God is saying to each of us, his children, to every person who is in Jesus Christ today, the word of God from Proverbs and chapter 23 and verse 26 is simply this, my son, my daughter, give me your heart. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and Colin, when we hear that verse from Proverbs 23, God saying my son, my daughter, give me your heart, we tend to think of that as a verse for the unbeliever, but it sounds as if you’re saying it’s actually for a person who does know Jesus. My son, give me your heart, so yeah this is clearly a word that is spoken within the family and here is God speaking to his own children. This touches a real issue, I mean how often as a pastor I’ve had the privilege of sitting with someone who is one of the Lord’s own people and then they’re struggling with the fact that their own heart has grown cold. You may know this experience yourself as you listen to the program today, you say, you know, I’m a Christian and yet there seems to be a hardness, a distance, a coldness in my heart, there’s a lethargy that’s come upon me, I sometimes even wonder if I really am a Christian at all. Now that’s a real conversation and it’s addressed right here by the Lord saying, my son, my daughter, now you are my child, but here you are in a place where your own heart has grown cold and I want you today to place that heart back into my hands. Well this is a word that speaks to the reality of the Christian life when we get into a dry place and a place where it’s not easy for us, so my prayer for the program today is that God would use this to touch your heart. Well we’re looking at Proverbs chapter 23 as we begin our message called The Heart Set Right. Here’s Colin. If you would open your Bible at Proverbs chapter 23 that’s just been read, we’re especially going to look at the first part of verse 26 today. We really began looking at these verses last week and we saw that these are the words of a wise and of a loving father speaking to his son. Now we ended last time with a prayer of Solomon’s father, King David. From Psalm 51 and verse 10 where David prayed, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in me. Now that word create is very important because it means, and this is what David was praying, bring into existence, O Lord, something that was not in me before. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Now there’s more here than David asking for forgiveness. Remember in Psalm 51 he has already done that. He says in Psalm 51 and verse 7, purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. David had already asked for forgiveness and he had received it. But his prayer doesn’t end with the request for forgiveness, his prayer moves on. It’s as if he’s saying after verse 7 of Psalm 51, Lord, thank you for forgiveness. Thank you for washing me. Thank you for cleansing. But now I need to ask you for something else. See, I did what I did because my sinful heart was drawn to do it. And if you forgive my sin but leave my heart as it was before unchanged, it won’t be long before the same sinful heart takes me to do exactly the same thing again. And then I’ll just be locked in a cycle of repeating the same thing over and over and over again. That’s not where I want to be. So Lord, create within me something that has not been there before. Create in me a clean heart, O God. I want you not only to forgive the sin, I want you to change the impulse that actually made me do it. That’s what he’s praying here. Lord, I need more than forgiveness. Create in me a heart that loves you and loves you more than the sin I fell into. Now, that’s where I want to take up the thread of this two-part message today. So where do you go from there? So here you are today, you are a forgiven sinner and you do have a new heart. The truth about you is that you love the Lord and you trust the Lord and you want to live in a way that honors the Lord. Where do you go from here? See, last week the message was very much, as we focused on the heart gone wrong, last week the message was primarily to those who may be tempted to give up a faith that they once professed. That’s what Rehoboam did and that’s why Solomon was speaking to his son with such intensity in these verses. But today I want to speak to all of us who truly would say as a forgiven person who has a new heart, who truly loves the Lord and wants to honor him in your life, where do we go from here? What is it that God says to us today? The answer to that question is in the first six words of verse 26, Proverbs in chapter 23, my son, give me your heart. Or if we phrase it another way, my daughter, give me your heart. Last week we heard these words primarily as the words of a wise and loving father to his son, Solomon speaking to Rehoboam and a father today speaking to a son today about the path of wisdom and how not to go wrong. Today I want us to hear these words as the very words of God himself to us, which of course they are, they’re the words of scripture. God is saying to each of us, his children, to every person who is in Jesus Christ today, the word of God from Proverbs in chapter 23 and verse 26 is simply this, my son, my daughter, give me your heart. You’re listening to Pastor Colin Smith on Open the Bible and the message, The Heart Set Right. My son, my daughter, give me your heart. Your first thought, like me, might be to think that that’s an appeal to an unbeliever, someone who doesn’t know Christ, but as Colin points out today, it’s just as much for each follower of Jesus. It’s part of a series called The Father’s Wisdom and if you missed any of the series or you want to go back and listen again, you can do that by going online, go to our website. That’s openthebible.org.uk, there you can download any of our previous messages entirely free. Now, Open the Bible is entirely supported by our listeners and that’s people like you. And this month, if you’re able to begin supporting Open the Bible, we’d love to thank you by sending you a free gift. It’s a book by John White called The Fight. It’s a handbook for the Christian life. It will really help you with your day-to-day Christian life. I’ll be talking to Colin more about why he selected this book later in the programme. Back to our message now, we’re looking at Proverbs chapter 23, verses 15 to 26. Here’s Colin. My son, my daughter, give me your heart. I want in reflecting on these remarkable words to make very simply four observations today. The first is, please note an established relationship. My son, give me your heart. In other words, the person who will give his or her heart to the Lord is not a stranger, certainly not an enemy, and not a slave. The one who gives his or her heart to the Lord is a son, a daughter. In other words, the giving of the heart flows from the knowledge of an established relationship. My son, God says, give me your heart. Now notice the way around that it is. The point here is not that if you give God your heart, you will become his child. The point is that if you are his child, you will give him your heart. My son, give me your heart. Now as most of you will know very well, our Lord told a marvellous story about a prodigal son who wasted his life in wild and reckless living, but then came to his senses and returned to his father. And before he came back, he decided in his mind what he was going to say when he got home. When I get back, I’m going to say, Father, I am no longer worthy to be called your son, so treat me as one of your hired servants. Now in the event, when the son got back, he actually only got halfway through the speech that he had planned. Father, he said, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But at that point, the father interrupted him. He broke into the son’s prepared speech and said to the servants, now bring the fatted calf and let us eat and celebrate for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. It’s as if the father’s saying, what do you mean you’re not worthy to be my son? You are my son and you’re back and let’s celebrate. But then you remember there was another son and he was the very opposite of reckless. Oh, he was as dutiful as they come. Every day he went out into the fields and worked for the father and did everything that the father told him to do. And when he saw that his no good brother had returned and that there was such a lavish welcome being laid on for him, you remember that he was not happy. It all seemed very, very unfair to him. And so he said to the father, many years I have served you and I have never disobeyed your command. And the father said to him, first word, son, you are always with me and all that is mine is yours. Now think about this. Here are two sons and both of them think of themselves as if they were only servants. And if you think of yourself only as a servant of God, one of two things will happen. Either on the one hand, you will spend your whole life thinking I owe him, I messed up and I have to now work for the rest of my life to make up for my mess up. I blew the inheritance and so the rest of my life I’m just trying to make up to God what I blew and what I did wrong and that’s who I just have to work my way through life and try and make up for all that I’ve done in the past. Or you will have the opposite problem, not of spending your whole life thinking that you owe God, but that you spend your whole life like the elder brother thinking that God owes you. I’ve lived a good moral life, I’ve been a loyal husband or wife, I’ve studied hard, I’ve told the truth, I’ve pursued a moral path and God owes me better than he’s given to me. Think of yourself as only a servant who will live your life in one of two places, either I owe God or God owes me and in neither case does the father have the son’s heart. But friends, if you are in Jesus Christ, please try to take this in today, you are not a slave, you are a son. You are no longer a slave but a son, Galatians 4 and verse 7, and if a son, then an heir. Romans 8 and verse 15, you did not receive the spirit of slavery but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba, Father. And you know what? It’s the knowledge of the relationship, a son, a daughter of God that leads to the giving of the heart. Otherwise you’ll spend your whole life either feeling that you owe God or that God owes you. Father God, I wonder how I managed to exist without the knowledge of your parenthood and your loving care but now I am your child, I am adopted in your family and I can never be alone for Father God, you’re there beside me. Do you see the force of this? My son, give me your heart. The appeal of God to you is on the basis of a relationship established in Jesus Christ. You are not a stranger. You are not his enemy. You are not his slave. My son, my daughter, give me your heart. Second observation, an essential priority. It’s not about sonship, let’s think now together about the heart. Give me your heart. Now we looked together last week at why the heart is so important. Let me give you a picture and for the boys and girls, if you want to draw something, here’s a picture. Here’s a picture of the Christian’s heart, the Christian’s heart. A Christian’s heart is like a walled city, so a city with a wall around the outside and on the outside of the wall there are many, many enemies that want to get in. That’s one part of the problem, a walled city with enemies on the outside. But here’s the other part of the problem of the Christian heart. There are also traitors on the inside of the city. Traitors on the inside of the city as well. Now this is our experience, isn’t it? We live in this world in which the temptations of the world and the flesh and the devil outside of us, as it were, are always being thrown at us and we need to keep the gates of the walled city closed to anyone or anything that would lead us down a destructive path. But when all is said and done about the many, many evils that are on the outside of the Christian’s heart, the even greater problem is the traitors on the inside. There is something, is there not, within all of us that is actually drawn to different forms of sin. And so we need to guard not only against temptation on the outside but against the traitors on the inside in our own hearts as well. Now you will notice that this whole theme of contending with the many temptations and lures that come to a Christian and come to the Christian heart are very prominent in these verses that are before us in Proverbs. For example, if you look at verse 27, you will see that it speaks very clearly there about the lure of sexual temptation. And in verse 20, you have very clear reference to the temptations of drink and of gluttony and of laziness. And I think with that in our culture today, we could add the whole scene of the drug culture that is such a temptation for so many today. Now, here’s the question. How are you going to guard your heart, especially a heart that has traitors within it, how are you going to guard your heart against temptations like these? Now let me tell you another story from the Bible, another familiar story that I think will make the point. The Bible tells us the story of Joseph, a young man who you remember had been very badly treated and ended up living in another country away from his family and from his support network, a place where he was away from everyone who knew him. He worked for a man by the name of Potiphar and Potiphar’s wife tempted him. Now Joseph said this, here’s how he responded, it’s Genesis 39 and verse 9, he says, How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Notice what he says to Potiphar’s wife, I couldn’t do this against God. That’s his defense. And these are the words of a man who has given his heart to God. These are the words of a man who loves the Lord with all his heart. Now Joseph’s brothers would not have said a thing like that. They had been brought up, of course, in the same home, they’d been brought up with the same faith, but their hearts were not given to the Lord. But Joseph had given his heart to the Lord, he truly loved the Lord, and he lived in what the Bible calls the fear of the Lord, which is a wonderful expression of what it really means to love the Lord. That phrase, as you may know, occurs often in the Bible and especially in the book of Proverbs and you’ll find it in our chapter in verse 17 where it says, Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day long. Let me give you the simple definition of the fear of the Lord that we’ve used before. I find it very helpful. The fear of the Lord is so to love God that his frown would be your greatest dread and his smile would be your greatest delight. That’s what fearing God is, that’s what Joseph did. He so loved the Lord that God’s frown would be his greatest dread. How can I do this against God? And God’s smile would be his greatest delight. That’s what it’s like when you have given your heart to the Lord. You live in the fear of the Lord, his frown your greatest dread and his smile your greatest delight and you do it all the day, Proverbs chapter 23 and verse 17. In other words, what I’m saying to you is this, very simply, that giving your heart to the Lord, what we’re being asked to do and called to do today is your very best defense against sin. What a great place to pause the message there with a reminder that giving your heart to God is the very best defense against sin. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, The Heart Set Right. Part of our series, The Father’s Wisdom, and if you ever miss any of our broadcasts or if you want to go back and listen again, you can do that by going online. Go to our website, openthebible.org.uk. Open the Bible Daily is a series of short two to three minute reflections written by Pastor Colin Smith and read by Sue McLeish. Sue was in the studio recently and I asked what people were saying to her about Open the Bible Daily. Well, it’s early days, but several comments I’ve received are encouraging. One came from a young mother who’d recently given birth to her second child. She’d been worried that she wasn’t finding time for her normal Bible reading and study, but Open the Bible Daily had proved to be just the right length and content for her at this time. Oh, yes, and then I received an email a few weeks back from a much older person who’d started listening regularly to Open the Bible Daily and had already recommended it to several of her friends. So, David, how can people find the podcast? Well, Sue, you can find the podcast on any of the regular podcasting sites. Just search for Open the Bible UK and look for the purple banner. Subscribe to the podcast and you’ll receive Open the Bible Daily every day on your device. You can also find our regular broadcasts as podcasts. Just search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to the broadcast so that you receive regular updates. Open the Bible is able to remain on this station and on the Internet because of the generosity of our listeners. This month, if you’re able to begin a new monthly donation to Open the Bible of five pounds or more, we would love to send you the book The Fight by John White. Colin, give us a sample of this book. It is warm in the way that it’s expressed and it’s very practical in taking us through what it means to live the Christian life. So for example, in his chapter on prayer, which I think is just outstanding, he gives several principles as to how we can grasp God’s will in prayer. For example, he says it’s always God’s will that we praise him. It’s always God’s will that we open up the longings of our hearts and speak to him, tell him how it is. It’s always, he says, God’s will that we pray for our enemies. He applies that scripture really powerfully. He says it’s always God’s will that when we don’t know what his will is, we should ask. Really practical wisdom given in a warm and a fatherly way. Anyone who reads this book is going to be helped to grow in the Christian life. Again, the book is The Fight and it’s our gift to you when you set up a new monthly donation to Open the Bible of five pounds or more. You can find details of this offer and lots more information about Open the Bible at openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I very much hope you’ll join us again soon. How can you ever feel safe giving your heart to God? Find out next time on Open the Bible.