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. The father’s name is Solomon. He’s a king. God has given to him a very special gift of wisdom. He is the one, of course, who either wrote or collected together most of the Book of Proverbs. The son’s name, as we saw last week, is Rehoboam, and this wise father has some reasons for being concerned about his son. Solomon, of course, had a rebel brother. His name was Absalom. And now, in these later years, Solomon is anxious that the heart of his rebel brother may also be manifesting itself again in his own son. And so this wise and loving father speaks very, very directly to his son, speaks words of wisdom to him. And when he does, he identifies certain areas in the son’s life that are giving the father cause for concern. And we saw last week, therefore, that the words of Solomon in these verses really indicate to us where it is that the heart most commonly goes wrong. And we saw on the first place that the heart often goes wrong is in who you admire. So Solomon says to his son, verse 17, let not your heart envy sinners. Evidently Rehoboam was looking at people who lived without God and in his mind and heart, seemed to be saying, they’re the people I want to be like. That’s the kind of life that I want to live. And the father comes to him and says, now, don’t envy sinners in your heart, who you admire. Second, the heart goes wrong very often over how you decide. Solomon says to his son, verse 18, surely there is a future. In other words, son, don’t make your decisions in life on the basis of short-term comfort. Always remember that there is a future. Surely there is a future, and therefore, you should, if you’re wise, be making your decisions in life on the basis of long-term outcomes. Always remember, son, that your life in this world is very, very short, and then your life in eternity will be very, very long indeed. So whatever you do, don’t be making your decisions in life on what makes you feel good now. Make your decisions in life on the basis of what will make you feel good then, when you stand in the presence of God, and then you are there forever and forever. And then thirdly, we saw that the heart often goes wrong over where you invest, which is why in verse 23, Surely Solomon says to his son, Buy truth and do not sell it. In other words, son, please understand this. The truth is worth whatever it costs you to get it and to keep it. Buy truth son at any price. And always remember that the truth is worth more than anything you could ever gain by giving it up. So here’s how the heart goes wrong. And we saw this from the verses that lead up to verse 26, which is our focus today. And today I want us to look then at the subject of the heart set right. 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 seven, 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 seven 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 what I want to be. So, Lord create within me something that has not been there before. Create in me a clean heart, oh 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 what 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 profess. 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? And the answer to that question is in the first six words of verse 26, Proverbs and 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 and chapter 23 and verse 26 is simply this. 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 marvelous 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 through, 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 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 work 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, veut 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 why 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. Huh? 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. You 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 four and verse seven. And if a son, then an heir. Or Romans eight 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. 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. Thought 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. 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. Those 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, it occurs often in the Bible and especially in the book of Proverbs, and you’ll find it in our chapter and 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 fear in 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 hearts 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 defence against sin. It’s your best defence. So let me try and bring this down and earth it a little bit. Christian young person. Seriously. What do you think will keep you from sliding into the drugs culture, the drink culture, the experimentation in all kinds of ways with sex that may be all around you, amongst hundreds of people on a college campus. What is your best defence against being sucked into that? What do you think your best defence is? And I’m telling you, your best defence against sin is to give your heart to the Lord. Let me put it another way, Christian in business. What is going to keep you faithful as you move from city to city and hotel to hotel, like Joseph, anonymous and often lonely? What will keep you faithful? Do you think it’s gonna be common sense? Do you think it’s gonna be willpower? Do you think it’s enlightened self-interest that’s going to keep you from the power of temptation? I’m telling you today, here’s your best defence as you move from city to city and hotel to hotel against all the temptations that beset you, your best defence is to give your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. My son, give me your heart. Oh, let me turn it again and put it this way, another example. Let me speak to the Christian who has been wounded. A great injustice has been done to you, you’ve been terribly disappointed, you have been let down. Now, I’m asking you today, what is going to keep you from descending into bitterness and into self-pity and ultimately into hardness of heart? What will keep you from these temptations that assail you in the particular circumstances in which you find yourself today? What’s going to keep you? Do you think it’s going to be self-discipline that will keep you from sliding into self-pity? Do you think it’s going to be a sense of duty? Do you think it’s going to be working harder? And I’ll tell you what your best defense against the sins of self-pity and hardness of heart and bitterness encroaching into? Tell you what your best defense is against these. You give your heart to the Lord, my daughter, my son. Give me your heart. See, giving your heart to the Lord is ultimately the only way to guard against the reckless life that breaks all the boundaries and then leaves you with the miserable fruit of impurity and indulgence. And equally giving your heart to the Lord is ultimately the only way that will guard you from a shriveled life that lives within the boundaries and leaves you miserable because you stayed there only out of fear and out of caution. The first, of course, is the prodigal son and the second is the elder brother. And what both need is to hear the Fathers say, son, give me your heart. Where will your sinful heart lead you this week if you do not give it to Jesus Christ today? The only safe place for your heart, for your affections, is in the hand of the Savior who loved you and gave himself for you. My son, my daughter, give me your heart. Here’s the third thing. The first an established relationship, my son. The second, an essential priority, your heart. And third, I want you to notice that there’s an action that’s called for in this verse. It’s an intentional response. My son, give me your heart. Give. Now we saw last time that the heart is the command and control center of the life. In other words, the inclination of any heart will set the trajectory of that life. So where your heart is today is an indicator of where your life will be tomorrow. Now Woody Allen summed up where the culture today goes with this when he said famously on one occasion as a justification for an extraordinary unfaithfulness. He said, the heart wants what it wants. The heart wants what it wants. In other words, the heart controls the life and there’s nothing you can do about it. Now that’s where the world goes with this truth about the heart being the controlling center of the life. But what I want you to see in the Bible today is something very different. God says to his children, give me your heart. If you look back at verse 19, you will say that God says there, direct your heart in the way. Both of these phrases indicate some responsibility that is given in regards to your own heart. Direct your heart in the way. Here’s what you’re to do with regards to your heart and here’s what you’re to do, not only direct it in the way, but give it to me. Now please notice this very important difference, it is key to understanding at this point the big difference, the vast difference between what our culture is saying and what God is saying to us in Jesus Christ. The world says the heart controls the life and there is nothing you can do about it. The heart wants what it wants, the heart goes where it goes and you have to go with the flow of whatever you find in your own heart, that’s what the world says. But God says, the heart controls the life so give it to me. Not so there’s nothing you can do about it but the heart controls the life, so give it to me. And do you know if you’re a child of God, you have the ability to do this and this is exactly what you will do, my son, give me your heart. Now what will God do with your heart when you give it to him? The answer of course in the Bible is very wonderfully, he will fill it. He will fill it with peace, he will fill it with love and he will fill it with joy. Romans chapter five being justified by faith, we have peace with God, he fills with peace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You look to Jesus Christ in faith and he will go on giving you peace and not only that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, you’re in Christ, he will go on renewing your joy especially as you look at all that he is and all that he has in store for you and he will fill your heart with love. God’s love is poured out into our hearts the apostles says by his Holy Spirit who he has given to us. But most of all God will fill us with himself, you give your heart to the Lord what does he do with it, he fills it with himself and this is the most wonderful thing that Paul prays for in Ephesians in Chapter 3 you remember that you may be strengthened with power through God’s spirit in your inner being that Christ may dwell in your hearts and that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. So here is something very very wonderful God says now give me your heart and here’s what I’ll do I’ll fill it I will come and make myself present in your heart I’ll fill you with my very self in as much as the heart has given over to me it will be filled and the more it is given over to me the more it will be filled as it is freshly given over today it will be freshly filled I will come and I will bring with me these wonderful gifts of peace and of love and of joy Now friends here we come to something very important and very practical indeed Someone may be saying as you’re hearing these words now here’s the Lord and he says give me your heart and you may say well, wait a minute my hearts already been given I have given my heart to my wife my husband my children well, think about this if you are going to love another person really well over the long term you’re heart itself is going to need to be filled so who’s going to fill it? Well, you may say well, the person I love is going to fill it but here’s where that leaves you it leaves you in a place of saying well now I will love you and I’ll be able to do that as long as you go on loving me but if you’re no longer able to fill me up then I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to go on filling you up and friends, that of course is the fastest route to marital and relational disaster, isn’t it? There ain’t any stability in that. So I’m saying to you today, the best way for you to be in a position where you can really love another person is to give your heart to the Lord so that the Lord will fill your heart with His love and His peace and His joy so that you will then have something to give to someone else and be able to give it even when you’re not getting very much back in return and maybe you’re wondering today if you actually have the capacity to love another person well you look at your own life and you say well I’m wanting to be loved, but at the back of my mind I do have this question, do I actually have a deep well that’s able to love another person deeply? What actually is the capacity of what I have to give and what I have to offer? Well I’m saying to you this, and let this be a wonderful encouragement to you ,the more you give your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ the more your capacity to love another person well Then here’s the last thing, and I simply called it a glorious invitation because I want just to draw your attention to who it is that’s making this invitation. My son give me your heart. This loving father, this glorious king, this sovereign lord wants your heart, and lays claim to it. Now every heart is given somewhere. If you don’t give your heart to God, you will give your heart to something or to someone else, and so the question that’s posed for us today is who will receive the gift of your heart? On whom will you lavish your affection? You may give your heart to your work, you may give your heart to your family, you may give your heart to some cause, you may give your heart to yourself, but every heart is given somewhere, and wherever you give your heart, that will have growing importance in all of your life. You know, people who don’t give their heart actually turn in on themselves, so that’s actually where their heart is given, and sometimes end up giving their hearts to despair. That’s a Bible phrase, by the way, and it’s an extraordinary phrase. It comes in Ecclesiastes, chapter two and verse 20. I turned about and gave my heart up to despair. Every heart is given somewhere. And if it’s not given somewhere else, it probably will be given here. It’s given up to despair, and the person who says this, says it because over all the toils of my labors under the sun. In other words, he is a person who’s miserable. They look at their life, they’re not happy. They look at their work, and it’s not fulfilling. I look at my toil, I look at my life, and say what’s the point, and I give my heart up to despair. Every heart is given somewhere. Every heart. And if you’re in a place where you could easily give your heart up to despair, I want to say to you today, don’t give your heart to despair. Give your heart to Jesus Christ. That’s where you’re gonna find hope. That’s where you’re gonna find peace and love and joy. And the Lord says to you in your discouragement and in your gloom, give me your heart. Give it to me. I can do something with it. What would compel you then in these last moments to give your heart fully, freely, joyfully, to Jesus Christ today? That give you some practical reasons. It’s your best defense against sin. Giving your heart to the Lord is gonna be the way that increases your capacity to love other people well. These are wonderfully practical reasons, but they’re not of course the supreme reason. I want to end with this. He says give me your heart. The supreme reason for giving your heart to the Lord is the Lord himself. We love him because he first loved us. And this is the loving father who is calling out, my son, give me your heart. It’s knowing the love of the Lord, who he is and how much he loves you, that will lead you to place your heart freely and fully and freshly into the hands of Jesus Christ today. Now, I’m telling you, if you carry within you, and I think this is true of a lot of Christians, actually, if you carry within you this lurking suspicion that God has it in for you in the end, you will hold back from really giving your heart to him because you’ll be afraid of what he might do with it. And here’s your thinking, you’re saying God’s just, I know that God is just. And that means he’s got to punish sin. And I know that even at my Christian best, I am still a sinner. And if that’s the way that your reasoning, the conclusion has to be, best, stay safe at a certain distance from him. Loyal, yes, but you never get to, my son, give me your heart from there. But here’s why you can feel completely safe in giving your heart into the hands of this Father God who loves you. He has already dealt with all of your sin at the cross. Justice has been satisfied, done, as far as you are concerned in Jesus Christ so that now, the Father is free to lavish his love over you. And today he says to you, “‘My son, my daughter, give me your heart. “‘Oh, to grace, how great a debtor! “‘Daily I’m constrained to be. “‘Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter “‘bind my wandering heart to thee. “‘Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. “‘Prone to leave the God I love, so take this heart. “‘God, take and seal it. “‘Seal it for your courts above.’” Let’s pray together, shall we? Father, please bring us to the place where we feel that if we had a thousand hearts, we could do nothing better than give every one of them fully and freely to you. So dear Lord, take this heart and seal it today. Make it your own. As gladly I place it as best I know how, afresh into your heart. And Lord, may I so be filled with the fountain of your love that in receiving your love from a heart placed into your hands, I may learn better to love others and to pursue a life that honors and pleases you in these days that lie ahead. For Jesus’ sake, amen.