Let’s just take a moment to pray and seek God’s help. Heavenly Father, we’ve just asked that you would help us to stand on every promise of your word, and so we pray that we would continue that attitude into this message, that we would have open ears to listen, that we would have soft hearts to receive, and that, Lord, we would have compliant wills that want to obey, to trust, to love, to follow. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray.

Amen. Did you see in the news this week that Dolly Parton died? She was the queen, they called her the queen of country music. She passed away this week at the age of 80.

(0:59 – 2:44)

And there’s been all sorts of clips doing the rounds, as happens when someone famous dies. I saw a particular clip, maybe you saw it. She was on Songs of Praise, the BBC Sunday afternoon programme.

And the interviewer asked her, he said, you’ve been quoted as saying that you live your life for three things, God, music, and sex. Dolly smirked, and she said, I was half joking, but half serious. All of those things matter to me.

In fact, she said, now that I think on it, I should have added food as well. It’s a fascinating question, isn’t it? I wonder how you would answer it if the microphone was shoved in your face and you were asked, be very honest, what is most important to you? Would it be some of the things that she said, God, music, sex, food, or maybe things she didn’t mention, family, career, money, status? What is on the list for you? In the passage of the Bible that we’re looking at today, a father is telling his son what he should put on the list of his priorities. Indeed, he not only gives his son a number of priorities, he has the audacity to tell him what the top priority should be.

(2:45 – 3:08)

He uses this phrase, above all else, above all else. I want you to prioritise something above everything else in your life. Well, if you stick with the sermon for the next 20 minutes or so, we will discover what that one thing is, but we’ll also discover two other priorities.

(3:08 – 3:31)

So there are three priorities in this passage, and we’re going to look at them briefly together. So number one, the importance of what you pass on, the importance of what you pass on. The first nine verses of Proverbs 4 are about a multi-generational family.

(3:32 – 4:24)

You have a father who is instructing his sons, verse 1. But the father, verse 3, harks back to his father. So in other words, in this passage, you have a grandfather, a father, and a grandson. Three generations, three layers present in this passage.

And the father, the middle layer, is doing that thing that sometimes irritates children. You know the thing? When I was a boy, you know, when I was your age, because I was your age once, he’s doing that. And when I was your age, my father taught me the things that I’m now teaching you.

(4:25 – 4:51)

Verses 4 to 9 are the substance of what grandpa said when father was their age. It’s summed up in verse 5. Here’s what granddad’s message was. Get wisdom.

Get understanding. In other words, granddad used to say what their dad is saying to them. Get wisdom.

(4:52 – 5:07)

Acquire wisdom however you can. Because if you do, wisdom will look after you. Again, as we’ve seen in Proverbs, wisdom is personified as a lady.

(5:09 – 5:53)

But here, wisdom is actually not just a lady. She’s more like a wife. Not just a woman, but more like a wife.

Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you, love you, and watch over you. She will be like a person who takes care of all that you have and all that you are. In this sense, how much is she very much like Jesus? Because wisdom, as we see in the New Testament, isn’t just like a person, but wisdom actually is a person.

(5:54 – 6:48)

He’s called in one place, Christ, the wisdom of God in 1 Corinthians. You see, at the end of the day, the outcome of your life, whether the outcome is good or bad, whether your destiny is delight or disaster, is actually determined not by a programme or a set of principles, but it’s actually determined by your relationship with a person. It comes down to a person and all that he has done for you.

But anyway, the grandfather tells his son to get wisdom, and he says to him, though it costs you everything you have, get it. Lose everything else in order to get hold of this. Nothing is more valuable.

(6:50 – 8:17)

Because you see, when you know wisdom, ultimately, when you know Jesus, that leads to honour, verse 8, and it leads to glory and life, verse 9. And if these sons follow this advice, then the multigenerational transfer will continue from them to their sons and from their sons to beyond. I think it wouldn’t be right to be preaching this today and not say something about how we need to continue to do this very thing now as much as then. It didn’t escape my notice when I was reading this this week that actually in the baptism today, I hope you don’t mind me saying, Douglas, but we have a grandfather.

We have a grandfather coming to be baptised, and we have multiple generations present. And it’s a remarkable thing, isn’t it? That God’s plan to get his good news out is not to use an army of AI robots who will spookily be turning up at your front door within the next year or so probably. God’s plan is not even to carry the message of good news on the wings of an angel.

(8:18 – 8:31)

I’m sure they could do maybe a better job in some ways, but it’s not his main plan. It’s through granddad, and it’s through grandma. It’s through dads and moms.

(8:31 – 9:10)

It’s through ordinary human relationships. So your friend, your neighbour, your work colleague, that the greatest news in the world is transmitted. What is going on right now in Sunday school is exactly this.

As we are teaching Proverbs here, they are teaching the book of Genesis to our children. Because the greatest legacy in life is not the stuff you achieve. It is what you pass on and what you pass out.

(9:11 – 11:13)

Let me just say also that you might be here this morning, and you might consider yourself as a looker-in to the Christian faith. You’re kind of, as it were, outside the window. You’re looking in, and maybe you’re looking in with curiosity.

Maybe you’re looking in thinking, wow, that looks really interesting. I want to know more about what those people seem to have in their life. Or maybe you’re outside the window, and you’ve actually got no interest at all of going in, and you don’t fancy it at all.

But whatever the case, did you know that God has placed in your life people who in his grace and goodness are those who are passing on the goodness of life to you? You can probably think of who those people are by name this morning, and God has placed them where they are in order that you might hear the gospel. Well, that only happens if there is a granddad or somebody like him. The importance of what you pass on.

But secondly, the importance of which path you take. The importance of which path you take. Now, in verses 10 to 19, the father returns to an image that he’s been using throughout this book.

It’s the image of two paths which lead to two destinies. There’s the way of wisdom, verse 11. The way of wisdom is a straight way, and it’s a smooth way.

In fact, he actually says here that it’s so smooth that you can run along the way of wisdom, and you won’t trip up because there’s no obstacles in the way. It’s going to make your life go in the right sort of direction. But by contrast, verse 14, don’t set your foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers.

(11:15 – 11:33)

You see, the decisions we make in life really matter. Notice here that going down the wrong path begins with a single step. And that step onto the path of wickedness then becomes a walk.

(11:34 – 11:49)

A walk is your daily routine, your daily decisions that you make hundreds of times every day. That’s your walk. And that step that becomes a walk, then eventually in time becomes a destiny.

(11:50 – 13:39)

Some of you were at an event last night where they were reporting on an organisation that helps people who are in the grip of addiction. And as Terry said at that event last night, the addiction problem is the human problem because what begins as a choice starts to become a habit, and eventually becomes a slavery. Look at that development in verse 16, for they cannot rest till they do evil.

They are robbed of sleep till they make someone stumble. It’s a metaphor, of course, it’s not kind of literal, but it’s an image, a picture of someone who has become by this point addicted to doing the wrong thing before God. It’s almost like they can’t sleep at night because they’ve not wronged somebody yet.

What started as a step became a walk, and what was a walk has now become an ingrained lifestyle. It’s verse 17, like the person’s food and drink. To use the biblical word sin, what we’re seeing here is where sin becomes normalised in a person’s life.

And to a great extent, it is now therefore unseen by the person. I think that’s the sense of verse 19, that the way of the wicked is like deep darkness. One of the things that darkness is associated with in the Bible is ignorance of unknowing.

(13:39 – 16:26)

They do not know what makes them stumble, the verse goes on to say. Here’s a person who is lost in life, but they’re not fully aware that they’re lost or how badly they’re lost. They’re stumbling along blind to the fact that their life is like a dark prison.

It’s a groundhog day of repetitive darkness and lostness. And ultimately, it is leading to a very dark future. It’s no surprise that the New Testament, when it’s describing that ultimate destiny that’s not heaven, but the other destiny, it’s not a surprise that the Bible uses the picture of darkness to describe separation from God.

But that darkness begins actually here and now. It begins in the choices you’re making today that becomes a way of life, that eventually becomes an eternal destiny. But there is another path that is possible, a path of freedom, a path that won’t bring you harm, a path that’s described in verse 18 as one of ever increasing light.

The path of the righteous is like the morning sun and it’s dawning ever brighter to its noon strength. What a description of the life of Christian faith. It’s not that life immediately becomes easy in every respect.

We know that. But when someone puts their faith in Jesus, whatever it costs them, there’s a light that comes into their life. There’s a hope.

There’s a future. There’s peace and there’s a prospect. Whatever’s going on in life and that light that comes into our life, burns ever the brighter, the further down the road we go.

And especially as we pass through death into eternity, when it becomes noonday brightness. So which path are you on in life? This is not just Proverbs. Jesus said, you know, Jesus, who was this very kind, if you read the gospels, incredibly kind and tolerant sort of person.

But Jesus himself said, there’s basically two roads and everyone’s on one or the other. You’re either on the narrow road that leads to God’s life, or you’re on the very wide road that leads to death and darkness. Did you know that early Christians were sometimes called followers of the way? The way, that was sometimes how they referred to Christians, followers of the way.

(16:28 – 17:35)

Are you on the way? The way of light, life and freedom, or are you on the other path? I want you to realise something today. I think this is very important to say this in a time where many people are becoming more interested in Christianity as I think a kind of religious life hack. They’ve found life hacks in other areas and money and in relationships and other things.

And it’s like, okay, Christians are now offering some helpful extra life hacks that we can sort of tack on to the other stuff that we’re doing. It’s almost as if you use the Bible and you use Christianity to get a few better outcomes in your life. Listen, that is not the Bible’s teaching at all.

Embracing the gospel is not about marginal gains. Embracing the gospel is about your fundamental direction in life and your final and ultimate destiny. That’s the stakes here.

(17:36 – 18:05)

And because this is so important, church family this morning, there is nothing more urgent that we do as a church than prioritise sharing this gospel that changes people’s destinies. I mean, every church has that as a theoretical priority. But if the gospel is true, surely that has to become the real priority in our church.

(18:06 – 18:37)

Well, the importance of what you pass along, the importance of which path you take. But thirdly and finally, and this is where we take it up a final notch, the importance of guarding your heart in verses 20 to 27. Now, we need to understand when verse 23, we’re focussing particularly in verse 23, when verse 23 refers to the heart, we need to understand what it’s talking about.

(18:38 – 20:32)

The heart in the Bible is not the organ that pumps blood around the body. And it’s also not just a way of speaking of human emotions. Like when someone makes the comment, that music touched my heart.

What they’re saying is the music moved me emotionally. So we tend to connect heart and emotions, but the Bible has a much fuller definition of what the heart is. The heart is the inner you.

The heart is the inside person. It’s the core of who you are. It’s the entirety of your inner being, your true self.

And that inner you thinks, that inner you wants certain things, that inner you decides things, which path you’re going to take. And yes, that inner you also feels certain things. It includes the emotions, but it’s much more than the emotions.

So by that definition, if you change a person’s heart, the whole of the person has changed entirely, according to the Bible. They think differently. They desire new things.

They decide different things because they have a change of heart. And so what verse 23 is saying, I think, is that the heart is infinitely precious. In a world where people are outwardly obsessed with appearance, where there’s a focus on the externals and on achievement, on the aesthetics of how we’re coming across on social media, the Bible says that what is going on inside of you is infinitely more important than how you appear.

(20:34 – 21:24)

Because as you’ll notice in verses 24 to 27, a person’s heart, the condition of it, leads to all that they say and do. Or as the end of verse 23 puts it, everything flows from the heart. The heart’s like a gushing water source.

Your heart is not like a stagnant little pool, you know, that’s going nowhere. It’s a stagnant water. The heart is a gushing water source.

It’s a source. And so the condition of your inner self pumps its way out into the way you think, the way you behave, the things you decide, the things that you do and the things that you say. And therefore, your inner self is the most important thing about you.

(21:25 – 21:37)

And therefore, it must be guarded. If it’s in a good position, if it’s got wisdom, if it has Christ in the heart, then it needs to be protected. It’s infinitely valuable.

(21:39 – 22:59)

And so I need to ask you, I’m sorry this is a little bit intrusive, but I need to ask you an intrusive question. I need to ask you, what is going on inside of your life? The bit that I can’t see, that no one around you can see, what is the condition, not of the organ that pumps blood, but what’s the condition of the inner you? To use biblical language, do you have a stony heart, a hard heart, or a soft heart towards God? Do you have a believing heart in Jesus that trusts Him as the only way to God? Do you believe that Jesus died in the place of sinners, including you? Do you believe that you’re right with God through faith alone in grace alone in Christ alone, that it’s not of works and yourself, but it’s all of what He’s done for you? Is your heart, spiritually speaking, alive rather than dead on arrival? Jesus, in John 7, speaks of those who believe in Him, and He says this, He says, whoever believes in Me, rivers of living water will flow from within him. See how Jesus, new Proverbs, that’s the gospel, that’s the gospel.

(22:59 – 23:21)

When you believe in Christ, there is this new life within you that begins to flow out into the way that you behave and the things that you say. The apostle Paul, in Romans 12, also speaks of inner transformation and outward action. Let’s see if you can note the parallel between what Paul is saying and what Proverbs is saying.

(23:21 – 23:39)

Paul doesn’t use the language of the heart here, he talks about the mind, but I think he’s talking about the same dynamic. I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship.

(23:40 – 24:16)

Ah, but where does the bodily behaviour and sacrifice of the body come from? Paul tells us, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This is Paul’s way of speaking of the whole new inner person, the new mind that leads to a new life. Douglas will be coming shortly and telling us something of how he came to trust Jesus many years ago and how he’s continued to trust him over many years.

(24:17 – 25:05)

And I suspect that at the heart of what you’ll be saying will be something of this, this inner transformation, this new creation reality that has played its way out in his visible life. It’s not of him, but it’s what the Holy Spirit and what the gospel has done in his life. What is most important to you? I hope that number one on your list is that your heart is in the right condition before God, because Jesus has forgiven you, restored you, and renewed you, and that the light of the gospel has come into your life in such a way that it’s growing towards that great full noon display of glory in the future.

(25:06 – 25:42)

But if you’re sailing through life and you’re neglecting the mess and darkness of your heart, if you are ignoring the question of what path am I even on in life, but you’re actually on the road of darkness, the Bible is saying, address that today. Get wisdom. Get Christ.

You don’t need to stay in the path you’re on. Choose the road of following Jesus to eternal life. If you want to understand more of how to do that, I realise that this might be new for some of you.

(25:43 – 26:13)

You might have many questions. Come and ask those questions. Come and find the answers.

Don’t stand outside the door thinking, that looks good in there. Knock on the door and ask a few questions, or even better, why not come in today? Let’s pray together. Let’s just take a moment to consider what God is saying to our hearts.

(26:21 – 26:49)

God and heavenly Father, we thank you for the clarity and the power of your word. We thank you for, in some ways, the simplicity of two paths, two destinations, and one person who’s the key to it all. Father, we pray that you will call people even today to turn aside from the path that all of us have stumbled down in life.

(26:50 – 27:32)

And yet, Lord, by your grace, you’ve called some of us to a different path. So Lord, call some even today to that path of faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And Lord, we pray also that your people, as your church, as those who have heard that call, who are on that way, we pray that we would be zealous to take this message out and to pass this message down the generations.

And Lord, help us to guard our hearts. Help us not to value other things as more significant priorities than this. And it’s in Jesus’ name that we pray.

Amen.

The post Guard your Heart – Proverbs 4 appeared first on Greenview Church.