Scripture: Proverbs 4:20-27 and Mark 7:1-23
Video Link: https://youtu.be/Kdy3Yj1uakc
Structure:
- Introduction
- The heart’s trajectory
- Guarding your heart
- Conclusion
Introduction:
Good morning everyone.
Today we continue our series in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs offers practical wisdom for living. It gives handy life hacks for people starting out in the world.
Our message today focuses on chapter 4, verses 20-27. As we move through these verses see how many different body parts you recognize. From Proverbs 4, verse 20 we read…
20 My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words. 21 Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; 22 for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body. 23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. 24 Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. 25 Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. 26 Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. 27 Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.
Six different body parts are mentioned in these verses: the ear, the heart, the mouth, the lips, the eyes and the feet, plus the body as a whole is mentioned once. Following the path of wisdom is something that involves a person’s whole being.
The heart’s trajectory:
The organ that connects all the body parts is the heart.
For most people today, the heart (in a metaphorical sense) is considered the seat of a person’s feelings or emotions. For us, matters of the heart have to do with one’s affections and romantic love, in contrast to the head which is concerned with logic and reasoning.
People in the ancient world didn’t have the same head / heart dichotomy that we do. They didn’t separate matters of the head and the heart.
In the Old Testament, the heart is a metaphor for a person’s inner life, the core of their being. The heart includes your mind, emotions and will. It is essentially that part of yourself which is concerned with decision making.
The heart, in ancient thought, is sort of like the parliament or the board room of a person’s body and soul. The decisions made in one’s heart set the path for one’s life. The heart is like the rudder of a ship; it determines the course you take.
Airplane pilots are taught the 1 in 60 rule, which states that one-degree error in heading will result in the aircraft being off course by one mile for every 60 miles travelled. Which means that after 120 miles you will be two miles off course and so on.
One degree might not seem like much but it could mean the difference between arriving safely or crashing into a mountain.
Repeatedly, throughout Proverbs 4, the father pleads for his children to listen and pay attention to his words of wisdom because following the father’s teaching sets the course for the young person’s life. If they are even one-degree off, it could mean the difference between life and death.
Verse 21 reads: Do not let my words out of your sight, keep them within your heart; This is a poetic way of saying, commit the things I teach you to memory. Do not forget them. Keep my words of wisdom front of mind always.
The world we live in is very different from the ancient world. People in Old Testament times did not have the internet. They couldn’t google something on their phone. They couldn’t watch a Ted Talk or a YouTube clip at will. Books were not readily available either. So they had to remember things.
People learned by listening carefully and committing what they heard to memory. That involved time, concentration and repetition. Gaining and retaining wisdom took some effort but it was worth the effort because it could save your life.
That being said, we should not blindly follow everything we are taught. From time to time we need to check if the wisdom we follow is set to the right course. Because if it’s not, we will find ourselves further and further off track as time passes.
The Pharisees provide a classic example of how a particular tradition of wisdom got off track and led people away from God. In Mark 7, we read how some teachers of the law took issue with the way Jesus’ disciples did not wash their hands in the proper way before eating. Jesus answered them…
8 “You put aside God’s command and obey human teachings. 9 You have a clever way of rejecting God’s law in order to uphold your own teaching. 10 For Moses commanded, ‘Respect your father and your mother,’ …11 But you teach that if people have something they could use to help their father or mother, but say, ‘This is Corban’ (which means, it belongs to God), 12 they are excused from helping their father or mother. 13 In this way the teaching you pass on to others cancels out the word of God…”
Somewhere along the way the Pharisees’ tradition of wisdom got off course by one-degree and, over time, it led them away from keeping God’s law. Jesus provided a much needed critique of the Pharisees’ traditions, to get them back on course before they crashed.
We critique what we are taught by measuring it against the Bible. Indeed, the Bible acts as a ruler and a protractor to inform our heart and help set a good course for our life.
Before we can critique the tradition of wisdom passed on to us, though, we must first take the trouble to understand it properly. Don’t be that person who discards everything just because one thing isn’t quite right. The traditions we inherit usually contain a valuable kernel of truth. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Guard your heart:
Returning to Proverbs 4. The emphasis on retaining wisdom is reinforced again in verse 23 which reads: Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
When I first read this verse I thought, okay if the heart basically equates to the mind, in the world of Proverbs, then guarding my heart (or my mind) means being really careful about what I let into my thought life.
See no evil, hear no evil. Don’t watch too much rubbish on TV. Avoid conspiracy theories and dodgey websites. Read wholesome Christian books and listen to plenty of worship music. Keep bad stuff out. Put good stuff in.
Like the apostle Paul says in his letter to the Philippians: Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praise worthy, think about such things.
While it is generally a good idea to be careful what we feed our mind on, that is not exactly what Proverbs 4 is saying. A wellspring flows outwards. If your heart and mind are a wellspring, then verse 23 is saying be careful about what you let out of your heart and mind.
As one commentator puts it: To guard the heart is to be prudent about the heart’s outgoings, to tend with diligence and discretion to how one expresses one’s thoughts and feelings.[1] In other words, develop a good filter.
You may have heard on the news this past week that about 40% of Wellington’s water supply is seeping away in leaks because the pipe infrastructure is old and deteriorating faster than we can fix it.
This means we are likely to face water restrictions over the next few months, especially if it is a long dry summer as expected.
In this situation, guarding the water supply is more about keeping the water in than anything else. Likewise, guarding the wellspring of your heart has more to do with preventing leaks than it does keeping bad things out.
To use another metaphor. The risk with nuclear power plants is not what might get in but rather what might leak out. You want clean energy out of the nuclear power plant. You don’t want radioactive material to escape.
Jesus understood there is good and bad in the human heart and that guarding the heart means not letting the bad stuff out. In Mark 7, Jesus says…
20 “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
Verses 24-27 of Proverbs 4 spell out what ‘guarding the heart’ looks like.
Firstly, guarding your heart means being careful about how you talk. There is a direct line between your mind and your mouth. Verse 24 reads: Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.
Before you say what’s on your mind, stop and T.H.I.N.K. Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it inspiring? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Grace and truth is what we are aiming for with our talk.
We don’t always understand the power of our words. When we say something out loud it carries more weight than a mere thought. We have a tendency to start believing the things we say, even when those things are not quite true.
Your mouth is like a scalpel. It needs to be handled with surgical precision for it has potential to do good or harm. You don’t need to say everything that is in your heart and mind. Some things are better left unsaid.
Now this advice to measure and restrain your words seems to fly in the face of contemporary wisdom. The thinking in our society today is more attuned to the philosophy of ‘better out than in’. Unrestrained talk is considered to be therapy or catharsis.
Proverbs 4 challenges this notion. It helps us to find the middle way between stiff upper lip stoicism and verbal diarrhea. Proverbs 4 is saying, guard your heart by being careful about what you say and who you say it to. When you need to share something personal, find a trustworthy listener.
Verse 25 offers another way to guard your heart: Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.
Avoid temptation in other words. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by evil. Do not covet. Do not look over the fence at what your neighbour has.
This idea of ‘fixing your gaze directly before you’, implies you have a goal or a vision for your life, something good you are aiming for. The goal for Christians is to follow Jesus. To love God, love your neighbour and love yourself. Or, as the prophet Micah puts it, to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.
This being said, you need to allow some distraction in your life. It doesn’t work to be super focused all the time. If you are too intense you’ll end up blowing a gasket or turning into a Pharisee.
It’s okay to stop and smell the roses every now and then. It’s okay to have time off when you need a rest. It’s okay to watch the rugby or to have a hobby. The point is, avoid temptation to evil. Don’t torture yourself by looking at what you cannot have. Remember what you are aiming for and stick with it.
When you are driving a car, it’s important to keep your eyes on the road. Otherwise you might end up in a ditch or over a bank. Same thing in life generally. Where your eyes wander, your feet follow.
As we read in verse 26…
Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.
This verse is talking about the regular rhythms and routines we keep in our lives. Part of guarding your heart involves maintaining healthy patterns of work and rest, eating and sleeping, giving and receiving, worship and play, socialising and solitude.
So, for example, if you have had a very busy week, then giving careful thought to your path might mean planning a quiet weekend, especially if you are an introvert. Give yourself a chance to recover and regroup.
Or, if you know you have some away trips planned with work, then giving careful thought to your path might involve prioritising time to spend with your family before you go away and after you get back, in order to keep your relationships solid.
Part of guarding your heart involves thinking about the path you are on and where this will lead you.
Verse 27 reads: Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.
The assumption of verse 27 is that the young person, who is receiving instruction here, is already on the right path. They don’t need to repent or change their ways. They simply need to stay on track and not pursue evil.
Not turning to the right or the left means having the strength to say ‘no’. Not being easily swayed by those around you.
We live in a relatively permissive society, where almost anything goes. Personal freedom is one of the idols of our time. Many people think they have a right to do whatever they want. Some might call it a spirit of entitlement. The discipline of saying ‘no’ to ourselves does not come naturally to us.
The strength to say ‘no’ comes from having a clear sense of your own identity. Knowing who you are and whose you are. When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus was able to say ‘no’ because he knew who he was. Jesus was deeply aware that he was God’s son and he knew the Father loved him.
Conclusion:
Among other things, Proverbs 4 reminds us to guard our heart for it steers the course of our life.
Guarding your heart isn’t just about what you let into your heart, it actually has more to do with what you let out of your heart.
We guard our heart by being careful with the words we speak, careful with what we set our sights on, careful with the path we walk day by day and careful to say ‘no’ when we need to.
Where is your heart leading you?
Questions for discussion or reflection:
What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
- What does the Old Testament mean by the term ‘heart’? How is this different from our contemporary understanding?
- How might we check if the wisdom / tradition we have received is right?
- In the context of Proverbs 4, what does it mean to ‘guard your heart’? Why is it important to guard your heart?
- What practical things can we do to guard our heart?
- Where are your sights set? What are you aiming for? What is your vision / goal in life? Is anything unhelpful distracting you from this?
- Think about the regular rhythms and routines of your day and week. Where are these leading you? Does anything need to change?
[1] Christine Yoder
Tawa Baptist 