distraction that are preventing us from being attentive to His Word.
The language of love for my wife is quality time. I can tell you that when I am listening to my wife, if I am not giving her my full attention, she is unhappy, frustrated and I notice it very quickly. With God, it is a similar situation: we love Him, He loves us, our discussions are precious. Our relationship with God is the most important one and He deserves our full attention when He speaks to us through His Word; it is a sign of respect. For you to be attentive to His words, you have to “incline you ear” and “not let them depart from your eyes”. In a modern application, when you read the Bible, you cannot at the same time looking at your social feeds and listening to Spotify.
“Guarding your heart” also means that you have to choose carefully what you listen to, what you put in your ears; fill them with the Word of God, Christian songs or podcasts. You also have to learn to be careful what you let your eyes watch: choose the Bible, good Christian books or movies and Bible based edifying videos.

One on the aspects that stood out for me while preparing this message is the aptitude of the heart to memorize.
Proverbs 4:21 -> Solomon exhorts us to keep his sayings in the midst of our heart.
Proverbs 4:4 “[…] Let your heart retain my words […]”
Proverbs 7:2-3 “(2) Keep my commandments and live, And my law as the apple of your eye. (3) Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”
Our heart is like a hard drive. It memorizes, saves everything that is happening in our life. To this end, you have to choose well what you present to your eyes and ears. Good things will feed you heart but so will the bad things. We cannot watch a movie without our heart being affected: degrading images, pornographic or violent hurt our heart. The same goes for our ears; if we are constantly filled with profanities, our heart is being soiled.

Many other verses invite you to etch, safeguard the Word of God in a secret place in your heart. If His Word is on your heart, it will always be accessible; it will weigh on your heart when you are pondering or making a decision et what springs forth will be pleasing to God. You will be able to obey more easily to God’s commandments as the path that you are to take will appear more clearly. As an application, I encourage you to select verses or passages of the Scriptures and to memorize them. It really is a powerful mean to acquire wisdom and relieve this wisdom later on.
If you pay close attention to the Word of God with your ear, your eyes and your heart, verse 22 tells us that this Word brings “life” and “health” to the body. There an influence of the heart, our inner being onto our external self, i.e. our body. Isn’t that awesome?

The third principle to guard your heart is to guard your mouth, eyes, and feet.
This principle is a vicious circle if you disobey but a virtuous cycle if you obey. Allow me to explain. If you make all efforts to guard your heart then as consequence, you will guard your mouth, eyes, and feet. If you guard your mouth, eyes, and feet then you contribute to guarding your heart. That may sound strange but that is the message that verses 24 to 27 have for us. If you guard your heart, then your mouth will not say just about anything and everything. It is important to understand from this that if your heart pours out atrocities, anger, and insults through our mouth, then with our mouth, we keep soiling our heart and keeping it impure. Remember the passage from Matthew chapter 15: it is what comes out of our mouth that makes us impure. This verse applies to what we say but also every trace we leave on social media, do not forget that. Therefore, when we control our mouth, we take care of our heart, we guard it.

Verse 25 says the same thing for your eyes: if you look straight ahead, that means your projects are clear. Your eyes know where they are going and will not deviate from your goals. Have you ever given a side look to something? It reminds me a painful memory from school: I was in a physics class, I was not understanding anything of this quiz and my eyes started wandering towards my classmate’s paper to see if he was more inspired than I was. I am not proud of this. I soiled my heart by allowing my eyes to drift. If you guard your heart, your will to respect rules and do what’s right will be increased and the desire to let your eyes wander will no longer be in you.

Finally, verse 26 encourages you to prepare a straight path for your feet. The meaning of course here is not to be watchful not to trip over roadworks but rather to choose what is good and to give yourself the means to make this choice by flattening the footpath to make it easier to stay on the right path. Flattening could mean staying away from places or people that are dangerous for your heart. Flattening can mean spending time on worthy projects so that you do not find yourself with “time to kill” by binge watching series on Netflix. If you fill your agenda with beautiful projects, meaningful gatherings with others, all valuable for the glory of God, you will find that you will have little time left to wonder how to flee this bad habit, this laziness or that sin. If you act well, you guard your heart. If you guard your heart, you will what is evil better and better and you will naturally practice the good deeds that God has prepared for you in advance.

To conclude, I would like to share with you a gardening tip: you must pluck out weeds as soon as you see them. That’s it! I had the opportunity to verify that gardening principle several times in my life. One of the gardener’s worst enemies are weeds. They always grow better that the vegetables! They take up space, they steal water, nutrients, and light. They steal all of these resources from the good plants of course. If pluck them as soon as we see them, we only need 2 fingers to pull them out. If we let them grow, their roots go deeper and this time, we need our whole hand to pluck them. And if we let them develop and germinate then it gets really complicated: you often need both ends to pull up 3-feet high stems. Even worse, the bad seeds make even more weeds, and the garden gets even worse as the months go by. The bad seeds, the weeds, are the sins in our life. If we get rid of them as soon as we identify them, then we can keep our “life garden” clean and producing good fruits. If we delay our fight against our sins, it is becoming more and more painful and hard to destroy those sins. The Bible tells us to give death to our sins. My advice thence: do not let weeds overwhelm the garden of your heart.

I started this message with a quote from Valéry Giscard d’Estaing: “But you do not have, Mister Mitterrand, the monopoly of the heart”. Nobody has the monopoly of the heart. Jesus and Jesus only must have the monopoly of your heart. That is why the Bible invites you to guard your heart about all else. Jesus only must have this special place in your heart. Jesus only must have the monopoly over your entire heart.

Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you for this new heart we can have thanks to Jesus Christ who gave his life for us and who paid the price for our trespasses. I pray for all my brothers and sisters who hear this message this morning so that you may visit them and help them, help them to see how to specifically, in their life, guard their heart so that your Word may be etched deep in their heart. I pray also for those who have yet to give their heart to you, that you may knock on the door of their heart, accept you, desire to give their heart to you, entrusts their heart to you so that you can purify it. Thank you for the joy it is to know you and the new life you give us with this new heart. Amen.