Already been extended.
I'm glad you're here this morning.
If we have not met before. My name is Jeff.
I'm on staff here at side.
One of the pastors here, and I am not the guy who's normally up here.
So if today is your first day, just know that we're doing things
a little bit different around here today.
Our senior pastor, Pastor Carl, is in Ukraine.
If you've spent any amount of time around the church
the last few weeks, really the last few months,
you know, that we've got the amazing opportunity, through our partnership
with Excell Leadership Network to do Ministry of Church Planting in Ukraine.
And that's where Pastor Carl is.
We've been getting reports, the last few days and even as recently
as a few hours ago, of just the amazing ministry that's going on there.
If you're not familiar with Excel Leadership Network,
it is an organization that exists to really do
two simple, three simple things identify high level leaders,
raise them up and equip them and send them out to plant churches.
And we do it all over the world.
We do it here in the United States, but we also do it all over the world.
We've done it in Guatemala, Cuba, Mexico, and most recently,
the opportunity to do it in the war torn country of Ukraine has come up.
And Pastor Carl is sort of the tip of the spear as we,
as we venture into that area and plant
some churches there. So,
be continuing to pray for him.
One of the things that he talked about last week is don't necessarily pray for
safety, but pray for significance, because that's what that is all about.
That's what the work we're doing there is all about.
Some of you actually, signed up to be part of a prayer group
that is covering Pastor Carl 24 hours in prayer.
There's a ten hour time differential between here and there.
And so some of you are up late at night praying.
Others of you are up early in the morning praying.
So good on you.
I just talked to Heather before service.
There's more slots available for that, so if you want to be part of that group,
that is just kind of continually praying around the clock for him.
You can sign up in the Welcome Center.
I want to encourage you to do that also, on Wednesday, instead of the Wednesday
night Bible study, we're actually meeting kind of corporately here,
to pray for that trip for his,
continuing growing of the kingdom,
with all the pastors that we've taken from Excel.
But also the pastors that are there.
So I could continue to talk, but we've got some videos that have come
in, we've got some pictures that have come in.
And so he's going to give a recap of all that when he gets back.
But just know, you guys, if you're here this morning,
you're part of what's going on there.
And it is some really significant boots on the ground.
Just brass tacks, good old fashioned first century ministry.
It's fantastic what's going on there.
So good on you for being a part of that.
Continue to pray for him. Amen.
Awesome.
Hey, in the meantime, I get to share a message with you guys.
I'm really excited about what we're going to talk about today.
I'm hoping you'll be encouraged by it.
There may be some.
There may be some lows,
but I'm going to I'm going to try to end on a high note. And,
get us on some mountaintops and in, certain places in between.
But as I was preparing for our time together today, my mind
kept going back to the summer of 1983.
Back in the 1900s, a lifetime ago, right.
And the reason my mind kept going back to that summer is because
during that summer, I was 12 years old during that summer.
And it's amazing, as I remembered,
the details, it was amazing that I could actually remember details
because that was that was a while ago for me.
But when you hear the story, you'll know why.
I could remember it so vividly.
During that summer, there were two things that characterized my life.
Well, I was getting ready to go
into two of the most tumultuous years of anybody's life.
Those those two years of junior high, seventh and eighth grade,
getting ready to go headlong into that didn't know what was, didn't know
what was in store for me.
I was kind of living in ignorant bliss at that time.
And two of the things that characterized my life where, number one music,
I was playing drums, I was playing guitar.
But the other thing was my bike.
I had one of those.
We were really into those BMX bikes.
So 16 inch, 20 inch BMX bikes built for the track, built for speed.
And it was not just a toy for us guys at that.
At that time in our lives. It was a passion.
It wasn't.
It wasn't just a hobby.
It was like we were living it.
And for most of us,
the bike wasn't purchased as a single unit.
It was a series of calculated, intentional purchases like we would always
share all, share stories as we built our bikes up.
Hey, this year or this week, I'm going to get my wheels.
Hey, this year I'm going to get my frame right.
Hey, this week I'm going to get my my gooseneck or my my seat.
And it was a calculated effort to build this bike up.
Some of you guys are this way with your Harley.
Some of you guys are this way with your cars.
Back then as a 12 year old, it was my bike.
It was my prized possession.
It was my pride and joy.
And it was the same way for all of us guys who were friends at that.
At that point, especially during that summer.
And we were sitting around
the front yard of one of my friend's house one summer afternoon,
and we were for some reason, talking about how much we loved 4th of July,
and we were lamenting the fact that we couldn't have fireworks
even on the 4th of July.
I grew up in Fresno, just north of just south of Fashion Fair.
And back then,
they had outlawed fireworks even on the 4th of July in the city limits.
They had those a lot of houses, had those old wooden shake roofs and,
you know, one bottle rocket and the whole thing goes up in flames.
So they just outlawed the whole thing.
Even on the 4th of July, you had to, be on a county island or,
in the county to buy fireworks.
And even then, you can only have them on the 4th of July.
And so we were sitting around talking about the good old days
when we were able to have fireworks and how cool it would be.
And I don't know why, but I said, yeah, the
the closest thing we have access to now is the smoke bombs down at Wizards.
And they all my friends looked at me and I said, what?
I said, yeah, we can we can buy smoke bombs at Wizards Magic Shop.
It was it was a little magic shop down on the corner of First and Shaw
and they sold smoke bombs.
And I said, yeah, they got a fuze like a firework.
And, you know, the light them,
you throw them on the ground and they pollute the air.
But what a great thing.
And like, no way. I said, yeah,
so we got to get some.
So the idea was we're going to buy a bunch of smoke bombs.
We're going to right around the neighborhood,
because if you stay in your own front yard, you can get busted, right?
People know where you are.
So you're right around the neighborhood, and you throw the smoke bombs
and you watch the colorful smoke, and then you continue to do it.
So that was the plan.
What could possibly go wrong? Right.
And so for some reason,
a couple of the friends of mine were brothers and they had to go check in.
You guys remember checking in?
If you were out in the afternoon,
you had to be home before or before the street lights came on.
But if you were like, if you left in the morning,
your parents were like more of the strict parents were like, you got to come beat.
Check in at one or check in at three.
It was basically before cell phones.
Your parents way of going, I need to make sure you're still breathing
and you're not arrested and you're not bleeding.
So come and check in.
And so a few of the guys had to go check in.
I was like, okay, I'll take the money, I'll go down, I'll buy the smoke bombs.
We'll meet back here in about a half an hour.
So I go down to Wizard's Magic Shop and I turn in off the sidewalk
that's on the street. And I kind of.
It was in a sort of a strip mall.
And so there's this long, sort of,
sidewalk with the poles that you know, but it up against the parking spots.
And then there was the shops, the front door to the shops.
And as I ride up to the
front door of the shop, I looked down and I realized, I don't have my lock.
I had one of those coil locks, you know, you wrap around the seat
post or wrap around the frame
and I ride up and I was like, shoot, I don't have my lock.
And I look in the store, I'm like, it's right there.
Look at where I'm at the post where my bike's going to be.
I'm like, okay, I'm just going to lean my bike up against the post.
I'm going to walk in the store.
I'm going to keep one eye on this little transaction
that I'm about to do, and I'm gonna keep one eye on my bike.
So I walk in and, you know,
I dump a bunch of money on the counter and I'm like, I got all this money.
I want as many smoke bombs as this money will buy.
He's like, okay. And I'm, you know, keeping my eye on my bike the whole time.
And so he
starts ringing me up and he goes, this register's busted.
Can you come around to this other one?
And I thought, oh, I gotta take my eye off my bike.
I'm like, okay, we really we really need these smoke bombs.
So I walk around to the other side of the, of the counter
where the, the cash register is, and I'm out of sight of my bike.
And this guy's taken forever. It's like you need to sit.
No, I don't need a receipt.
He starts to put them in a bag like I don't need a bag, just give me them.
And as I come back around, I see the second half of my back
tire rolling out of sight at sheer panic.
That wave of terror that comes over you.
I run out of the door.
And this. This bike was built for speed.
This guy is moving.
He's twice as big as me, and he's moving on my bike.
And so I start to run, and then I start to scream, hey, that guy stole my bike.
Like I stole my bike.
And by then he's down to the end and he's around the corner.
Everybody's like, we're
he's right there.
Get him.
So hop in, we'll go get him.
I'm like, okay, now I'm hopping in the car with a stranger.
I've got a whole separate set of problems to deal with.
So I'm crying by now.
I'm crying as I, you know, you sort of run and you're like, oh, what's the use?
And then you're like, well, let's try it. You run, stop, run, stop.
And by the time I get down to the end, he's gone.
I realize my bike is gone.
And so I walk home and I get to my friend's house.
They're like, where are you?
You know, I'm half an hour late. Where have you been?
Where's your bike?
And they start to see that I'm crying.
And I just kind of dump the smoke bombs on the grass.
And I continue to walk home.
My mom will tell you to this day, I was clinically depressed
for weeks after that, for weeks after getting that bike stolen.
That was sort of my introduction into adolescence.
School started about three weeks later, and that was just sort of my sobering
introduction into, hey, here's part of what it means
to make autonomous decisions on your own.
As I thought about that story, I was listening to, to a guy talk
a few months ago, and he put words to something I've thought about for a while.
He said something to the effect of with every,
decision that has resulted
in a time in my life it's kind of gotten wonky,
this kind of gotten, you know, twisted sideways.
I've been there.
I've been president.
He was talking about it's up for every decision
it's made, which resulted in a decision that maybe ended up in a regret.
I've been there, and not only have I been there,
I've been an active participant in that decision making process.
And I've also, on most of those decisions, been the ringleader.
It was my brainchild.
I was the guy that came up with it, and I thought, that is so true.
With these decisions in our life that end up
with maybe a regret,
or maybe things just didn't turn out the way we wanted to.
You know, when you're young, it's kind of like you're
you're at the whim of your parents.
But as you grow up and you get some autonomy
and start making decisions on your own, you realize, man, it got messed up
and I'm the guy to blame.
I think as I was telling that story, everybody in here
probably has a similar story where you thought, okay, it's
fine, it'll be fine, and then it ends up not being fine.
I think it's part of the human condition
that we're in.
Where we
we make these decisions and things get twisted sideways
and we think, oh, what in the world happened?
Or maybe you've been on the phone with a family member,
you've been in a conversation with a family member,
and they're saying something that they plan on doing.
And you're like, oh my gosh, there's nothing good that can come from this
if you have teenage kids, this happens weekly in your house.
You know, they come up with these ideas and you're like, let's, let's,
let's try again.
What we're going to talk about today, I'm hoping, has the potential
to shed some new light on those situations that has has a potential to maybe,
break some cycles that maybe have plagued a lot of us for years
because lucky for us,
God has an answer to those types of those types of situations,
those times in our life when we're making decisions.
And we want to make the right decision.
That doesn't end up in a regret, but we don't know the future.
And so a lot of times we just take our best shot at it.
And God says, I have some suggestions.
I have some some, some, some thoughts.
I have some ways of doing things that may help you with that.
Not only does he have advice for us,
but he has a way and a solution for that to kind of play out in our lives.
And so that's kind of what I want to talk about here today.
God says there's a somewhat simple explanation for that.
Simple to understand, but at many times difficult to put into practice.
The the understanding a lot of times is is easy to nod your head at,
but when it comes time for implementation, it can be kind of difficult,
he says.
Those those times all have really sort of the same source.
There's this relational, emotional, maybe even a spiritual ground zero
where all that stuff starts.
So if you brought your Bible with you today,
we're going to be in the Old Testament book of Proverbs.
Proverbs
was almost entirely written by a guy named Solomon.
He was king of Israel.
King Solomon.
And a lot of times, if you read the Bible, Solomon is attributed
for having the most wisdom of any person that's ever roamed the face of the earth.
Because of that wisdom, the nation prospered.
The people close to him were the beneficiaries of a lot of a lot
of good decisions.
And so he writes these down,
and they've lasted quite a while.
We're going to be in Proverbs chapter four,
verse 23.
In verse 23
he says this above all else, guard your heart
for everything you do flows from it.
Guard your heart.
Everything you do flows from it.
Some translation say it is the wellspring of life.
I really didn't appreciate that
until I moved out the ranchos, and I got on my own well, and had to consider
all the implications that come along with maintaining your own.
Well, we had our well go bad back in 2016, and the way I found out about
that was not from anything like a shower or a sink inside.
I was outside and the sprinklers were running one night,
and all of a sudden they just be.
And all the, drip lines just started to kind of pulsate, and I'm like,
what is going on? No water coming out?
Like what is going on here?
And I realized, oh, the well, the well's going out.
And so I realized, wow,
every drop of water, not just inside but outside, it's coming from that one.
Well, and Solomon says, when it comes to the thoughts
and the emotions and the spiritual decisions and the really
kind of bare bones, brass tacks decisions that we make,
there is a wellspring of that one single, solitary origin.
And he says, it's your heart,
not the muscle in your chest with chambers and ventricles and aorta.
But this idea
of this one central place
where all of our beliefs and our thoughts
really just kind of where the rubber meets the road and those beliefs
and those thoughts turn into actions, they become the dues of our life.
Solomon says.
That's that's this thing called the heart.
The Bible talks a lot about it.
God wants us to know that there's a single place where that all starts.
Our lives are a series of decisions, big
and small, and the heart is the source of all of them.
Have you ever heard the phrase follow your heart, just follow your heart.
There's a whole life hack has a heart
that's horrible that actually comes from a Shakespeare play.
I think it's hamlet and the wording is different.
It's old English wording, but what it really amounts to is follow your heart.
And there's one of the main characters is Karen
telling the other character, just follow your heart.
It does not turn out well.
So same thing for us. Following our heart.
Just listening to an unguarded heart is really, really bad.
Life advice.
It's so interesting when life gets messy.
When things end up messy, we get really good.
As humans, we get really good at dealing with the mess.
Some of us are professional mess cleaner uppers.
We we live crisis to crisis, and we get really good about identifying
the mess and stepping into the mess and cleaning up the mess.
And when we're in the mess, we bellyache and gripe about the mess
and we can find out who we should blame about the mess.
And we get really good at addressing the mess.
But we don't ever address the source of what happened.
The source of where did where did it come from?
I heard a guy talk about,
it's kind of analogous to to pruning a tree.
A lot of people will go, you know, you need to prune, you know,
get stopped, stop smoking, stop drinking, prune that branch, prune that branch.
Stop this, start that.
Well, it's not the branches.
It's not the pruning that needs to happen.
It's the root that needs to be addressed.
And that's what God is saying.
He's like, let's talk about where all this stuff
starts.
There's some things,
you know, when we talk about the question why?
Why guard our heart?
There's there's some things the Bible talks about where it says, put,
put these things to death or put these things behind you
or, you know, move forward and don't look back.
Dismiss these things.
Don't don't get distracted by these things.
But when it comes to the heart, God's Word says, guard it.
Guard it.
Don't dismiss it.
Don't put it to death. Don't disregard it.
Protect it.
Pay attention to what you let in and pay attention to what you keep out.
Consider these things and don't dismiss them.
So why God, our heart?
If you take nothing else away from today, this is the one thing.
If you hit the if you got a kid in the children's program,
you see that little blurb come up.
You gotta leave.
If you hear nothing else today, remember this what starts out in your heart
ends up in your life.
And so why should we guard it?
The first, reason we should guard our heart is this.
It's very valuable.
The heart is a valuable thing.
This idea of there being a central place where everything starts
and as a as a belief or an idea and ends up in our lives.
That makes the heart a very valuable entity.
I was talking to my daughter.
I have three daughters.
I was talking to my youngest a while back.
One of her chores right now, as a matter of fact, all three daughters,
two of them are have moved out.
But at some point in their time living under her roof,
one of their chores has been to take out the garbage.
For many of you, it's going to happen tonight.
The garbage comes tomorrow, right?
They hated it.
Still, the the one daughter who still lives under my roof.
She still hates it. Still hate. Because it's a big production.
You got to empty all the wastepaper basket.
You got to empty those into the bigger trash can that's out on the patio.
And then there's another one that's similar size out by the shop.
You put those together, and then you eventually
put all that garbage into the big garbage can that's on wheels.
And then it's for them anyway, we have a very long driveway.
It's kind of like the Trail of Tears as they walk
this garbage can down to the end of the road.
So that's going to be Sidney's job tonight.
Pray for her. She'll
I think she'll I think she will survive.
But when they get that garbage can down to the end of the driveway and they put it
at the end of the road, you know, I've told them, don't put it too far out.
It can get hit, or don't put it too far
back to the truck, won't be able to get to it.
But once they place that God, can they walk away from that thing
and they do not care about it.
And you know who else doesn't care about it?
I don't care about it.
I don't put that garbage can down at the end of the driveway and go, you know what?
We got to guard that sucker until the truck comes to morrow morning.
Very concerned.
Did you actually look this up?
Do you guys know if your trash can get stolen?
It's not on you.
You call the county.
You got my trash can and got something a lot of them have,
either a barcode or a QR code or some weird code on the side
so that the county can actually trace these garbage cans
and hunt down their stolen garbage cans if they need to.
I don't care about it.
I don't place a guard on my trash can.
As a matter of fact,
if somebody comes by in the dead of night and steals all my garbage, I'll be like,
okay, it must have been something you needed in there.
I don't really care about it.
I don't place a guard over my trash can.
But when it comes
to our heart, it's unbelievably valuable.
And so God says, guard it.
And since God considers our heart very, very valuable,
the enemy comes at it with all guns blazing, big red targets on it.
And it's one thing that the enemy attacks.
The Gospel of Luke records a conversation
Jesus was having with a group of people,
and he said this A good man
brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man
brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.
So the heart is very valuable in that a guarded heart has the potential
to bring forth things that glorify God
further the kingdom and just really good stuff.
The inverse of that is an unguarded heart
has the potential to be the source of some of the most destructive,
the most destructive and evil things we've ever seen.
The last few weeks have shown us that the last few weeks
have been sort of exhibit A in what an unguarded heart
can bring into the world.
So because of what's at stake, God says is extra
heart is extremely valuable.
There's another, excerpt from the Gospel of Matthew
that's actually taken from a conversation that Jesus is having with a lawyer.
If you've read the Gospels, you know, Jesus was always being confronted by the,
the, the keepers of the law and the what's called the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
They were always trying to get him into these debates
and these arguments to trap him in his in what he would say.
And so he's talking to a lawyer who's asked him the question,
Jesus, what's the most important commandment?
Kind of like, you know what, let's just cut to the chase here.
What's the most important commandment?
And Jesus says this
love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.
The apostle or the the Gospel of Luke actually record something
and remember something Matthew didn't hit actually adds the word strength.
All your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.
Regardless of which of these we talk about,
Jesus was actually referring back to the old Testament book of Deuteronomy,
where a lot of that law was being fleshed out.
And back there it says your heart, your soul and all your might.
So regardless of which laundry list we're talking about,
the heart has the
first place the gold gold star option right there.
The heart shows up first.
It's very, very valuable.
And therefore God says, guard it, guard it.
You need to pay attention to it.
What you let in and what you let out.
The other thing why we should guard our heart.
And this is this is kind of a fun one.
Is because of this.
It lies.
Your heart lies.
It's a bummer.
Jeremiah the prophet, he's.
He's known as the weeping prophet.
He was like, kind of the ear of the prophets.
He said this about the heart.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
Thanks, Jeremiah, for that pep talk.
But he's he's right.
He's right.
One of the byproducts
of an unguarded heart is that it will lie to us.
It'll come up with things or be drawn towards things that are just
downright false.
Raise your hand if you are an oldest child.
If you're an oldest child, raise your hand.
Yeah, I'm gonna keep my hand raised because I'm an oldest child.
We got a raw deal, you guys.
We got a bum rap.
I apologize, I like I said, I have three daughters.
My oldest is going to be 24
at the end of this month, and I'm apologizing to her all the time.
I'm like, Eva, I am so sorry.
Your mom and I did not know what we were doing.
We were like building the plane as we flew it with you duct taped to the roof.
You just you were along for the ride.
We didn't know what we were doing.
And, one of the stories,
I was actually talking to her about this a little while ago.
We went, you know, those toddler birthday parties.
So the heart is kind of the heart.
Because a lot of us have been really,
seriously hurt by somebody who lied to us on our life.
And so when we think about lying, we think, oh, low down
and dirty, insidious, you know, lies.
My experience has been, that's not how the heart lies.
The heart kind of lies. Like a toddler.
You know where looking right in the face and go, oh yeah, I did this.
And you're like, no, you didn't.
You're lying.
You're lying to me.
That's sort of the lies that the heart tells.
And so back when Eva was a toddler, were at this party,
and, I used to hate those parties, you guys, because you just sit around.
Really? The adults just kind of sit around.
But this party was actually really cool.
The people who were having the party for their kid, I don't know, he was.
He was turned four, maybe three.
They had a structured a treasure hunt for all the kids to go on.
And so you break up into these teams, and you had two, adults with each team of.
I want to say about 5 or 6 kids.
And you had,
they had printed out a treasure map and instructions on the treasure map.
I thought, this is kind of cool. We get up, we're doing stuff.
It was outside. It was inside.
All these locations were all over the place.
And so, I was paired up with another parent.
I think Jen was on another team.
And the parent I was paired up with, she got this idea of,
she asked a group of kids, hey, does anybody here know how to read?
And one is a little girls.
You know, a lot of the kids are just looking at their shoes
or picking their nose or whatever.
But one of the little girls goes, I don't know how to read.
I don't know how to read. It's great.
So she hands of the list and the girl starts
reading in the city.
And I thought, you know, she's talking about her dog and her favorite color.
I'm like, that's not what's on that list.
And the parent and I kind of looked at each other like, oh my gosh.
And so, you know, trying to be like, thank you so much.
All right. Let's see what else it has to say.
That's the way the heart lies to us.
The heart lies to us by going, hey, this would be a great idea.
I know exactly what we should do.
And we're like, okay, heart, you're in charge.
And then all of a sudden the heart's like,
yeah, I really didn't know what I was doing.
The heart lies.
So how do we go about guarding our heart?
How do we go about doing this?
Great advice. God. Thanks, Kate.
Can you give me some?
Can you give me some more, a little bit more, examples, maybe some situations
where I can actually take this and put it into practice.
One of the things that as we talk about, how do we guard our heart,
one of the things we need to acknowledge even before that
is we need sort of a heart replacement.
I forget how old I was when I realized that there is
a modern medicine makes a heart transplant possible.
I was amazed at that. I'm like, you got to be kidding me.
You can do it. Heart transplant? Yep.
With the old, in with the new.
At least new to the person that's going into.
God says we need a heart replacement.
Ezekiel.
Chapter 36, verse 26 says,
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.
I will remove from you your heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh.
So talking about foreshadowing and forecasting the possibility
and the potential in the work that Jesus would do on the cross, saying,
we need a new heart.
I'm going to come back to that a little bit later,
but we need to kind of prime the pump with that and acknowledge
that when it talk, when it talks about this, this heart of ours, we
actually need a new one.
One of the
things that I was thinking about with all this talk about guarding
our heart is it can leave us a little, a little on edge,
a little wound up.
We're tempted to think when we talk about guarding, you know, it's
this overprotective, hyper vigilant, always looking over my shoulder.
Because when you're guarding something, I mean, that's
kind of the images that come to mind, right?
If you've been in the military, you realize and you remember,
you can get in some serious trouble for falling asleep at your post. Right?
You've got to be on guard.
And it has this idea of don't let your guard down, be hyper
vigilant, be overprotective, be hyper alert.
And it's really easy to think that that's what we're talking about here today.
But it's not like that.
Guarding our heart is not like that.
One of the things that,
when we were in Covid
as a church, I mean, things got weird.
Ministry got super weird when Covid was going on.
It got super strange and trying to figure out how to navigate that.
And are we open or are we not open?
And coming out of that, it kind of much like Covid.
The effects kind of lingered, you know, and I realized that
a lot of times ministry can get twisted sideways
and really, really strange and interesting ways.
And God gave me a verse out of First Corinthians.
And for some of us, this needs to be printed out and pinned
on the side of our office or our door at work, or maybe on the,
your dash of your car.
It says this God is not a God of disorder, but a God of what?
It's a god.
He's a God of peace
that has helped me when it comes to guarding my heart from being just,
hyper vigilant and just, you know, sitting on the edge of my seat
with this attitude of, I've got to be on guard, got to be on guard.
That idea that God, the God we serve, if you've put your faith in Christ,
the God we serve is not a God of disorder.
He's not a God of chaos.
He's a God of peace.
Some of y'all are going to get to work tomorrow,
and you know it's going to be like 9:00. Nope.
God is a God of peace.
He's not a God of disorder.
That that subtle reminder.
Is worth remembering
because one of the one of the reasons it's
so difficult to guard our heart is because of the influence of the world.
The world that we live in seems disorderly.
It seems chaotic.
It comes out us continually all day long.
We never we never get a break.
And so one of the ways that God says you can guard your heart,
this is actually one of my life
verses right here comes out of Philippians chapter four, verses six and seven.
Do not be anxious about anything.
I like to put my hand over the rest of that phrase,
a rest of that passage, and go easy for you to say. God,
that's really easy for you to say.
Just don't be anxious, okay? Sure.
What should I do instead?
And God says, I'm glad you asked.
In every situation, by prayer
petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will
guard your hearts.
There it is
the peace of God.
He's not a God of disorder. He's God of peace.
The God of peace.
Will, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts
and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Come before him with prayer, asking with thanksgiving,
and give it all to God.
The Apostle John,
when it comes to this
idea of guarding our heart, he says, here, I've got some other good advice.
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit,
but test the spirits to see whether they are from God
says, don't just allow things to run amuck and come into your heart.
Don't just allow everything to have its way when it comes to where you
where these ideas and where these decisions get hatched, test them.
The Apostle Paul says we demolish arguments
and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,
and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
He says, this is how you guard your heart.
You don't just allow your thoughts to run amok.
How many of you, are on your phones?
At least within within an hour of waking up?
Be honest, you guys. How many of you on your phones at least?
Yeah, I read I am too.
That's why, you know, I want to commiserate with you guys.
I read somewhere I heard somebody talking.
That hour of not being on your phone in the morning is like,
I mean, that is a game changer.
And I started doing that where I'm just like, nope.
The phone is away for at least an hour
before or after I get up in the morning.
The Apostle Paul says, take all those thoughts captive.
Make them obedient to Christ.
Don't just let things run amuck, run haywire in your mind.
Guard what comes in.
You guys, I have had.
Oh God.
I cannot tell you how many conversations I've had with teenage girls.
It's mostly teenage girls. For some I have daughters.
So that's.
That's the circles that I've been put in.
I had so many conversations with teenage girls and they'll say
with just wide open,
expecting eyes.
He's so dot, dot, dot, we're going to be so dot, dot dot.
This is going to be, you know, dot, dot, dot.
And I'll and I'll literally say to them, girl, you've got to guard your heart.
You've got to guard your heart.
Because right now things are just anything gets him.
Yeah. Come on in.
All the thoughts. Yep yep yeah.
And I'll say to them please, please guard your heart.
And some of them will be like, what are you even talking about?
And then that's a great conversation.
But others of them are like, I know, but I just can't help it.
This these three passages that we just looked at,
they they presuppose one very, very important passage.
And for a lot of you, this is going to be something that's very familiar to you.
Paul writes in his letter to the church in Rome,
do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is.
His good, pleasing and perfect will.
How do we guard our heart?
We transform our mind. Everybody, take your right hand.
Hold it up like that. You want to hold it up high?
Come on, you guys. I know it's early.
You can do it. Right hand up.
Finger point your mind.
Take this one. Point your heart.
There's
about, what, 12, maybe 18in between the two.
Right. Physical things.
All right.
You can put your hands down now,
when it comes to our spiritual heart, the mind is the thing that envelops it.
The mind is the guard to it.
The mind is the thing that says, nope, you're not getting in,
but I want it so bad. I know you do, and you're not getting in.
The mind is the thing that goes, I'm going to need to see some ID
you do, not just to get you do not just get to get in.
When we renew our mind with God's Word,
then we are able to demolish arguments.
Then we are able to take thoughts captive.
Then we are able to test the spirits.
Then we are able to not be anxious.
It all supposes that we're continually renewing our mind.
One of the things we did, some of you,
some of you students were here the night we actually did this.
Carl and I had this weird experiment experience, an experiment
last year with the youth program.
We kind of tag team to youth while we were looking,
and Michael came at the end of the summer and saved the day.
But for, one whole year of school, it was Carl and I kind of tag teaming
the youth program
and the kids, you know, they
they took opportunities to kind of to kind of jab at us, which was fantastic.
It was it was hilarious.
And one of the or one of the nights,
it was one of the leaders, I forget who it was.
Came up with this idea.
Do your best, Pastor Carl.
And he got up there and he goes, all right.
And the place just fell out.
I was like, that. Is it right there?
If you've ever seen Pastor Carl do that, that's what he's talking about.
The mind, the heart, the mind, the heart.
The mind is what envelops the heart and says, nope, you're not getting in.
Okay?
You get in.
Guarding our heart means recognize the good and bring it in.
Identify the bad and keep it out through the transforming of our mind.
So let's talk about some real
practical ways to do this.
I didn't bring my phone.
I'm going to have to have my phone for second service.
Everybody take out your phone. Right. First.
First time for everything.
I'm being asked to take out my phone in church.
Take out your phone.
Most of you have an alarm app on your phone.
On the iPhone. I think it's that little.
There's a
you can go to the alarms place, and you can set an alarm
that little plus up in the right hand side of it.
I want you guys to set an alarm for some time this afternoon or this evening.
If you're going to be in a spot where you might interrupt somebody,
where you it's going to get you in trouble.
Don't set it for then, but set it for some time.
This afternoon or this evening.
And the label. Here's the label. You guys ready?
What has my heart
that's going to be the label?
What has my heart
so many times?
Even if you're taking notes, a lot of times
we walk out of here and we have things
we're doing on Sunday afternoon, and maybe we get back to what,
you know, what we talked about sometime during the week.
For a lot of you, this is going to actually force force you to discuss it.
Ideally, you'll be with people who,
who do life with you or who you do life with.
And it's so interesting.
I know that if this alarm goes off when my family is around me,
they'll be able to answer that question almost better than I will.
I'll just go, hey, girls. What? How's my heart?
And they'll be they'll be able to say, let me tell you that
for some of you, the place you're at will tell you what has your heart.
You'll look at your phone, you go, what has my heart?
This. This has my heart.
So that's step one.
That's the first way you can really apply this.
And, this idea of guarding your heart.
The second way.
I don't think I had the slide for this up there.
The second way is if you haven't signed up for that seven Primal Questions workshop
that's happening on October 12th, that is a really good way
to find out more about this, to put this into practice, really,
when I went into ministry full time anyway,
I was so sick of assessments.
I was I had had it.
I was like, if I have to take if I have to scan one more QR code
and take one more assessment because, you know,
you learn about your spiritual gifts and you learn your evangelical style.
And, you know, there was this assessment after Strengthsfinder and disc
and God help us, the Enneagram, whenever that came around.
But I was sick of assessments, but we were at an accelerate event
with Excel in Arizona.
And, Laurie was talking Laurie pairing, who was up here a couple of weeks ago.
She's going to be facilitating the workshop.
She was talking about it, and I'm like, what the heck?
I don't have anything else to do. I'm going to take this assessment.
Learning my primal question and how that manifests itself in my life
was heart guarding gold.
I was like, okay, this is crazy.
So if you haven't signed up for that workshop, please take advantage of that.
Some of you signed up and you got the email
saying you're signed up, but you didn't follow the link that actually allows you
take the assessment.
Definitely follow that link.
What's going to happen is at the end of that assessment,
you're going to get what your primal question is.
Mine is, am I good enough?
I won't rat anybody else out, but you're going to get the result.
Am I loved? Am I good enough to have a purpose?
And my successful on and on and on.
You'll get that primal question, even if you know that.
But you're like, what does this even mean?
That's what the workshop's going to tell you about.
When you come to the workshop, you're going to go, oh, this is what this means.
So sign up for that.
Take the assessment, come to the workshop on October 12th.
It's going to be really, really good.
And it's going to be a really good way
to actually put what we're talking about today, into practice.
Could you imagine, can you imagine, you guys,
what things would be like if we got to be really good at guarding our heart?
If it got to be, like, automatic, like kind of like riding a
bike when I'm teaching,
music students.
Drums, guitar, bass.
I'll tell them all the time.
I say in about four months, usually there's a bell curve.
These things some, especially if the kids,
when they're in their adolescence, they just pick stuff up like that.
But there's usually a bell curve and it's usually about four months.
And when they just start out, they're really discouraged.
And I'll go, don't get discouraged.
In about four months or so, this is going to be like riding a bike.
You're not going to think to yourself, most of us, when we ride a bike,
we don't go, okay,
the left foot is up here and the right foot is down here,
and then the left foot is going to go down,
the right foot is going to come up, and then we're just going to,
you know, you just get on the bike and ride.
Can you imagine what it would be like
if we got really good about guarding our heart, about going, no,
not today, not never or.
Yep, I need to be part of that.
That is good stuff, right there.
What our marriages would be like, what our relationships at work
would be like when we able to go, no, God is not a God of disorder.
He's a God of peace.
I am not going to let that into my heart.
As we wrap up today,
I talked a little bit earlier about this idea of a heart replacement.
If you have not put your faith in Christ as your personal savior,
that is not even step one.
That's like step zero.
Everything else here today is just sort of things to do once that is done.
If you have not put your faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior,
if you've not acknowledged said to God, I'm a sinner, Jesus, I need the work.
I need your salvation.
The work you did on the cross to come into my heart.
You need you to come into my heart, come into my life and save me
and be my Lord and Savior.
If you've not done that, if you have any, questions about what
that is, maybe you've heard that. And what is it?
I'd love to talk to you about that.
It's been so interesting to see our to our, men's group, our two men's group
that meets, the first Saturday of every month.
For these guys, these dads,
these husbands to learn what their evangelical style is.
Carl's is confrontational.
Big surprise. Right?
He's really good about going. You need Jesus.
I mean, he's really good.
That is not my evangelical style.
My evangelical style is testimonial.
And to see these guys learn their testimonial,
their evangelical style has been fantastic.
And so therefore, I love talking about this stuff. Now.
So if you have any questions about that, see me.
Our staff all knows their evangelical style.
See a member of our staff.
We would love to talk to you about this. And so
guard your heart is the wellspring of life.
Amen.
Let's wrap up. Today.
I want to pray for us as we go out.
Jesus, we thank you so much for today.
We thank you for all that you've done,
all that you are doing, and all you will continue to do.
We especially pray for Pastor Carl and the group that is in Ukraine.
We pray even now that you will help their trip
to continue to be one of significance, to be one of kingdom building.
We pray for us as we go out to the places you've called us to be.
Even today and this week, that you will help us to keep a guarded heart.
God, not one that's anxious, not one that's on
super vigilant, but just one that's
peaceful and able to discern between
thoughts that as we take them captive and spirits as we trust them.
Jesus, we love you and all these things help us to love you more.
Amen.