Guard Your Heart | Proverbs 4:2

Transcript is automatically produced. Errors may be present.

Good morning, everyone. How are you doing? Good morning. It’s my pleasure being here. It’s my second time teaching in this year here, so it’s interesting. I didn’t expect it. So hopefully you will enjoy our time together. We are in this amazing new series on Proverbs, which is about walking in this searching for wisdom.

So yeah, I’m glad to be here. Thank you for having me. We just had nine days of amazing mission trip in Costa Rica. So it’s been amazing to see your students engage w- with our students in Costa Rica, have great conversations, have them serve our community in connecting with our students and our kids and our church.

It’s been amazing. So I just want to say thank you to them. They did amazing job. And also the leaders. You have to see the leaders going through the challenge. They called it the the jungle challenge in one of the retreats that we did. We did a retreat with the, with our students in Costa Rica, your students, and the non-believer friends of our students.

In one of the days, we have this challenge to go through the mud. But it was, like, exactly a huge lake of mud, that probably they still have some dirt there. So they have to take a shower a couple times. So can you give a round of applause for them and their job?

It was a blessing for us. I’m really humbled to say it and to feel this honor to be participating with you and the partner that your church gently and humbly want to have with our church in Costa Rica. So thank you for that. So let’s go up to Proverbs. And the passage for this morning is gonna be Proverbs 4:23, that for most of you is gonna be, like, quite well-known verse.

So it’s all about wisdom, and I just found really interesting in the era of the AI explosion, it’s quite import- in- important to think about wisdom. Now with this AI happening, so is all these apps where you can do these questions, and then now you can give them instruction how to work and how to work for you.

So you now have these applications and subscriptions about getting in the AI. So it’s interesting because years ago we have another explosion with social media And social media promise us that we will be more connected, and it will be more social, which we know that it never happens. So actually, social media never get us to connect with each other well, and actually probably isolate us more because now we have a thousand friends in our applications and maybe a couple of them that we are actually having some type of relationship.

So now with AI, I found really interesting that may– it’s gonna happen the same to these promises of AI in AI agents and is soon to come, the super AI, I don’t know if you ever heard about that, which is sketchy and scary. Then now we’re gonna turn more smart and everything’s gonna be easy and all that, but probably what we most need to search and seek is wisdom.

So social media will still be a tool, a good tool, and also AI will continue to develop as a good tool. But for us as a Christian, the thing that we most are looking for and searching and seeking is the wisdom that just can come from the Word of the Lord. Amen. So let us go to this verse, which is well known and let me guide you to three momen- moments into this teaching.

The first one is gonna be the context, and then I will guide you into see the most important words and how those words relate into the passage and finally into more practical application of this idea. So let’s read it together. “Above all else, guard your heart. Everything you do flows from it.” So when you see it at first glimpse it’s simple.

You’ve been hearing this since a long time. But they bring you to ask you about what is that so important about the heart? And most importantly, how is that possible to guard our hearts, and from whom or from what? So let me get into the context just to understand better this idea. Let me go back I already underlined things. Oh, it’s interesting. It’s different. Okay, you follow me. It’s gonna be… All right. So in the first two verses let me get in context so we understand what is the tone and what is the emotion behind this passage. Solomon says, “Listen, my son.” So listen, my son, “To a father, instruction.

Pay attention and gain understanding. I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teachings.”

Let me try this again because I’m trying to underline. Now, okay. Now it’s working. So he’s talking about this instruction that is given to his son. It says the instruction, the understanding, the learning, and teaching, and all these combine for gaining an understanding and to have wisdom. Wisdom is not something that you can just learn or repeat or see it in a book and then it just happen.

You have to go and experience and obediently follow the instructions as a son who listen to father in order to keep searching for more. So this passage presents the father instruction to his son, and show how this wisdom was passed down through the previous generations. So in the next verses, six to nine, says, “Do not forsake wisdom and she will,” and find this interesting, “and she will protect you.

Love her, and she will watch over you. The beginning of the wisdom is this: Get wisdom. To cost all you have, get understanding again. Cherish her, and she will exalt you. Embrace her, and she will honor you. She will gave you a gold arm to grace your head and present with, present you with a glorious crown.”

So what is interesting to me in this passage, too, is there is a clear connection between walking through the life wisely and a personification of wisdom, calling us to develop a close and intimate relationship with it. Which is interesting enough that is present to us like a lady wisdom, that she can be close, and she will take care of us if we just keep lady wisdom with us.

This is part of the idea of keep walking with her, and this idea of a personification of the wisdom. But then later on in verse 10 and 11, this is all in through the chapter four of Proverbs, again says, “Listen, my son, accept what I say.” And the years of your life will be many. I instruct you in the ways of wisdom.

And by the way, the ways of Je- the, the ways of wisdom has to do with the ways of Jesus If you walk the wisely, that wisdom will guide you to Christ, which is the life and the true is in the way. So wisdom is totally connecting us all the way to Christ Jesus. And said, “And lead you along straight paths.

When you walk, your step will not be hampered. When you run, you will not stumble.” So it’s this idea of a father, I don’t know if you got the images, but I can see in my mind taking one of my kids’ head and talking to them straight to their eyes and say, “Listen to me. If you follow these instructions, you will be walking in the right path.

Don’t go any other place to the, your right or your left. Just follow Lady Wisdom. Search for her. I instruct you this way of wisdom that it will give you final destination with Christ. And they and the wisdom will take care of your walk and your steps. It will continue to do that.” This father asks his son to listen carefully so that he may walk on the right path and not turn aside in any direction.

So that’s the context of this passage of above all else, guard your heart. Everything’s flows from it. So if you see the passage, these are the main two questions that came to my mind. What is the heart? More importantly, what is the heart according to the scriptures? And why do it matters so much? And secondly, how did, how do I protect and guard my heart?

So there’s two main questions that I gonna guide you to try to discover if the Bible can give more light to this idea of the heart, and also how to guard everything in our hearts. So let’s start with a k- quick study and most important words that repeats in those passages. So the first word, and actually I know that Aaron shares a little bit about this word in Hebrew, the heart, which is a in Hebrew is the word lev.

So Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength.” So let’s mark soul and strength. And that was a really important passage for the people of Israel because it remind them that God is just one God, and they need to keep searching for Him and love Him above all e- All other things around it.

Love it with all the heart and soul and strength. And actually, that passage is one of the most important for all Israelite. In that time they call it they still call it a Shema. This Shema comes from the word listen, which is the same word that Solomon u- uses to say, “Listen, my son.”

Shema Israel, and Shema, my son. So listen to this: Love the Lord your God, again, with all of your heart and all of your soul and all your strength. So the use of the word heart in the Old Testament is extensive, but it’s mostly used in a figurative sense. That is, it’s not refers to a physical organ itself but rather into association with emotions, desires, and will.

So what’s is interesting enough is the– this is an Old Testament passage, but then Christ will reply about the same command. So there’s a bunch of Pharisees, religious people at the time of Jesus, asking to Jesus, “What is the most important command that we should observe, we should follow?” And Jesus reply, “Love the Lord your God, with all of your heart,” again, “and with all of your soul, and then with all of your mind.”

Those two words relate with each other. And actually, soul, heart, and mind is an intertwined concept in the Bible. So it’s really important to understand that. If you just take the, the word heart and the bi- passage says, “Guard your heart,” and we just take it from the physical pers- point of view, I will say to you this morning, just stop too much of the bacon and some other sugars and you will guard your heart, right?

But of course, these concepts go beyond the physical understanding. So it’s really important. So in the New Testament– Likewise, in the New Testament, the word heart is used to refer to a center of a person: emotions, thoughts, desires, and will. So it’s a profound, short, little word that contains a lot of meaning that has to do what have to do what– who we are really.

What is this heart of who we are reveals to others? So let me go to this one. So the heart refers to an inner core of a person, the center of their thoughts, personality, emotions, desire, and will. It represents the essence of who they truly are, the essence of who we really are. In its figurative sense, the word heart Points to an inner person where our thoughts, emotion, desires, and decisions are formed.

What we think, what we feel, and what we do ultimately reveal the condition of our heart. So that word is so important to understand the concepts behind every word and try to connect it with each other to try to understand what is the value of looking so deeply into this understanding. So other concepts that are closely connected to the heart in the scriptures, as I said, is mind, soul, and heart.

So in ancient times, they utilized the heart because they knew at that moment that the heart is the organ to pump the blood in our entire body. So that’s where idea the flows goeth. So everything go– flows from our heart in this metaphor of the heart pumping blood to the entire world, entire body.

And what is interesting, they knew, so the, the heart is one of critical organs to keep us alive, so they utilize in that way. But now in more modern times, we know that it’s the mind who is in charge of receiving all of our things that we s- hear and see, and listen, and understand, and so it turns more– is more clarified for us to understand the mind as the center of these thoughts, personality, emotions, and desire.

So from now on in my teaching, I will refer to your heart. That make sense? Probably when you get married, you told your wife, “I will love you with all of my heart.” But probably your wife was saying I want you to love me with all of your mind, too.” Which is ac- actually better, right? I want to understand what it means to have this commitment, and this have to do with everything do you think, you are, your emotions, desire, and will.

So it’s… That’s… It’s this a really important way to understand what is happening, and to understand this next idea of everything flows from it, from the heart. Everything flows. And what is interesting enough is everything good flows through it, and everything bad also flows from it, which is a sad news that I have to give you this beautiful morning.

But as you can see in these two verses, it’s really important to know about this. “A good man bring good things out of a good store in his heart. And an evil man brings evil things out of the evil store up in his heart, for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” And here is a huge question: What is your heart full of today?

What are their main thoughts and emotions in your hearts today? Because everything flows from it. In Proverbs 10:11, “The mouth of the righteous is a fount of life,” which is really similar idea of the Holy Spirit in ourself running like living waters. Do you remember that pra- f- “But the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.”

And this idea of concealing, even when it’s not my language, as far as I understand, conceal is like to hide something, not reveal what is true in my mind, emotionals, in behavior. So everything’s flows from it. So what is important to understand these concepts and how it works is like the heart, your inner soul, your inner personal- personality, things, thoughts, and desires, is a really powerful and beautiful thing.

But it’s something that you have to must guard because could be deceiving, could be dangerous. From this point on, I want you to tell you that the call to guard our hearts should move in two main directions So the first one have to do to protect our hearts from the external influences. Because as I said, we receive all of these emotions and information and images and sounds and from all of the places.

Just imagine how many videos you can see, these short videos you can see in your cellphone while you are waiting someplace. It’s a lot of information. Think about your s- your young your kids or even the, the younger kids, how much they are all overstimulated by all the things that they are listening and all the things they are receiving.

This is a overstimulating society. It’s th- that many things coming to us, and many of those are not quite nice for us. And sometimes we don’t can e- we cannot even define what is good or not. There are a lot of things that come to our mind, to our heart, that are not good for us, and we are not well put-together hearts in a way that can, we can protect it.

So let me go back again to Proverbs 4 now to verse 24. Listen to this: “Keep your mouth free” Free of perversity. Keep corrupt talk far from your lips. What it says in here is be mindful of what you said and whom you shared with. There are many things that I’m say sometimes that are not correct. There are many things that I’m listening from people speaking to me that are not correct.

And there is a lot of conversation sometime that I have with people that I should not be talking about. And the part that this verse remind us, and it’s telling how to guard our hearts for these external influences. So first at all, watch, be mindful of what you’re saying, what you’re listening to. In verse 24…

25, “Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.” What it said is just keep your foot where the path is showing, where the wisdom is guiding you. Don’t go to your right or your left. Just watch or be mindful of whatever you’re watching. So verse 25 have to do to be careful what you look at and whom you look at it with.

And in the… then in verse 26 and 27, “Gave careful… Give careful thought to the path, for your feet is being steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn right or left. Keep your foot from evil.” So again, it’s whatever you are listening to, whatever you are looking into, and wherever you are going, keep in the direction, in the right path.

In the right path, the right way is the way of wisdom. So there is a lot of influences where we j- just need to be wise and to understand there are things that I should not be seeing, listen, or talking because they will shape my heart, and it will be dangerous for me. It… because the heart will be deci- deceiving me from what it should be doing.

But most importantly, or more than the ex- external influence, we need to be aware of this. Number two, guard your heart from your own heart. So yourself. Which you may find interesting is like, “Diego, how in the world I can keep myself or guard myself from my thoughts and my heart?” Look at these two passage.

We’re gonna give you some light about this. Jeremiah 17: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” “I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind.” Which is interesting enough. This is another verse where he’s making this connection between the heart and the mind.

And it’s remind us that even ourselves can understand quite well what is happening into our thoughts and desires and will and personality. And even more profound, it says, “The heart is deceitful

and is beyond cure. It’s a really heartbroken passage for us to understand. But for me, it’s really important because sometimes we tend ourself to say we are good and our heart is good, and sometimes we actually say we are better than this person and than the other person. I’m a good person with a good heart.

But the Bible says you’re not And actually the idea that you’re good is part of how your heart is deceitful. Because make me, make us think that we are good, and when you think you’re good, you’re never gonna seek for the Lord. If you think you are good enough, you will never will depend on the Lord. You will never let the Spirit to transform your mind, and your soul, and your actions and personality.

You will think you’re fine. You will think that going to the church and listening to a sermon or something, it will be more than enough for my life. But in the end, watch your heart, because even yourself, you don’t know exactly what is happening there. And you can slightly going into a wrong direction.

Until you figure it out that time, and it will be too late maybe. So Mark 7, chapter 7 verse 21 to 23, “For it is from within-” Out of the person’s where? Heart. The evil thoughts come … Hey, look at the list. It’s quite interesting. Sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, loneliness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.

All this evil come from the inside and defile the person. The person, remember, is the heart, your will, your character, your thoughts and emotion Everything flows from it. And what, in this particular passage actually is Jesus responding to the re-religious people at that time because they were telling “Your disciples don’t clean their hands,” don’t wash their hands, “and your disciples don’t clean the glasses, and some of your…

the things that you, the tradition that you should be following, you’re not doing it.” Because the idea that they have is this, the evil comes from the outside, so you must preserve yourself from the outside. In the ancient times, medieval times, probably you remember the, all the monks, monasteries, they have that they have this idea that if you put yourself in a desert place, you will be okay, and then you will be saint.

But Jesus is saying, “No matter you will be with people or by yourself in a desert, it’s your heart with this, with this sinful nature that is dangerous.” Which is interesting because it’s not that it’s outside a risk. It is also outside a risk, and there’s m-many influence coming to us. But mostly it’s our heart which is dangerous to us.

So we need… So the question, the big question is how we can handle this, Diego? How we can just figure it out this beyond cure? It’s through Jesus, in Jesus, and by the Spirit y-you can just surrender your heart and obey His will. So you start to say, “My will not be done, but be done yours.” So you start to lean your heart, lean your personality, lean your thoughts, and lean your feelings, your emotion in towards God and what He wants you to reveal to your life, and their pur- their purpose for your life.

So the cure, of course, is leaning to God, leaning to be this path of wisdom that in the end just gave us this beautiful surprise that is in through Christ and in Christ that can, our hearts can be transformed. So Romans 12:2 remind us, our hearts, our minds have to be renovated. Is that the English word in that verse?

Have to be transformed ultimately. So you might say, “But it’s have to do with my personality.” It had to be transformed. “It have to be with my thoughts.” It must be transformed. “And what about my feelings?” It must be transformed in order to keep, in order to guard our hearts. So the first thing here is im- really important to have this conscious that our heart are deceitful And the only way that we can guard our hearts is depending on the Lord and just willingly Let our heart or gave our heart to God so he can change our ways of way of thinking.

We must recognize that our heart are vulnerable and that our sinful nature constantly pulls us towards sin. The heart is precious and powerful, yet it’s also deeply burnable and must be guarded every time. So let me go to a couple of conclusions, more practical connecting all the things that we’ve been talking.

Wisdom begins with recognizing the true nature of our hearts. The true nature of our hearts. It’s like you are not good. Your heart, my heart are not good. As we allow God to transform our hearts, we are better equipped to guard ourself against the influence of Satan and the world. So everything starts for recognizing our true nature, and surrender, and repent in order to God transform our hearts, and then we be, be better equipped to guard ourself from Satan and from the outside influences.

Secondly, wisdom is not found in an app. So save for that and no more subscriptions. It comes through a mind being continuously transformed by the Word of God and by the action of the Spirit. That is wis- what is wis- wisdom for us. It’s in His presence, in His Word, in His community, the church, and by the power of the Spirit.

And finally, a heart that fears the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And a heart surrendered and guarded for the Lord lead us along the path of sanctification. So that tension between our will and our desires and our thoughts against what God want for us, emotions, desires, and thoughts, is what we call sanctification.

We all Christian has to submit in this process where I guard my heart from myself from the other external influences. So you let or you allow the Spirit to transform your thoughts and behavior and emotions. Sometimes I find myself, of course, in counseling with people, couples, and many times happens to me that people say, Diego, sometimes I think about something, and then I feel different things about that same subject, and then I act totally differently.

It’s like I was like three persons in me.” And I don’t know, I, I cannot figure it out how to make that works. I thinking about something, but then that make me feel like this other way, and then finally I act. It’s like you were all over the place. Like you, your body, your sense, your emotion, your inner person is pulling apart.

This is what exactly our nature is. We are all over the place. Sometimes, I don’t know if it happen to you, it happens to me, the emotional are over the top, and I don’t know how to handle it. So I need to guard my heart again and go and say, “Father, could you instruct me into wisdom in this particular emotional time?

Can you guide me to wisdom in this particular thoughts that are coming to me? And these desires that could be nice or good desires, but they can easily go in other places.” So the only way that you can make sense of your thinking, your feelings, and your action is God put everything in alignment with His will and His Word, which is easy to say, but it’s qui- quite different thing to do.

But that’s a big challenge for us, how to make– how to allow God to put alignment and make my thinking and my emotion and my actions in the proper way. Did you ever approach someone that had that ability? They have that spirit We all have to drive desire, and it’s one of the characteristic that people who live in a wisely manner.

So let me finish with these three questions so you may be able to conversate, have conversation at your house, hopefully with your spouse or with your kids at home or some friends at work. First, what are the s- what are some things that your heart desires today that are pulling you away from God? Now listen carefully because some of those desire, it’s not they are totally bad, but they can easily go in, in other direction.

Maybe you have the desire to have or change your house, which a really nice and interesting desire. You must go forward. But watch your heart in order not to put all of your effort into change the house. You may have that house, but you may lose your family. You may have that house, you may lose your relationship with your spouse and your kids because you put your sp- you put yourself in a spot that is not convenient in terms of economic, of whatever.

So second question, what are the strongest external influences that are shaping my heart? What are the things that I’m listening frequently, one see and looking at frequently, or these i- new ideologies and new progref- progressive understanding of life? What are those strongest external influences that are shaping my heart, and how can I stop it right when this time?

And la- lastly, who can I come alongside and help in the process of guarding their heart? And for the, for me, this one is one of the most important. It’s about discipleship because I found myself more conscious of my heart when I’m walking with someone else into helping with his. You know what I’m saying?

It’s part of idea of being a community, and it’s part of idea of following the Rabbi, which is Christ, and He call us, He say, “Follow me,” to be a disciple. So a disciple of Christ, what mostly do is guard their hearts from this inner thing that is happening with us all the time, from the external influences, but most important also walking with someone else will help you with your own path to the wisdom.