Jesus at the Center of Our Future
Guard Your Heart • Message 1
Bryan Jones
June 2, 2024
A. Introduction
(Proverbs 4:23; Jeremiah 29:11; James 4:7-8a; 1 Peter 5:8)
God has a future for you…
“For I know the plans I have for you” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
But do you know someone else has a plan for you…
Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8 (NLT)
Satan has a future for you… he hates you and has a horrible plan for you…
So, what I want to do is talk to you about three areas Satan wants to rob us of our future… 3 areas where he seems to be advancing…
For a lot of my life, I did roller Christianity… it was like I was on fire for God, then life happened… and I would get so frustrated that I just couldn’t keep a fire for God… Maybe you are on fire now, maybe you are in a dry spot… but several years ago, I came across something that my wife will tell you singlehandedly changed my faith…
It has helped me be consistent in my faith and allowed me to guard my future…
And here’s what it is…
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
It might sound simple… but think of those first 3 words… above all else… do you know what that means above all else… this is the thing you can’t neglect if you want a future spiritually.
It helped me expose the enemy’s plans to cut me off from the life that God has for me…
The very mention of guarding your heart implies the enemy is trying to steal it… so let me give some things that will help you with this…
To guard your future, you must
B. Guard Your Heart
1.Your heart drifts from God on its own.
(Jeremiah 17:9; James 4:8)
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:7-8 (ESV)
Draw near… diabolos… verse his whole plan is to cut you off from God and others… cut you off from the future…
Notice, you don’t drift towards God; you draw near to God.
Only the Spirit of God can transform you, but your job is to be available to draw near to God.
This reality has been helpful to me in unmasking one of the enemy’s lies. For years, the enemy made me think there was something wrong with my faith, that I should’ve reached some level where I only hunger and thirst for God and not the stuff of this world. Part of where the enemy attacks is your feelings… Listen, I say this a lot, but feelings can mislead you…. One second, you wake up and say this is the greatest day ever… the next day, it’s let me burn it down… so don’t let your faith be shaped by your feelings… There are days when I wake up, and it’s like God is pouring liquid fire into me… and there are other days where I feel dry and disconnected…
Here's the point: draw near… when you feel it… draw near when you don’t…
I have never met anyone who’s all in for Jesus who doesn’t have a daily pursuit of Jesus.
Now, you pray about it, but some people believe the heart is naturally good on its own…
I'm not one of those people…
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”
Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT)
Yes, God creates in us a new heart once we become Christians, but you have to guard that new heart… because I believe on its own, left unattended, it will drift from God…
Remember what the old hymn that says bind my wandering heart to thee.
Any parent knows that when it’s quiet with kids, that’s not always a good thing… because the amount of destruction a kid can do in 10 minutes is actually quite amazing…
And think about what your heart unwatched can do in a couple of days or a couple of weeks…
No one wakes up and says, Hey, I think I’m just going to completely give up on my faith… I think I’m going to burn it all down today…
You drift away over time! If you put a boat in the middle of the lake without an anchor, it will drift. You will drift unless you draw near to God… That’s why Jesus says it’s daily bread… because you need to feast on the presence of God daily…
And isn’t it funny how you can spend time with God in the morning, and you are feeling connected, and you are praying God, let me love like You do… and then as soon as you get out of that time with God and see a person at the store, or even at church, and you think they annoy the fire out of me… 2 hours after you just prayed let me love like You, Jesus and before lunch, you are already judging people!
That’s why it says guard your heart above all else. Watch it. Don’t let it drift…
One word I don’t love, but I use it a lot, is devotionals. The reason I don’t love the word is it feels sort of placid and mild… Like I’ve started to wake up early in the morning, and guess what? I’m not a morning person…
Sometimes, I’m not even sure Jesus wants to be around me in the morning… but I’m not doing a devo in the morning… each day, I’m getting a spiritual heart transplant…
If it wasn’t confusing to people, that’s what I’d call it: a spiritual heart transplant…
Because, at its core, spending time with God is really giving Him my heart and getting His. It’s giving my power and getting His.
Jacob Murphy, part of our Operations Team, recently shared with me that we see an average of 18.75 hours of engagement in a devotional per day. He said he bet it takes a lot less time than 18 hours to write one devotional. This only includes engagement that we can track in the app.
Hey, you want to do an early breakfast or run an errand… Would love to, but I can’t. I’m getting a spiritual heart transplant, but I can meet at 10…
Don’t drift with the world. Draw near, and God will give you a new heart and passion. But do it daily, do it regularly.
2. Your heart becomes like who and what you spend the most time with.
(Romans 12:2. C/R: John 15:4)
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:2 (NLT)
Notice, let God transform you into a new person!
Think about it: Paul was in the heart of Rome when writing this. He would have seen the shops around him, all the people chasing after glory, money, power. He would have seen all the busyness and distractions around him. There is no doubt his heart would have wanted some of those things… but notice what he tells himself and us…
Let God transform us… and notice what he says then YOU WILL KNOW GOD’S WILL FOR YOU…
How do you know God’s will? Spend time with Him, and you will start to think, look and act like Him.
“Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”
John 15:4 (ESV)
Part of the reason we are told to abide is because Jesus knows our hearts reflect what we spend the most time with…
Think about it… Have you noticed that when you spend time with certain people, you talk like they do?
I’ll never forget a guy who I worked with years ago who was getting ready to propose… he dropped down on one knee, and he went completely blank and forgot what he was going to say… and then he just said I’ve loved you, always have, always will, and I want you to marry me! And his girlfriend just looked at him and said Are you quoting Braveheart? And, of course, he was… the best part was that he even did it with a Scottish accent… He loved Braveheart and spent a lot of time with that movie…
Sometimes, we are so worried about legalism that we fail to mention that your heart will reflect who you spend the most time with….
When you spend time with people, you think like them, you care about what they care about… and when you spend time with Jesus, your heart starts to reflect His!
Remember what it says…
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:2 (NLT)
If you spend 4 hours on the golf course and 5 minutes with God, or 4 hours watching TV and 5 minutes with God, don’t be surprised that you’re not passionate about God, or as I mentioned in Romans 12, that you don’t know God’s will for you…
Those things I mentioned aren’t bad, but sometimes we wonder why we don’t think about God more or desire Him more…
When you hang out with a friend visiting from out of town, you feel close to them for the first few hours after they leave, but the next day or week, you can almost forget about them… why?
Because your heart reflects what you spend time with!
Now, some of you, if I don’t say this, I’m going to lose you... you’re going, I’ve got young kids, or I have no free time, or I don’t get to pick who I work with, and it’s an insane season… I don’t have much time to spend with God…
What I am telling you is to make the most of the time you have. Part of guarding your heart is guarding your time… my wife and I struggle with this a lot… Sometimes at night, we are just so exhausted…
After the kids get down and a full day of work, I let my guard down with my words, my actions, what I watch, what I laugh at, and sometimes, guarding my heart is as simple as taking 5 minutes to put down my phone, turn off the TV, put down a book and simply say Jesus, here I am… I chose You… I don’t have much, but here I am… and in very small and often subtle ways, I’m connecting with Him!
The reason it’s so important to spend time with God regularly, even if it's 5 minutes, or if you have to lock yourself in a bathroom to get 2 minutes of time alone…
3. The things you consume end up consuming you.
(Romans 12:2. C/R: John 15:4)
The other day, my daughter was crying and was upset. I didn’t think much of it because one time she was screaming at the top of her lungs, and I went into her room thinking she had broken a bone… and she looked at me and said one of my socks fell off. So, this time, when I went upstairs, I went thinking nothing of it… but she said one of the most sobering and saddening things she could say to me…. She said my hair isn’t pretty. And I’m not pretty unless my hair is pretty and it’s in a bow… and I began to talk to her.
She said she couldn’t be pretty like Princess Peach or Princess Daisy unless she had makeup and a bow… she is 5…
Why does she think this? She wasn’t born like this… It’s who she spends the most time with. And it’s creating a storyline for her life different than the one Jesus has for her.
God has a will for you. He has plans and dreams for you, but so does the world. The world is shaping you and creating plans and dreams for you as well…
I believe many people are being formed by the world. The world is shaping your dreams and future more than you realize…
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:2 (NLT)
When you watch the news, when you go to work, when you watch TV, when you scroll the internet, when you are tired and exhausted because you just got done putting the kids down, even on your days off, you have to guard your heart…
I’ve shared this before, but I realized each morning I was starting off my day reading the news, and I wasn’t just reading the local news, but the global news. And every morning, I would wake up and read a tragedy, murder, something wicked and evil, and then I would go, God, why am I so stressed?
I want you to reflect on this… not for others, for you…
Do you think more like Jesus or Instagram? Where do you think all that consumerism and comparison in your heart comes from? You aren’t just scrolling; you are being conformed.
Do you think more like Jesus or Netflix? Where do you think all the loose morals and sexual perversion come from? Katy Perry let’s go all the way… cohabitating, homosexuality, lust, my body, my rights. You don’t spend time with Jesus and think like this.
Do you think more like your parents or friends than Jesus? Remember Peter told Jesus if everyone else walks away, I won't… but the moment the disciples flee and Peter faces some resistance, remember what he does? He denies Jesus…. The voice of God has to be louder than anyone else’s around.
Do you think like Jesus or Fox News or CNN? Permission to speak freely. Some people in the church sound a lot more like Fox News or CNN than Jesus… the tone, the sarcasm, the vitriol, the memes, I don’t think Jesus would do any of that. We need to vote…
Watch the news, be informed, but you must guard your heart even when you watch it. Some of you have the mission of Jesus. You are speaking up on issues that the Bible calls evil, and you should have the mission of Jesus. But you’ve lost the heart of Jesus. You are so angry and bitter and cynical about everything that you aren’t being heard…
“Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in Me.”
John 15:4 (NLT)
Guarding your heart isn’t just about avoiding certain things. It’s about being filled up with the right things!
There is an offense and defensive part of guarding your heart…
You must protect what you consume, but you have to draw near/
We draw near to keep Jesus at the center.
Draw near or drift…
Jesus first drew near to you…
Communion