In the sermon 'Guard Your Heart' by Paul White, the speaker focuses on Proverbs 4:23, emphasizing the importance of guarding one's heart with vigilance as it is the source of life's actions and motivations. White asserts that while men are naturally inclined to be guardians of external responsibilities such as family and nation, the primary duty lies in safeguarding the heart. This involves protecting it from potential threats that enter through 'eye gate' and 'ear gate,' which can influence thoughts and actions. The heart, described as the inner self or soul, is where thoughts, feelings, and intentions originate. Guarding it ensures that one's actions, represented by 'hand gate' and 'mouth gate,' align with godly principles and serve the Kingdom of Christ. The sermon also addresses how the world attempts to influence young men's hearts through societal norms and material desires, urging them to focus on biblical truths. Fathers are encouraged to model heart-guarding behavior for their children. Ultimately, safeguarding the heart is presented as essential for living a life that honors God and effectively witnessing to others.

Turn with me to Proverbs chapter 4 and verse 23. Proverbs 4 23. And I trust that you'll keep your Bibles open. I'm going to stick pretty close to this verse the entire time. Proverbs 4.23 says, Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

I believe that we would all agree that men are by nature guardians and in our circles we speak much of our responsibility to be guardians, guardians of the home, guardians of the church, and sound doctrine. In recent days, we've all got the opportunity to think a little bit more about what it means to be guardians of our nation, guardians of our constitutional rights and those things. These are all things that we are given to do by nature. My fear is that if we aren't careful, we believe that in doing those simply, carrying out those responsibilities in a very, for lack of a better phrase, naked fashion, that we've actually done our job. That if I buy an AR-15, if I have ammunition, I'm doing my job as a man.

If I stand up for my wife and my children. I have done my job. Well I think this verse gives us a job that is actually more important than those things, actually underlies all of the jobs that we have as men to perform. And I've broken up this verse. It's a very simple verse and it's got a comma.

So I'm going to divide it right there where the comma is in my Bible. I've broken it up into two halves. First, there's a job that we have been given. And then there's the importance of that job. The job, keep your heart with all vigilance.

That's where we start with keeping the heart. Then the significance of that job for from it flow the springs of life. So number one the job that we have been given. Every individual Christian has been given a job to do for the advance of the kingdom of Christ on the earth and I'm not talking about those various gifts that are given by the Spirit for the edification of the church in which we might all have a different job. This is one job that we all do the same.

We all have been given the same, exact same job description. Keep your heart with all vigilance. Notice the action here, described with the word keep. The word means, and the King James actually translates it as guard. It means to keep it safe, to maintain it, to preserve it, or protect your heart.

And the idea behind this word is really that there is a potential threat. There's a potential danger coming towards your heart and it's your job to guard against it. Something might come in and your job is to stop it to stand at the gate and guard the heart this is our job and it is a command from Almighty God we are commanded love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength we are commanded love your neighbor as yourself we are prohibited you shall not lie you share not shall not commit adultery. These are commands from God. Here is another command from God.

Keep your heart. If you're not keeping your heart, You are in absolute disobedience to Almighty God. It's a command, a job laid in all of our laps. There are many potential invaders when it comes to the heart, potentially harmful contaminants That will damage your heart. What's your job?

Keep it. Guard it. Protect it. Notice next the object of this duty. Keep your heart.

Now we're not talking about the physical heart that pumps in your chest, but your non-physical self. As I tell my children, we're talking about the you that's still there when you close your eyes. The place where all of your thoughts and feelings and convictions and your conscience rests. What the Scriptures would call the inner man or the soul. Deuteronomy 4.9, which I think is probably a parallel to this passage, says, keep your soul.

Your heart is the factory where Everything that you are as a person is produced and shipped out. It starts in the heart. So if you're a liar, you're a liar in your heart before you ever say a word. If you are bold, You're bold in your heart before you ever take a stand. If you are wise, the Proverbs deal with wisdom.

If you're wise, you're wise in the heart before you ever actually make a decision. Because all of this is produced in the heart. If you're a Christian here, it's not because you said a prayer, it's not because you did something really obedient, it's not because at first you exercised faith and then God said, well, seeing that you have exercised this faith, I am obligated now to respond in a regenerating work. If you're a Christian it's because your heart was changed by Almighty God first and then from that was produced the acts of conversion, repentance and faith. The salvation is manifested in our actions, but it begins in the heart.

This is the object of this job, keep your heart. John Flavel said, the heart of man is his worst part before it is regenerated and the best part afterward. It is the seat of principles and the fountain of actions. Everything that you are starts in the heart and then comes out. Notice the text says keep your heart.

Each of us has his own heart, his own inner man, his own soul. And here we're commanded not to keep someone else's heart, but to keep our hearts. This is one of those texts where we could say, one of the applications is, mind your own business. Keep your heart. If you Keep your heart, and I keep my heart, we will have done our duty.

Notice next the manner in which we are to perform this job, this task. Keep your heart with all vigilance. It's interesting that the word vigilance is actually another word for guard. It's like a synonym for the word that's already been used. In other words, the text could read, keep your heart with all keeping, or guard your heart with guarding.

Set a guard by your heart in order to guard it. Whenever these statements are doubled up like this, we learn that what's being commanded is actually of utmost importance. It's a priority in the Proverbs. Now we've already heard the Proverbs deal with every facet of life. Matters of the home, matters of work and labor, matters of finances, relationships between men and women, relationships between parents and children.

And we could go on and on. Everything, as we heard yesterday, everything is covered in the Proverbs. But preceding all of our actions and undergirding all of our actions in all of those areas, we have this one underlying job. Keep your heart with all vigilance. Or as one commentator rephrases it, above all things that are to be guarded, guard the heart, or keep with all keeping.

It's our utmost concern. There's nothing more important than keeping your heart. Everything else is a secondary job after guarding your heart, protecting your soul, preserving your inner man. Now we as good Christian men, we hear that and we say, how can that be? That seems selfish for me to consider my own heart first.

Aren't men supposed to be self less? Shouldn't I be looking outward first and then begin to consider myself. It seems sort of like we've got our priorities mixed up, but that's not the case. Because notice the second half of the verse, as it describes the importance of the job, says, for. Here's why we have to keep our hearts.

Here's why it's so important. Here's why the job of guarding your heart must precede everything else. For from it flow the springs of life. When God made Adam in the garden at first he formed his body and we can almost imagine the life or the body of Adam just laying there. He was just a lifeless body but then the Bible says God breathed the breath of life into him and he became a living being.

Life is the difference between dead body on the ground and living body standing. Now what do you do with your life? The answer is everything. Everything that you do is a product or an outworking of life. Without life you don't do anything, but because we have life we think and feel and act and go and do and say everything is a fruit of life.

All that you are, all that you do as a person is your life. You're living your life out. So the text says, guard your heart with all vigilance. Utmost concern. Why?

Because from it, that is from the heart, from the inner man, flow the springs of life. Now in my house we get our water from a spring. It's not a well. Nobody has to dig down to get it. It just comes out of the ground.

That's the picture here. That phrase, flow the springs, is just pointing to the origin, the source of the bubbling out of life. Everything you say, everything you do, everything you feel, think or act bubbles out of the heart. Everything you do with your hands, everywhere you go with your feet, everything you say with your mouth, it all finds its origin in the heart. And not merely that you do it, but why you do it.

Your motivations and your intentions, it all starts in the heart. Everything that comes out of you starts within. And everything that is within you in some way comes out. That's why it's important to keep your heart. You can't be a good guardian of your wife if you're not keeping your heart.

You can't be a good guardian of your children if you're not keeping your heart. You can't be a good worker if you're not guarding your heart. And I love that he said that. He learned early how to work. But he wished that his father would have taught him to work for the glory of God.

You can work every day of your life and sweat into your grave if it is not done for God's glory, it all perishes. It's worthless because you did not keep your heart first because that living out of the work did not come first from A heart prepared by the Lord. Everything that comes out of you is directly related to what is in you and therefore one of the most important jobs we have is to keep the heart. Guard what goes in. And by guarding what's going in, you can more effectively manage what's coming out.

Everything you are as a person, all of your thoughts, all of your feelings, all of your actions, all of your goings and your doings, all of your interaction with the world is coming out of you straight off of the assembly line of the heart. When we only manage what's coming out, when we only hang out by the shipping dock, We only check the list at the shipping dock. That's called moralism. That's self-righteousness. We say, I'm going to the Father Son retreat.

So I'm going to be around Christians. So I've got to watch what I'm saying. I've got to watch how I'm acting. I've got to watch what I look at and what I speak of. I've got to be a good moral person.

You're only guarding what's being shipped out when if you would have watched the receiving gate coming in, you wouldn't have to do that. You don't have to make these alterations. This I believe is actually the difference between Christianity and self-righteous moralism. The Christian starts by saying, I'm guarding my heart, I'm watching what comes in, and when we watch what comes in, we can better manage the things that are coming out. Of course all of this we're assuming under the power and strength of the Holy Spirit.

So to summarize the job, keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life. Give yourself to the task of actively protecting your own heart from the things that might come in. Here's the question, how do things come in? There are two primary ways, and we could elaborate and elaborate and elaborate. Two primary ways I think that things come into our hearts, to use the language of Bunyan, eye gate and ear gate, the things you look at and the things you hear.

These things enter into our brains and make their way into our hearts through the eyes and the ears. Everything that you see, everything that you see has the potential to plant a thought in your mind. And every thought has the potential to sink its way down into the inner man, the heart, and begin to affect the way you think, the way you feel, the way you act. Every person, every tree, every advertisement, Every image on every screen, every car or truck, every dollar bill, every pair of shoes, every shirt, every headline, you name it. If it comes into the view of your eyeballs, it can potentially change the way you think and act.

Your ears are the same way. Everything that you hear has the potential to spark a thought. And that thought has the potential to sink down into the soul, the heart, and alter how you feel, how you act. Every song that you listen to has that potential. As a matter of fact, I would say music is specifically designed by God Almighty to do this.

As we just heard, the world takes that and distorts it and the evil one uses that to his advantage. But we all know people. They listen, they buy one CD and after that they're a different person. They dress different, they shop at different stores, they talk different, everything changes. Then they buy a different CD, and all of a sudden everything changes.

The music, everything that goes into your ears is shaping the way that you think. And, Lee, of every sermon that you listen to has this potential. Every conversation that you are engaged in, or perhaps you only walk by and hear a piece of it, and it can plant a thought in your mind, for good or for bad. Every dog that you hear barking, every bird that you hear singing, everything that comes into your ears and your eyes has the potential to come into the heart and affect the way you think, the way you feel, and ultimately the way you act in the world. These things come out in the form of life, what Solomon calls the springs of life.

What you see and what you hear goes into your heart, and from your heart it bubbles out in life. Now where do things come out? If things come into eye gate and ear gate, where do they come out? Again, to summarize in a very succinct manner, I would say they are shipped out of hand gate and mouth gate. The things that you do and the things that you say.

The Bible very often uses the hands to symbolize your working, everything, all of your actions. It might be at your job, it might be your chores in the home, it might be your hobbies. Whenever dad comes home and he says, what did you do today? You say, nothing. You just told him what you did all day.

You did something. You took God's time that He gave you. You stole it from Him and used it for your own pleasure. But you're doing something. You're always doing something.

In the same way, the Bible uses the mouth to represent the things that we say and why we say it. You're talking to your friends, you're talking to your brothers and sisters, talking to parents, talking to employer, talking to coworkers, talking to strangers. These are the ways in which the things come out of us in our doing and in our speaking and ultimately the springs of life are the matters of the heart that cause you to act and speak in certain ways. Why did you say that? Why did you say it that way?

Why did you have that goal in mind when you said it? Why did you go to work on Monday morning? Why did you work the way that you worked? All of that comes from the heart. Not just what you do, but why you do it.

Not just where you go, but why you go. Not just what you say, but why you said it. So here's the point. Everything that you take in with your eyes and ears has the potential to greatly influence everything you say and do for good or for bad. Your job is to be constantly on the lookout.

You can't stop everything from coming in. You can't close your ears and close your eyes. Stuff's coming in. Your job is to stand guard and to filter these things through the truth of the Word of God. The world is after the hearts of young men.

I know this because I are one. Young men are by nature plagued with eyes and ears for the things that the world is trying to give us and most of us never realize that we're being sucked in. The world is trying to tell you what is important. The world is trying to tell you which lifestyle is the best lifestyle. Which shoes are the best shoes?

Which car is the best car? Which truck is the best truck? The world is trying to tell you what is important. The world is trying to tell you which lifestyle is the best lifestyle. Which shoes are the best shoes?

Which car is the best car? Which truck is the best truck? The world is trying to tell you how your marriage ought to look. What a family is, what a man is. The world is preaching their gospel all the time.

Louder than we do and more proudly than we do, they're always preaching their gospel and they're aiming it at young men. Because having been ravaged by feminism, they see you as weak, ignorant, malleable, moldable, shapeable, easy targets. If we can get those weak puny men they know that they can change everything they're after you so Solomon says you better keep your heart with all vigilance. Because before you know it, if you do not, before long, you'll be one of their preachers. You're going to be preaching their gospel with your life.

So guard it. If you're a Christian you belong to another kingdom, the kingdom of Christ. That kingdom is at present a spiritual kingdom that manifests itself in the world. How? By what we say and what we do as Christians.

In the gospel that we proclaim and, notice I did not say through, the gospel we proclaim and lives of holiness that give evidence to the fact that Christ has actually performed a work in our hearts. And even as saints of God, we have the tendency to take the world's gospel, allow it to trickle in and contaminate the gospel that we know to be true. And then what comes out of us is a weak and ineffective substitute for the real gospel. At best, at worst we actually begin to live and work against the kingdom of Christ on the earth. Guard your heart.

Keep your heart with all vigilance. For from it flow the springs of life. Two points of application. First for sons. If you are a son here, or if you are a male here you are a son so this applies to everyone be careful what goes in keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life take notice of what's going in your eyes and your ears maybe you've never thought about it We can't stop everything from coming in but we can be on guard.

Guard against everything, even good things, even holy things, even profitable things. The devil is not limited to use the things that are clearly evil as we just heard. Guard, be on the lookout. Do not assume because I sat in a sermon that I actually used that for profit. You have to guard, watch, manage how these things are coming in.

And then secondly for fathers, Very quickly, be careful what comes out. Proverbs 23, 26, Solomon says, My son, give me your heart and let Your eyes observe my ways. Fathers, can you say this to your sons and daughters? When you break out for 10 minutes and your son says, Dad, he talked too fast. He didn't explain himself very clearly.

I don't really understand what was happening. Dad, can you please explain this to me? Can you say, son, just watch me. I'll show you what this looks like. I'll show you what it looks like to guard your heart.

Or Are you one of those dads who are constantly pointing out the things that the world has ascribed prominence to? Look at that son. Look at that son. Look at that son. Look at that son.

Not realizing that your sons are depraved just like you are. Have a tendency toward idolatry just like you do. So that you would have to say, son, when it comes to keeping your heart, don't watch me. Close your ears and close your eyes when you're around me. Don't let daddy's habits infect you.

Don't let me set an example for you. Can you say that? Let your eyes observe my ways. Be careful what comes out. Men are by nature keepers, guardians.

We speak a lot of being guardians of the nation, the church, the home, our wives, our children. If we're to be guardians in any sphere and do so in a way that glorifies Christ, we have to start by being guardians of our own hearts. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would add your blessing to the reading and the proclamation of your word. Holy Spirit, we ask that you would water the seed of the word, that it would bear fruit.

I thank you for the men who have already preached and what will continue to happen. I pray for these young men here, these young boys, that you would use them, that you would raise up a generation of real men please Lord have mercy on our nation a nation that has very few real men. Use the men under this tent, Lord, for your glory, for the sake of Christ, for the advance of his kingdom on the earth. Amen.