If you want to grow as a Christian you must understand your heart. If you want to find greater joy, freedom, courage and peace then you need to discern what is going on in your heart.
Guarding the heart
Proverbs 4:23 says
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
So we’re to guard our hearts like a soldier guards a city – we must stop the wrong things getting into it! Why? Well we are told here that our lives are an overflow our hearts. Jesus famously put it like this in Luke 6:33-35
43 ‘No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 Each tree is recognised by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn-bushes, or grapes from briers. 45 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. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Paul Tripp, commenting on this passage says
“If my heart is the source of my sin problem, then lasting change must always travel through the pathway of my heart. It is not enough to alter my behaviour or to change my circumstances. Christ transforms people by radically changing their hearts. If the heart doesn’t change, the person’s words and behaviour may change temporarily because of an external pressure or incentive. But when the pressure or incentive is removed, the changes will disappear.”*
The entirety of scripture, from Proverbs to Jesus and everything before, in between and after tells us that our lives, our actions, our words, our habits, our characters and our destinies are an overflow our hearts. No wonder we are told to ‘guard them’ above all else!
What is the heart?
It’s important at this point to understand how the bible (as opposed to modern culture) defines the heart. The heart in the scriptures is not the seat of the emotions in contrast to the mind which is the seat of reason. Rather, the heart is the seat of your deepest trusts, commitments and love, from which EVERTHING flows. So Tim Keller says
What the heart most loves and trusts the mind finds reasonable, the emotions find desirable and the will finds doable**
So for example, Proverbs 14:1 tells us that our hearts believe
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
Or Hebrews 4:12 (ESV translation) tells us our hearts have thoughts and intentions (desires)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Or earlier, in Hebrews 3:7 we are told that our hearts harden
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
So in scripture the heart is our very being – our thoughts, feelings, desires, actions…hence our whole lives flow from the heart, hence we’re to guard it!
4-layers of the heart
A helpful way of understanding your own heart and guarding it is to think of your heart as having 4 layers. So when reflecting on something in your life you can go through the 4 layers…
- Thoughts – what do I believe about this issue? How am I thinking about it?
- Feelings – What am I feeling about this issue? What emotions have been touched in me because of this?
- Desires – What do I want in this situation? What are my desires at this moment?
- Decisions – Given my thoughts, feelings and desires, what decisions can/will/should I take (and what decisions shouldn’t I take!)?
Pursuing the heart
As discussed in the previous seminar, life groups are a place where we are ‘known and loved’ – a place where our deepest thoughts, feelings, desires and decisions are brought into the light so we can allow God’s Spirit to lead, guide and heal us.
So a key skill and discipline in life groups is not only to learn to discern your own heart but learn how to pursue other people’s heart. This must be done in love, within a context of grace and trust, and with the goal to help and not hurt the other person.
And then once we have discerned our own heart and pursued the hearts of others in our life groups, we can start to ‘guard them’ by applying the truth of the gospel in the power of the Spirit to them. We can think over what truths we need to apply to our hearts and how we can help each other savour and enjoy Jesus more.
A Pharisee vs A Christian ( Motivation)
What’s the difference between a pharisee and a Christian? On the outside their lives look very similar; they both pray, both give money to the poor, both attend religious services, both believe in God, both try to be moral etc etc. So what’s the difference? The heart – the motivation for what they are doing. Are they doing those things to earn God’s favour and put God in their debt (the pharisee) or are they doing those things to give thanks and resemble the one who has accepted and loved them in his grace (the Christian).
If we’re not careful we can all become pharisees, doing ‘the right things’ whilst our hearts are far from God. So Paul famously put it like this in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.
In other words, our motivation (what is going on in our hearts) determines whether our religious behaviour is pleasing to God and has any value. Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is a very easy thing to do, and is very dangerous, as Paul says ‘we gain nothing…we are nothing’.
So if you want to grow as a Christian we must learn to discern and guard our hearts and in particular our motivations for doing what we do.
Seminar Format
Who – Everyone is welcome, whether you’re in a life group or not. This is vital discipleship training for EVERYONE
When – Sunday tbc August, 6-7.30pm, after the normal service
How – Over Zoom, on the same zoom from our Sunday service – https://hubspot.zoom.us/j/393744003 (password: 123456)
What – this will be an interactive seminar, with examples, discussion, Q&A and teaching. We will be using and adapting the material from life-on-life ministries and particularly this worksheet in our seminar. We’ll be looking at our deep desires and practicing the HEAR exercise
Why – Because we believe it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1), and we want to learn to live in the good of that freedom and learning to discern, pursue and guard our own hearts and other people’s hearts is a key way to do that
Any questions let me know – steve@christcitychurch.ie – but hopefully we’ll see you there
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*Paul Tripp – Instruments In The Redeemers Hands – this is a great book to read on understanding and applying the gospel to your heart
**Tim Keller devotional on Proverbs 4:23 (March 26th from God’s wisdom for navigating life)