Mikó István szolgálata a  torontói ifjúsági találkozón,  2002. október 13-án

           

Introduction: One of the most important jobs of the Secret Service of the United States is to protect or guard the President. The president needs to be guarded because there are so many people out there that would attack him if they could, and because he is one of the most important people in the world. In verse 23, it says that you should >guard= your heart. I think that that mean that there is something valuable and worthwhile to protect, and not only that, it also means that it is under attack. So what exactly is the heart that it=s so important to protect? Is the heart here your physical heart that pumps blood? What does it mean that the heart is the Wellspring of life? A wellspring is like the place where something starts, the source, something from where everything flows out of. Back before there was running water, they dug wells everywhere. The well was typically in the center of a town, and the whole town thrived because of it. But if the water was polluted or dirty, then the whole town suffered. In the same way your life will suffer if your wellspring, or your heart, is not kept pure and clean. The heart symbolizes a couple of different things in the context of the Bible.

I. The Heart
      A. The heart could symbolize feelings and emotions. In Proverbs 12:25 it talks about Ahaving an anxious heart that weighs a man down@. Proverbs 12:25 talks about Ahaving a heavy heart@, meaning discouragement or despair. Leviticus 19:17 says not to Ahate your brother in your heart.@
      B. The heart could also be closely related to acts of the will, or your deliberate acts and decisions. The Bible refers to David as Aa man after God=s own heart, for he will do everything I want him to do.@ In other words, God knew David was willing and eager to fulfill God=s will for his life.
      C. The heart is also many times referred to as the true nature of a person, or the whole inner being of a person. Proverbs 3:5 says ATrust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,@ to trust God with everything that you are. In I Samuel 16:7 it says Aman looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.@ We may judge a person by what he looks like or appears to be like, but God looks at our character.
      D. The heart could also mean a lot of other things, but it most commonly stands for the mind, or our thoughts, and this is what I really want to focus on today. Guarding your heart means guarding all of the different meanings of your heart, but guarding your thoughts is such a vital part of the Christian life, so I want to spend the majority of the time talking about that.

      - So as you can see, your heart is important and it=s very important to protect, and that=s why it is constantly under attack.

      II. Your heart is under attack from three different sources: The Devil, the world, and the sinful desires of your own flesh.

      A. The Devil B Your life is essentially a battleground. If you are a Christian and have accepted Christ into your life, than He now dwells in you. But Satan also wants to have a piece of you. But the problem is, you can=t have two masters. In the middle ages, if a person committed a crime, a common form of the death penalty was to tie a person=s hands and his legs to a different horse, and then have the horses run in opposite directions. Needless to say, the person was literally Atorn@ in half. But the battle for our hearts is the same way. You can=t hold on to your sin and try to serve God at the same time. It rips you apart.
      Satan doesn=t come right out and attack us though. He doesn=t say Aha-ha! Here is sin! Do bad things!!@ Not at all. He is a smart enemy. Perhaps the reason the North Vietnamese were so successful in the Vietnam War was because they used guerilla war tactics, like hit and fade attacks. They knew that if they attacked the Americans head on that they would lose the battle. That=s why they hid in the jungles and set up traps and ambushes. The devil is like a roaring lion looking seeking someone to devour. And even when he does attack, the Bible says that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. The Greek writer Homer, who wrote the Odyssey and the Illiad, describes a story of a greek war with a group called the Trojans. These Trojans were in a city called Troy, and the Greeks layed siege to the city for about 10 years, but they could not overtake it. Finally, they designed a new war machine, a giant wooden horse. They presented it to the Trojans and pretended it was a gift of peace and the troops that were seiging the city hid in the hills close by. However, when the horse made it into the city, they unleashed their trap! A bunch of troops hid inside the horse and when they came out, they opened the city gates for the rest of the troops to come in.
      That=s how Satan attacks us. He tempts us and makes it seems that sin is pleasurable. That sin helps us. That sin is the only way out.
      B. The world also presents a huge threat to us. By Aworld@ I mean the part of society that promotes ideas like lying, stealing, lust, and selfishness. There are so many things in our society that just feed us false information, such as the governments, schools, television, movies, music, etc.
      1.) When Sir Edmund Hillary completed his first climb of Mt. Everest, he was so grateful to the efforts of the Buddhist Nepalese people that he asked them AWhat can I do for you?@ They answered AGive us schools!@ Since there were almost no Nepalese teachers, they brought in Hindu Indian teachers. The result was that the Buddhist beliefs became watered down and the whole culture changed because of the teachers, since they spent many hours a week teaching them, and they were taught something other than what their parents were teaching them.
      I just read an article in U.S. News that said that 90% of the teachers in colleges across the US are liberals and only 10% conservatives and Christians. But I=m sure that similar statistics can also be found in high schools across the US and Canada. Biology is based on evolutionary theories. History discussions leave out any types of contributions of Christianity. Literature=s themes are often morally inappropriate and teach that Jesus is just another philosopher like Plato and Socrates.
      2.) TV and movies can also pollute the heart. Sex outside of marriage is the norm. Children disobeying parents is respected. Lying, cheating, and stealing is OK unless you get caught. Pleasing yourself is the most important thing in life. Profanity is OK if it makes you laugh. I am not telling you that TV and movies in and of themselves are wrong, or that you should go home and chuck your television sets out the window, but you need to be aware of the danger that some TV shows and movies possess.
      3.) Music can be a very powerful tool to persuade young people. Why? Because it is emotion-based. Music caters to your emotions more than anything else can or does and it can be a very hurtful B and dangerous B thing. Music can promote anything from love and kindness to rape, incest, homosexuality, rebellion, rage, hatred, suicide, and the list goes on. 19-year-old John McCollum committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a .22 caliber pistol while listening to Ozzy Osbourne albums for five hours prior to his death. Lyrics such as ASuicide is the only way out@ and ACan you help me? Oh, shoot out my brains@ were running through his mind during the final moments of his life. If you would come up to me and tell me that you listen to music not because of the words but because you like that style of music, I=d believe you. I think there is some really good music outside of the Christian music industry. But don=t tell me that the words of the songs don=t have an effect on you, because they do. Maybe just subconsciously, but those lyrics are still filling your head.
      C. So we know that Satan attacks us and the world around us attacks us, but maybe the most harmful attacks come from ourselves. In Galatians 5 it talks about the acts of the sinful nature, such as sexual immorality, idolatry, hatred, jealousy, rage, selfishness, drunkenness, etc. And Satan is never even mentioned in this verse. This means that even if there was no devil to tempt you, your human nature would still desire these things. The sinful flesh tells you Ago ahead. It=s ok. It will make you feel good. It will make you feel popular and accepted.@
      So let me ask you a question. With all of these battles going on in your life, how can you possibly do the right thing? And also, what is the point? Why should I live the kind of life God wants me to? I=m going to give you four steps to overcome sin and guard your heart!

III. Guarding Your Heart

A. Know your Sin. When I was in elementary school, I don't remember what grade, our science project was examining the taste buds. They gave us each a little bag of different types of food to demonstrate all of the different tastes that our tongue can taste, such as sweet, sour, bitter and salty. I don't remember everything that was in the bag, but I do remember that there was an orange, there were peanuts, and a couple of other things that I don't remember, but one thing that I remember for sure, was that there was a piece of chocolate in there. Well, it was right before lunch, so I was pretty hungry. Obviously, the teacher had you eat everything before the chocolate, so the chocolate was last. When we finally got to the chocolate, I was really excited. But when I tasted it, I was extremely disappointed. It tasted bitter! It was actually sugarless chocolate that the teacher gave us. Sin is the same way. It seems so tempting, but when you take a bite out of it, you find that it's not so sweet after all. Maybe not right away, but eventually you will. But yet, we are still like sheep. Do you know what sheep are like? They move around in a herd to the pasture to feed every day, but they need a leader because even though they've been going the same way for their whole lives, one day without a leader, and they would be completely lost and not know where to go. If they are taken to a river to drink, sometimes you need to actually take their heads out of the water or else they would drown! But in reality, we're not really that much different from sheep. Maybe that's why the Bible compares us to sheep so much. Even though we may know the danger of sin, we still jump right into it.

a.) And sin is downhill. You can't just stop whenever you wish. It's a lot harder to stop running down a hill and turn around and walk back up than to keep on running down the hill. Even a little boy can bend an oak tree when it is new, but 100 men couldn't root it up when it is full grown.

b.) Not only is sin addictive, it is also damaging. Yes, God will forgive you for your sins, but the consequences continue. Some have little consequences, and other things have big consequences. Sometimes it may be a consequence that you must live with for the rest of your life.

c.) It's so crucial to understand sin the way God understands it. If you don't, you won't understand why you have to change. Something to keep in mind is that when we sin, it's like us saying to Christ, "hey, look. I'm glad that you died for me. That's great and all, but I don't need it. I'm just going to live my life the way I want to." It may sound rash, but that's the way God views our sins. Which brings me to the next step.

B. Know Your God. You might be sitting there thinking "But you don't understand. My problem is complicated. And I don't think even God wants to forgive me." And you might be right, your problem may be pretty complicated. But I think the pastor at my church says it best: God is a bigger savior than you are a sinner. I mean, this is the same God that split the Red Sea and brought down the walls of Jericho. And he's on your side! And the great thing about it is that God is so patient. Though we are dumb sheep and may make the same mistake 10 million times, God will always forgive us if we go back to him. If he didn't, Christ's death on the cross wouldn't mean anything. When God looks at us, he should automatically send us to the pits of hell. But Jesus is like a filter for us, when God looks at us, we seem perfect to him, because he sees us through Christ. But don't let that be an excuse to sin. The Bible says "if you love me, you must keep my commands." So you can't just keep on sinning and keep asking God to forgive you. Once you understand who your God is and what He is capable of, you are ready to begin your battle plan to guard your heart. Which is the next step, know your plan.

C. Know Your Plan. What would happen if I was the coach of the Detroit Lions football team, and I decided to plan a new strategy. I am going to try to win the game by just concentrating on defense. That should work, right? If the other team can't score, they can't win, right? Well, the problem with that strategy is that defense doesn't win games, and most likely the other team will score. Especially if you're the Detroit Lions, the other team will score. What I am trying to say by this is that a good offense is the best defense. You need a defense, but a strong offense wins the game. It's the same with your thoughts. If you clean out the garbage out of your thoughts, that's only half the battle. You've got to replace those thoughts with Biblical thoughts. Not an easy task.

Our minds are in a similar situation. Though we may decide to change and to start living our lives for Christ and clean out our thoughts, even when you think you have achieved victory, the enemy is still hiding in the caves. Your old sinful nature is still there, waiting and ready to ambush you in your moment of weakness. That's why it is so important to stay in constant communication with God.

To be a part of a conversation, you have to do two things: Listen and Speak. Listening is reading the Bible. You won't know what God is telling you if you don't listen to Him. That's why it's so crucial to daily be in the Word. You can't overcome your problems if you don't know what God has to say about them. But it's just as important to talk to God. That's prayer. You have to ask God to help you overcome your sins, and He guarantees that He will. In I Corinthians 10:13 it says "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." That is a tremendous promise. And let me encourage you, I know sometimes when you pray it feels as if it's useless. But do this, next time you feel that you're in a situation where you feel like God doesn't care and you don't care much about God, pray this prayer: "God, I don't love you right now. I don't even want to love you right now. But help me to want to love you."

Say your mind is a building of some sort. It has a door to it. You stand guard at the door and you regulate what enters and what does not. Jesus of course is standing next to you, but who goes in is not his choice, it's yours. He can only warn you of danger. Let's say 'loser' approaches the door. He says to you, "You've been a loser all your life. You blew it again. You might as well write bum on your resume, cause that's all you are!" Well, do you let loser in? Can he enter the doors of your heart? If you've been talking to God, you know what he would say. Ephesians 2:10 says "we are God's workmanship, created in Jesus Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Or how about that we are created in God's image and He has a perfect plan for our lives? So you know that loser can't come in. But what if he puts up a fight? What if he's too strong for you to beat him? Then ask God to help you. Pray "Jesus, loser is a tough guy, but you're tougher. Can you please come and kick him out for me?"

Loser is gone. Now groupie comes to the door. "man, you are so cool! I wish I was just like you. The world is such a lucky place to have you!" Well, do you let groupie in and think that you're better than everyone else? Let's see what Christ says. Romans 12:3 "don't cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or of your importance." Or how about Galatians 6:14 "The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is my only reason for bragging." Kick groupie out.

Now temptation and lust come to the door. They don't say much, but you want to let them in. What do you do? Song of Solomon 2:7 says "do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires." And God has someone in store for you to marry who is hoping that you stay pure for him/her. Temptation and lust definitely cannot come in.

Max Lucado gives an interesting illustration of the heart in his book Just Like Jesus.

Say you come to visit me one day and find that I'm working on my greenhouse. It's not mine, though. It's my fathers. It's a state-of-the-art technology greenhouse that is just perfect for anything that is grown in it. So I ask you to help me collect seeds for my father's greenhouse. He put me in charge of it. Now, you've always thought I was a bit crazy, but what I do next removes all doubt in your mind. I start collecting weed seeds. I get everything from crab grass to dandelions. You can't believe it. You say to me "I thought you wanted a greenhouse full of flowers and fruit? "I do" I reply. "Then don't you think you should plant flower and fruit seeds?" "Nah. I'd have to drive all the way to the garden store to get them. No thanks, I'm taking the cheap and easy route."

What do we learn from this illustration? First, God is the rightful owner of our hearts. Don't assume that it's your body and you can do whatever you want with it. Not exactly. Second, we learn that the mind is like a greenhouse. Whatever you plant there takes root and grows, and it's hard to get rid of weeds. You can mow them down, but they're still rooted. They'll spring up again. That's why it's so crucial to 'guard' your heart. It's a lot harder to cut sin out of your life when it's full-grown. So don't go to a bar if you're an alcoholic, and don't try to prove your purity in a pornography shop. Finally we learn that guarding your heart is not easy. It's always easier to let your guard down and let all kinds of sin filter into your heart and mind. We're not programmed robots. God gives us a choice. A choice to do evil or good. It's a choice to stop doing one thing and do something else. It's like stopping in the middle of a freeway, turning around, and going against the flow.

D. It's tough trying to swim upstream and go against the flow by yourself. That's why it's so crucial that you make friends that help you with your fight and to become active in a church. I strongly encourage you to find someone that you look up to and ask him to keep you accountable. It makes a world of difference.

Know your sin, know your God, know your plan, and know your friends. Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

(Steve Miko delivered this message at the Youth Conference at Toronto on Oct. 13, 2002.)

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