This is a transcript of a sermon that was originally preached on November 8th, 2026, on Proverbs 4:20-27.
20 My son, be attentive to my words;
incline your ear to my sayings.
21 Let them not escape from your sight;
keep them within your heart.
22 For they are life to those who find them,
and healing to all their flesh.
23 Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.
24 Put away from you crooked speech,
and put devious talk far from you.
25 Let your eyes look directly forward,
and your gaze be straight before you.
26 Ponder the path of your feet;
then all your ways will be sure.
27 Do not swerve to the right or to the left;
turn your foot away from evil.
Introduction
Leonard Sax is a family physician, psychologist and author. in his excellent book Boys Adrift he talks about the meaning of the verb “know” in English—K N O W. This word is used in sentences that actually mean different things. He demonstrates this by giving a couple of examples (I’ve changed the details in these examples):
I know Joey.
I know Math.
Same word but these sentences are actually using the word know in a very different way. In the first case, about my good friend Joey, my knowledge is experiential knowledge. I know that Joey likes basketball. I know that Joey likes the North Carolina State Wolfpack and that he tries to watch all their games. I know that Joey likes to think about deeper things and talk about them when he has time.
This is a very different kind of knowledge than Math, which is much more cerebral and less experiential.
Sax shows that most European languages use two different words for these two kinds of knowledge that reflects an understanding that there are different ways of knowing something. You can know something by experience or you can know something intellectually. He shows how in many schools in Europe there is a deep conviction that these two ways of knowing need to be in balance.
He goes on to say that most schoolchildren here in the USA are overwhelmingly only getting the intellectual side of learning and not as much the experiential side compared to European schoolchildren.
His point is that we learn best when all of the senses are engaged. We are not just “brains on a stick.” We are embodied people and we know things through all of the senses that God has given to us.
Solomon understands this. We saw from last week’s passage our need for a new heart and how Jesus was the faithful Son who made that possible. When we trust in Him, our hearts are made new and we can walk in the way of wisdom.
Today, Solomon is going to continue this focus on the heart. But this morning’s word to us about the heart comes from a different angle. Perhaps some of us might be prone to think that once you are born again and profess faith in Jesus and join a church that at that point you just throw your life into autopilot and coast all the way to glory.
Solomon’s word to us today is “turn off the autopilot” or maybe even more familiar, “turn off the cruise control.”
And this takes us right to the first thing that I believe Solomon wants us to see this morning: the heart can be steered by what we allow inside.
Point #1: The heart can be steered by what we allow inside.
All of us have had an experience where we know this to be undeniably true. Perhaps it was the first time you saw a horror film. I remember when I was in high school I went to see a sci-fi horror movie in the theatres with one of my friends. We were the only people in the entire theatre, which amplified the experience. Going home I had trouble sleeping for several days because I was so affected.
Or maybe some of our veterans here have seen combat and have stories to tell that even to this day are hard to shake. Or maybe you were in a relationship that went terribly wrong and still have trouble trusting others.
Even if you are a born again Christian, things like this can deeply affect your heart and that is because God made us to be malleable.
Isaiah tells us in chapter 64 of his prophecy:
But now, O Lord… we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
There’s this powerful image of a potter at his wheel shaping the vessel and here Isaish, says that is us in the Lord’s hands.
That is the idea that is in backdrop of everything that Solomon says here in this section of Proverbs—the heart can be influenced. Look with me at verses 20 and 21:
20 My son, be attentive to my words;
incline your ear to my sayings.
21 Let them not escape from your sight;
keep them within your heart.
Notice that Solomon appeals to the ears and the eyes here. In the words of the Akins, “Your ears and eyes are the gates to your heart” (Akin and Akin, Exalting Jesus in Proverbs, 67).
How do things get in? They get into our hearts when we are attentive to them. We let them into our hearts when we fixate on them. And once they are in, we keep them in the same way.
This requires work. This is not a fast process. This is a process of reading, thinking, meditating, and praying over the truth and doing it over and over again.
Our hearts are not like simple open boxes that you can just walk by and place something in and it stays there forever and ever. Our hearts are more like doors with multiple locks that you have to take time to unlock to get inside.
If you want something to get into your heart and stay there you are going to have to take time to open the door and time to close the door.
But if you do, there is great reward. Verse 22:
For they are life to those who find them,
and healing to all their flesh.
Many scholars say that Solomon here is describing shalom—the Hebrew concept of flourishing and peace, not just physical fitness.
When we are attentive and when we get the good things of God into our hearts, it leads to overall flourishing. (However, remember what we learned last week: Proverbs are not promises but general principles.)
And the same is true in reverse, which leads us now to the second thing to see this morning: the heart is the steering wheel of your life.
Point #2: The heart is the steering wheel of our life.
This ties with the previous point. Not only can our hearts be steered but they are the steering wheels of our lives.
Have you ever ridden as a passenger in the car with someone who makes you nervous? Maybe they look away from the road a lot and drift over into the oncoming traffic or across the rumble strips? Or maybe they drive really fast, always riding the bumper of the person in front of them? Maybe they fall asleep a lot?
A person like that has everyone in the vehicle’s life in their hands! It only makes sense that you would want the person driving the car to be responsible and trustworthy and alert.
If our hearts are like the steering wheel or our lives we must be careful about what we allow in. Look with me at verse 23:
23 Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.
This stresses the importance of the heart. It’s not like the heart is an incidental part of our existence. Solomon tells us here that the springs of life flow from it. The heart is vital.
This is what Jesus was getting at in the words we read earlier in the service from Matthew 15:
17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person.
Our behavior is downstream from our hearts. The heart is the fountainhead. It’s the source, the headwaters. What is in the heart reveals itself in our actions.
Do you see now how important it is to keep your heart? The Hebrew word there for keep is often translated as guard. It’s the idea of watching over.
Are you watching over your heart with all vigilance?
Because what gets in will inevitably affect your actions.
What Solomon has been telling us repeatedly in these first few chapters is that the thing we need to get more than anything else is wisdom and that wisdom begins with a fear of God. Last week we read:
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
Life does not come by surrounding yourself with all of the toys and stuff and relationships and fun that you can get. But often after doing that we are more miserable than when we started because we realize that those things cannot fulfill us. Only God can.
Life comes from within when we put our sincere faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Back in Solomon’s day they looked forward to his coming but today we look back upon his coming but in both cases, the person who walked by faith in God, who put their trust in God and walked in his ways, it was that person who had this life, this shalom.
Many of us have all kinds of problems that just won’t go away. We’re anxious, we’re depressed, we’re angry, we’re full of lust, we’re bitter, we’re terribly confused, and one of the major reasons is because we are not doing this. We watch the news all day. We scroll on our phones. We gossip and slander our neighbors. We shop, shop, shop all the time. We stare at the TV screen.
We are stuffing our hearts with death, and we wonder why we are struggling in these ways.
What is the remedy for our condition?
Let’s look at the third and final thing to see this morning: The condition of our heart is seen through our actions.
Point #3: Who or what is behind the wheel of our hearts is seen in our actions.
Solomon is going to say it again in different words in this final section. Look with me at verses 24:
24 Put away from you crooked speech,
and put devious talk far from you.
Crooked speech, whether it be dishonesty or inappropriate words, swearing, or crudeness or whatever it might be, as we’ve seen, this is merely a symptom of evil in the heart. But with help from the Holy Spirit, we can trace backwards from the sin to the heart and try to understand what is going on. Perhaps a person tells lies because they are insecure, “The fish was THIS big.” Or maybe they tell crude jokes because they think it will make them more acceptable to the guys at work.
Maybe a person gossips because they are jealous of someone or bitter about something that person did.
Or if the sin were something else, like financial woes. Maybe a person is lacking contentment so they shop all the time to try and fill a hole inside of them.
The broken behaviors are merely symptoms of the deeper issues of the heart. If we are not willing to look inside the heart, the behavior will never really change. If you are on cruise-control, nothing is going to change and you will continue to struggle.
How do we get the car of our lives out of cruise control? Let me try and give you what I think the answer is.
Looking longer at Jesus
I was at a conference a few weeks ago and was just so very fortunate to have the opportunity to sit under some truly excellent teaching. And one of the things I heard that stuck with me was this:
One of the speakers said this: “For every pressing need we experience, there is something in Christ to help us with that need.” Whether your struggle is apathy or depression or anger or lust or greed or malice or unbelief or whatever it is, there is something in Jesus to help.
The problem for most of us is that we are not looking at Jesus long enough. You don’t see how Jesus meets the need because you are not looking at him long enough. To quote the speaker from the conference again:
“An unclear Christ holds little power in our hearts and minds over all-too-clear sins and struggles.”
How many of you have ever tossed something at a person and said, “think fast!” Well many of us can do pretty good, we can react in a moment like that. But our feelings don’t work like that, we are not people who “feel fast.” Our hearts are slower to move. If we are to get this wisdom into our hearts so that we know and feel it, we have got to slow down. We’ve got to look at Jesus longer. We’ve got to ponder the deep things of God more. We have to be willing to sit in silence and not have the constant distractions all around us and we have to resist the incredible fast pace of the world all around us.
Now look at Solomon’s counsel for us here in this final section in verses 25 through 27:
25 Let your eyes look directly forward,
and your gaze be straight before you.
26 Ponder the path of your feet;
then all your ways will be sure.
27 Do not swerve to the right or to the left;
turn your foot away from evil.
Notice once again the physical, bodily language he uses. The eyes, looking, gazing straight before you. He mentions the mind, pondering the path. He mentions the feet twice.
In other words, employ your entire body in the fight.
Work with all of your might to look to Jesus.
That’s what we are trying to do here on Sunday mornings week after week. We are not only hearing the gospel but we are speaking it to one another in the songs and in the readings and prayers. We are also rehearsing the gospel week after week in the flow and order of the service. We hear, we see, we taste, we feel.
The goal is to get all of this into our hearts.
Because whatever it is that we are giving our time too, whatever we are giving our attention to most, that is what is behind the wheel of our hearts. And if we are merely riding on cruise-control there’s no telling where we are going.
Brothers and sisters, let us keep our hearts with all vigilance by fixing our eyes on Jesus.
Amen.
