Book of Proverbs chapter 4 tonight, if you will. I want to talk to you about heart matters from the Scriptures. I deal with folks in counseling, I often try to deal with people about how to make changes in their life. I find that it's often you can tell people what to do, but they don't often practice it. I wish that everybody that I ever dealt with, ever counseled with, ever talked to about the things of God and how to do right, would in turn do right. But it's my opinion that as I've dealt with folks over the years that many people do not understand the dynamics of how to change their lives. And so I've been working on, thinking on, what are the dynamics here that folks are missing? Then I began to think about as well the and we deal with our children and trying to understand where our children are as we try to talk to them and try to lead them in right. And sometimes it seems like parents have a hard time understanding the heart of their child. I've seen parents before who just plain shake their heads and say, you know, I just give up. I don't understand this kid at all. Well, I believe that tonight, beginning tonight, we're going to start this short series. And as we finish this up, I think you'll find that it will help you in understanding your children's hearts. It will help you in understanding the heart of your husband or your wife. It will help you in understanding the heart of other people that you deal with. And most important of all, it will help you in understanding your own heart. The book of Proverbs, chapter 4, verse 23, Solomon writes and he says, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Let's pray. Father, tonight, I pray that You would lead us and direct us this evening. I thank You for leading me this afternoon as I tried to find a way to put this together. And Lord, I trust that this evening's message will come together in a way that will make sense and be able to connect with our own hearts and lives tonight. I pray you'll help us as we think together biblically about the heart, what it is, about the heart and how it operates. Help us to make a proper application to our own living. Lord, we'll thank you tonight for what you do in our midst. For it's in Jesus' name, for His sake, we ask it. Amen. We're going to talk about four different areas. Not all four tonight, just the first one tonight. We're going to talk about the heart that we have, the lives that we live, the facts that we face, and last of all, the truth that we must trust. I trust that this will be a blessing to you as we make our way on down towards the end in coming weeks, but then we're going to launch into another series that will build off the base, off the foundation of what we're going to be talking about in this short series. The writer of Proverbs, Solomon, says that we are to keep our heart with all diligence, for out of our heart are the issues of life. In other words, the things that really matter in life come from the heart of the individual. Yet the fact is tonight that most people don't know what the heart is. We've got some general ideas and kind of try to figure some way to figure out what is the heart. But I think sometimes we don't quite understand. It wasn't too long back that I spoke to you about the heart just briefly and gave a quick overview of what the heart is. I had a couple of folks come up to me, a couple of members as well. They came up to me and just said, Pastor, we never understood that before. Thank you for explaining it. How often we take things for granted in the Christian life. How often we just assume things in our Christian living and in our Christian talk, words that we read in our Bible and we assume we know what they mean, when in fact we do not. And so tonight, what I want to do is to talk with you a little bit about the heart that we have, the heart that God has given us. Three times in the Scriptures, it speaks of the heart as the physical organ, the organ that pumps the blood, but only three times. Now, when I think of the term heart, and when my son thought of the word heart the first time I ever asked him, what's a heart? He said, well, you know, that's the pump inside. That's what most children think. That's what most adults think of when they think of the heart until they come around spiritual things and around spiritual truth and around Bible preaching. And then they say, oh, well, the heart must be something more than just the physical organ that pumps the blood. And it is something more. In fact, it is used hundreds and hundreds of times in the Bible, both Old and New Testament, to talk not about the physical organ, but instead about the spiritual center of a man's life. We use that term sometimes in even secular life. We say, the heart of the matter is. The heart of what I'm saying to you is. What are we saying? We're saying, this is the center. This is the most important part. If you boil it all down, take all the fluff out, this is what I'm talking about. When we get down to a man's life, The very center of a man's life, the heart of a man's life. That's what we're talking about here tonight. What is the center of a man's life? What is when you boil it all down, when you take away all the fluff, when you get rid of what a man tries to portray of himself to others? When you get away from what a man tries to portray in a life talking to friends that are close friends, and you boil it down to what really goes on inside of the bosom of a man, inside the head of a man, inside the heart of a man, you're talking about the heart, the spiritual center of a person's life. It's made up of three ingredients, the ingredients of the heart. It's made up of, first of all, the thought. what a man thinks. The heart and the intellect in the Bible are very closely connected. In the book, for instance, of Matthew chapter 13, if you just turn over there quickly, Matthew chapter 13 and verse number 15. The Bible says, for this people's heart, there's the heart, for this people's heart is waxed gross. And their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes, they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them." Here, the Lord Jesus connects the understanding with the heart with the thoughts. When you understand something, that's a thought process. He connects the understanding, which is the thought process, with the heart of a man. He says that if a man understands something, then he can react to it. If a man understands something, then he can respond to it. If a man understands something, his heart is at work. Not talking about the physical organ now, but talking about the spiritual center of a man's life. Again, in Proverbs 23, 7, we'll not turn there, but the Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. It's the thoughts of a man that are his heart. Again, in the book of 1 Samuel 9 and verse 20, the Bible talks about setting a person's heart upon something. And when you set your heart upon something, you are setting your mind upon something. Not only is the heart made up of the thoughts of a man, but second of all tonight, the heart of a man is made up of the will of a man. The thoughts and the will. The choices. The determination of a man's life. In the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter number 9. We'll just turn over there. 2 Corinthians, chapter number 9 tonight. The Bible teaches that our acts, our actions, the things that we do, come because of a deliberate, conscious choice. In the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 9 and verse number 7, it's illustrated here for us, God says, "...every man according as he purposeth in his heart. So let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth that ye are forgiven." Have you ever wondered why it is that God determines to judge a man based on his actions? That a man's actions are judged in the Old Testament, and God had a very strict law in the Old Testament. 613 laws altogether. And in those laws, many of them are laws where God says, if a man does this, then this is to be the punishment in the Old Testament. Now, why does God do that? Because as far as God is concerned, when a man acts, it's because he has chosen to act. He has made a conscious, deliberate choice in his life. Conscious decisions are made. For instance, in the book of Romans, chapter number 6, We read over there in verse 17. The Bible puts it like this. It says, "...but God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." Here is obedience that is made because a man has obeyed from the heart. It's a heart issue with him. A man's will, his choices in life, his will is linked with his desires in the Scripture. His wishes, his wants. Those wants and wishes are his choices in life. For instance, in the book of Romans chapter 1 and verse 24, the Bible describes how God gives men up through the lusts of their own hearts. What He's talking about here is desires that a man acts upon. Those desires are the choices that a man makes. Those are choices that he makes, and those choices do not just originate in, well, you know, I was forced to do this, I'm a robot, this happened to me, A happened to me, therefore, B, I had to do this. That's not how God looks at a man's life. God looks at a man's life and He says, when B takes place, it's because first, there has been something take place in his heart, a conscious choice that he has made. And so God teaches us that the man's heart is made up, first of all, of his thought, his thinking. What we think is our heart. But also, what we decide, our will, our choices, are our heart. That's one of the reasons that we can say, as Jesus says in Matthew, he tells us over there, that you shall know them by their fruit. Now, why would you know a person by their fruits? Because, friend, what they do issues out of their heart. The issues of life are out of the heart of a man. It's the heart that decides to do something. It's the heart that chooses to do something. It's the heart that thinks on what it's going to do and then makes the determination, this is the way I'm going to walk in. It is the heart in the man that causes a man to think, and it is the heart of a man that causes him to make choices. But that's not all. There is a third ingredient in the heart of man. And that is his emotions. Now, by the emotions, what I mean here is the feelings, the affections of a person's heart. How a person feels about something. And as we study in the Scriptures, we find, for instance, in Psalm 4 and verse 7, the Bible talks over there about how God puts gladness in the heart. Joy originates from a person's heart. Again, in the book of Proverbs, chapter number 12 and verse 25, the Bible says that heaviness in heart causes a man to stoop, to bend love. You know, you can see that literally in a person's life. When a person gets heavy of heart, when they get blue, you know that term we use, that's a feeling and yet it's a color at the same time. You explained that one to me. But we say, so-and-so is blue. Well, when somebody's blue, when they're discouraged, when they're despondent, you can read it in their countenance. It causes them to stoop. Have you ever been depressed? Didn't you feel like, if you've ever been that way, and probably not a person in this building that hasn't been there, and if you haven't been there yet, just hold on for another year or two, you're probably going to make it. But when you get depressed, what's it feel like? It feels like there's a burden, a weight on your back. Life just seems so hard and harsh. But let joy come into your heart, and what happens? You feel like you're leaping. I mean, your legs pick up so much easier, and all of life just kind of goes right along. That's the emotions that come into play. In Proverbs 25, verse number 20, the Bible describes sorrow as a heavy heart. Again, in the book of James, chapter 3, in verse number 14, the Bible talks about envy and strife. Jealousy, if you will. Envy and strife comes from the heart of man. In other words, emotions come from our heart. Now, what I've said to you tonight is this, real quickly. The heart of a man is what he thinks, What he decides and what he feels. That's the sum total. Now, at first glance, to read that, we say, well, you know, okay, fine, that's nice. Now we know how to divide it on a piece of paper. What difference does it make? It makes a major difference in our life. And so I want to come down to the interaction of the heart next. How does the heart act? And I hope you get these thoughts down here that I have for you because I will be able to explain to you tonight some things that will become the basis on where we're going to build for coming weeks. These truths can help change your life if you learn them. There are people that go to school for years trying to learn psychology and they learn this guy's theory and that guy's theory and the other guy's theory until they've got theories coming out of their ears. And then when they finally set up practice, what they do is they take all these different theories and they pick a little from here, and pick a little from here, and pick a little from here, and they create their own, and they've made another theory of how man's made up, and how man changes, and what man needs. But when you and I come to the Word of God, we have in the Word of God everything we need for how to live as a child of God. We don't need some Freudian psychology. We don't need to go out here and find Rogers and see if he can teach us a few things. We don't need to go elsewhere to find out how man's makeup is. If we come to this book, God's Word tells us exactly how we're made up. In fact, many of the writings of men, I've read several of them, it's interesting as I read them, how often they will contradict the Word of God. And most of the self-help books that you get that are out on the market today in the secular realm, you pick some of those up that tell you how to really get a positive attitude, how to really make life zing, and how to really make it to the top. Most of, not all, but most of those books are built upon faulty theology. And that's why they don't work. So tonight, what I want to do is give you the interaction of the heart. This is the heart of the message, if you will, for tonight, alright? First of all, A, God intends your will to control your thoughts, which in turn influences your emotions. God intends for your will to control your thoughts, which in turn influences your emotions. Now let me show you the chain reaction, how God intended. Now this is how God intended. This is not the way everybody operates, but this is how God intended for man to operate. This is how Adam and Eve operated in the garden before they sinned. After the fall, men started to operate in different manners. But this is the way a godly Christian should operate, and this is the way God intended for man to operate from the very beginning. First of all, that you and I would choose what is right. We would choose what God says. Second, we would then think on what God says, think on what's right, think on what's godly, and refuse, because we've made the choice, refuse to allow our thinking to include the sin or the false philosophies of our world. In turn then, we would then have emotions in our life, joy and sorrow, fear and security. On and on we go. Anger, yes, anger is at times can be a godly emotion. Or friendliness and joy and happiness and rejoicing. Those emotions are never meant in God's design, were never meant in God's design to run your life or mine. God intended for these emotions. Now, here's God's design in man's life. God intended for these emotions to be like the idiot light on your car. Do you have an idiot light? You know what that is? That's a little light that turns on on your dash and says, something's wrong. An idiot light, when it comes on, it usually means it's too late. I like gauges because of that, so you can kind of see when something's starting to go wrong. But the idiot light just kind of turns on when it says, no more oil. Oh, thanks for telling me. You know, now you say something. The idiot light is what God intended the emotions to be in your life and mine. Now, let me illustrate. The idiot light, you're driving down the road. You've just gone down to the Dodge dealer down here, and you've taken a look at the Dodge Viper. OK? $70,000. You took a look at it. You said, hmm, looks like a nice car. Looks like just what I need. You pulled your wallet out. $70,000 cash laid down. And you drove away. You drive down the street. You get down the street about 10 miles. And all of a sudden, I doubt if the Viper has any idiot lights in it. It's probably got gauges. But I didn't look that closely at it. What a car, but when I saw the $70,000 price sticker on it, I said, I'm not even going to get close enough to breathe on it, lest they charge me for breathing, you know? So, but anyway, you drive 10 miles down the road, and all of a sudden, the idiot light flashes on. Now, what do you do? Oh, you take a look, and you see Joe's salvage yard. And you say, well, the idiot light's on. Must be something wrong. You just kind of pull into the Joe's salvage yard and say, would you give me 25 bucks for my hunk of junk out here? And Joe says, nah, maybe 10. You say, nobody does that. Not with a Viper. Not when they just bought it. Doesn't even matter if they bought one of those new cars they got out called a Kia. You know, those are supposed to be real low-priced cars, I guess. Even if you bought a Kia, you wouldn't drive 10 miles down the road when the idiot light came on and pulled it in the junkyard and said, give me 25 bucks for it. You wouldn't be that foolish. But you know what people do when emotions turn on? They throw up their hands and say, oh no, what am I going to do? Where am I going to turn? Oh, my life's falling apart. The idiot light in a car, anybody with half a brain knows when the idiot light in a car turns on, it means pull over and stop and check it out. If it's the oil light, what do you do? Okay, there's only a few reasonable possibilities. First, you get out, you open the hood and you check your oil. You look the oil over. Is it full of oil? Is it up on the full mark? Or is the oil, if it's disappeared, then you know the idiot light came on because there's no oil. That's first. Second, if there's oil there, then you say, hmm, now I wonder what's wrong. Could it be that the oil pump is not pumping the oil up to keep everything in the engine lubricated? I don't want to move it very far. If that's the case, because I could seize the engine up. Ladies, are you listening carefully? Your husbands would like for you to learn this, okay? I don't want to seize the engine up right now, so I better be very careful moving it down the road. In fact, maybe I ought not to move it down. I need to check this one out for sure. But more than likely, at least in my experience, That when the idiot light comes on and there's oil in the pan, that means that the sending unit has gone bad or one of the wires has gone bad. Very simple thing to repair if you know where it is and if they build it so you can get to it. Okay? But what do you do when the idiot light comes on? You stop and you say, the idiot light came on for a reason. There's a purpose behind this light. So, let me go back and check out the possibilities. God made you and I emotional beings. Have you ever heard the statement, oh, you know, Bill, he's just too emotional? That's a lie. There is nobody that their emotions are bad. You and I have emotions and God made us with emotions. He intended for us to be emotional creatures. But He intends for us to use our emotions biblically. To use them like an idiot like that. When they come on, they are saying, hey, pay attention, something is going on in your life. Don't just ignore it. What's the average person do when their emotions turn on? They start getting angry and hot and bothered. They turn red and scream. And now what? They're like this for how long? Sometimes for days and weeks on end. What they're doing is they're saying, I'm not going to pay any attention to the idiot life. I'm just going to allow this thing to just keep right on. And you know what? People that live like that in anger and allow that anger to boil over, over and over again, they are high risk heart patients. They cause themselves more problems than they ever imagined. And they thought they were causing everybody else problems. God put that idiot light in your life for a reason. When I have the emotions take place, I should stop and ask myself, are these emotions, is this idiot light on for a right reason? My thoughts influence my emotions. Well, we'll save that for a moment. B, you choose your will, you choose what you think. Turn to Philippians with me for just a moment. Philippians chapter 4, and we're going to be over here for just a little bit. The Bible says in Philippians 4 and verse 8, some of you can probably quote this verse. Paul says, finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things." Now, do you hear what God says? He says, think. Think on these things. God says that you and I can choose what our thoughts will be. Here's where probably the major problem with most people is. We have gotten to the place where we will allow our thought life to just run rampant. We don't pay attention to what we think. Right now, while you're sitting here in this room, you're listening to me speak, and as I speak, I can only speak at a certain speed. But your mind can flash past that speed so quickly, you are thinking other thoughts at the same time. Thinking those thoughts while listening to me. I have a tape recorder that I like to use when I listen to a tape. It is a variable speed, and I push it up to about two times the speed, and you can hardly understand it. You've got to slowly work it up until your ears kind of catch on to what's being said. And you can take somebody who talks at a normal speed voice and buzz them up until they're talking like this, and you can't hardly understand. But at the same time, you know everything they're saying. And it just kind of boop, boop, boop, boop. And somebody else walks in the room and says, What in the world? Sounds like chipmunks fighting inside that thing. What's going on? It's because our mind can move so very quickly. So right now, you are thinking something. You are thinking, boy, I'd sure like to be out of here. I'm hot. I'm cold. You know, I wonder, will we get out in time to see the baseball game tonight? Some of you thinking that? You are rooting for the Indians, I hope. You wouldn't root for those fish, would you? All right. Well, anyway. Just throw that in for free, alright? You choose. Now listen, listen. You choose. Your will decides what you will think about. When thoughts come skating past your mind, you determine whether to think on those thoughts or not. And that's what God's saying. He's saying it's your responsibility to determine what you think about. Now add to that thought, B, add this thought, C. Your thoughts determine Your choices, your will. Now, get this. We said your will, your choices, determine your thoughts. But now, watch this, your thoughts determine your choices. You say, how can that be? It interacts with each other. What I choose to think about is what I will put my mind on and think about. And what I think about long enough will become the thing that I choose. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. In other words, if you allow thoughts of ungodliness to wrap through your mind, this is one of the reasons we preach against rock music and contemporary music of our day, is because that rotten music puts thoughts into your mind, and if you allow that rotten thoughts to run rampant in your mind, there will come a day when you will start choosing to live out what you're thinking in your heart. That's the problem here. And so, the Bible teaches that the thoughts influence the choices, and the choices influence the thoughts. They're interdependent. These two should be the basis of the choices of our life, of the decisions of our life. It should be kind of like a pyramid, if you will, where on this side we've got our will, on this side we have our thoughts, and up at the top is a blinking light so we can see it, are our idiot-like emotions that say, hey, pay attention to what's going on in your life. There's a reason when the light goes off. There's a reason. Sometimes a good reason, sometimes a bad reason. There's a reason why you're happy. There's a reason why you're sad. There's a reason why you're glad, and there's a reason why you're mad. There's a reason behind it. And people say, I don't know why I feel this way. No, sir. If you'll stop and get control of your thoughts, you will know why you feel the way you feel. You will. Now, let me quickly pause for just a moment and say this. Emotions can be, and we're not covering that here in these lessons, but emotions can be manipulated by your physical condition, okay? That we're ignoring. We're just talking about if you have no physical problems, it would cause your emotions to go haywire. We're talking about how a person actually acts, okay? So, my choices determine my thoughts, and my thoughts determine my choices. And in turn, my thoughts will cause my emotions to go wild. Either ecstatic joy. Two nights this last week as I was preaching that missions conference, I'd come home after preaching and come back to the room where I was staying and I'd lay down there and everybody would go to bed. They were all tired. And Mrs. Ryman had this comment to make to me one night. She said, you know, isn't it funny? I said, what? how preaching affects people in different ways. I said, what do you mean? What are you talking about? She said, well, you're wide awake and we're all ready to go to sleep. She's such a comfort, such a comfort. Good pastor's wife, you know. But anyway. What she was saying was, you know, I'm ready to go to sleep. But I came back and I would lay awake for hours those two different nights because I'd been thinking about the testimonies of the different mission fields I'd been on and testimonies of the different literature campaigns that I had done research of. And as I would share those with the people, they'd be running through my mind and I couldn't go to sleep. I mean, I was just all charged up and excited and happy and rejoicing, all excited in the midst of physically being sick. Now, how could that be? It was what I was thinking that was causing my emotions to go into overdrive. And if I would have said, don't think on this anymore, it would have taken some time, but I could have brought my emotions back down to earth. But I didn't want to stop. I was having such a good time fellowshiping with the Lord, praying and praising Him because of what He'd done. I mean, I was just having a good time refreshing my mind about the blessings of the past. and encouraging my heart about the possibilities of the future. So the heart is made up, then, of the choices, the will, of the thoughts, and of the emotions. Now, get this, D. Your emotions are determined by what you think. That's what I just got through saying, wasn't it? Look in Philippians 4, verse 4. The Bible says there, Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say, rejoice. Now, when a person rejoices, I mean, if it's genuine rejoicing, are there emotions involved? Have you ever rejoiced? Oh man, this is great! Thinking, I feel lousy. Not a genuine rejoicing, is it? When I rejoice, I get excited. When I get excited, man, I mean, I'm ready to go. Man, isn't this good? Isn't this wonderful? Man, praise God for what He's doing! This is great! When I'm rejoicing. But notice how God praises it here in Philippians 4. He says, rejoice. It's a command. It's not, well, you know, I hope someday your heart just really gets excited and you can rejoice. No, it's a command. God says, rejoice, child of God. Rejoice? It's a choice, okay? I've got to choose to rejoice. How am I going to choose to rejoice? Well, then I've got to choose to kick my mind into gear and think about the blessings of God instead of the problems that I face. If I spend all my time thinking on my problems, on the difficulties, on the hurdles of life, I will not be able to rejoice. I will be down, discouraged, and sad. But if, on the other hand, I choose to think on the things of God, and remember the blessings of God, in a matter of time, it will ignite my emotions and cause me not only to say, I'm rejoicing, I'm happy in the Lord, but it will cause me from the inside to be bubbling up and wanting to rejoice and praise God. It's a choice I make. So my emotions, your emotions, are determined by what you think. E. Your emotions, can influence your thought life. Your emotions can influence your thought life. You say, what do you mean? Look in Philippians 4 and verse 6. Paul writes and he says, Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. Now question, how can you thank God for something? if you don't think about it first. You can't thank God unless you think. You know why people don't have blessings to share? Because they're not thinking about the blessings that God has given them. It's not because you don't have blessings. Because there's not a one of us that doesn't have blessings in our life. I don't care how rotten your life is right now. There are some blessings that if we sat down, I guarantee you, we could pick out some tremendous blessings in your life you're not paying any attention to. But watch what God says here in this verse. He says in verse 6, be careful for nothing so that you can give thanksgiving. Be careful for nothing? That's another term for worry. Don't worry so that you can think about the blessings in order to be able to give God the thanks that He deserves. Now watch this. If you're sitting around worrying, what does that do to your thought life? If your emotion is one of fear and uneasiness, what's your thought life like? Your thought life is on what you're worrying about. Your thought life is on what you're feeling at the moment. You take somebody who has the emotions over here, of worry, of fear, of, I don't know what's going to happen to me tomorrow, things are really going bad, they could really be disastrous, this is just, you know, and they can think of a, you mentioned to them, why don't we do this? And they can think of 101 reasons why you shouldn't do it. They're the most miserable people in the world. Because they're over here worrying, and while they're worrying, they can't think on the blessings of God and on what God wants. And now watch what happens. Their emotions now control, influence is probably a better word here, they influence their thought life and shackle their thoughts, and they can't seem to get out of the valley that they're in. God never, listen to this, God never intended for your emotions to influence your thought life. He intended for your emotions to be that idiot light that goes off that you say, now wait a minute, what's happening in my life? Why am I happy? Why am I sad? Why am I glad? What's going on here? Let me think about this and understand what's happening in my life. Is this emotion destructive or constructive? You know something? You can be happy and it be a destructive emotion. You can be happy. Man, everything's just great. My world's just wonderful. This is wonderful. And you're speeding down the highway at 150 miles an hour. Not far from having an accident and killing yourself. And only a fool goes around a corner that's marked 20 miles an hour at 100 miles an hour. But you see, a person can literally, with their emotions, whip themselves up to where, I can do anything. I remember a kid that went to our school, he thought he could be Superman because he got his emotions all whipped up with drugs. So he tried diving out of a third-story window. He didn't fly. Not in the direction he wanted. You see, friend, your emotions can be liars. That's what we'll talk about next week. But your emotions can lie to you. You've got to watch out about them. Yeah. Your emotions can influence your choices. If your emotions can influence your thought life, they can also influence your choices in life. Now listen, again, God never intended for your emotions to control your choices in life. God never intended for your emotions to influence your thoughts in your life. God intended for your choice and your thoughts to take firm charge of your life and pull your emotions along with them. There's a time to be glad. There's a time to be sad. There's a time to weep. And there's a time to rejoice. And the child of God needs to learn when that is and what kind of conditions that is. And he needs to have control of himself so that his emotions do not take off and run him. But for multitudes of Christians, they've never learned how to control their thoughts. And instead, they've let their emotions override their thoughts and come straight to their choices and make them do things they should not do. For instance, have you ever been mad and said something you wish you hadn't said? Boy, who hasn't? You get worked up into a tizzy and get all angry and then you just say, I hate you! As soon as you say it, as soon as it comes out of your mouth, you want to reach out and grab those words and pull them right back, don't you? What an idiot I've been. Why did I do that? I'll tell you why you did it. Because you let your emotions run your choice. You didn't think. And don't we say that? I spoke before I thought. You know, I wouldn't wear that as a badge of honor if I were you. You're a mindless man. That's not very wise. But people allow their emotions to control their actions. Now, let's pull this down to an application here if we can tonight. Turn to the book of Matthew, chapter 22. Have you ever thought of the word love? What is love? Well, one fellow says, and I like this quote, love is a choice, and it really is. But our generation says love is a feeling. It's an emotion. And it really kind of is, but it isn't. The emotion of feeling love, now listen to this, the emotion of feeling love is a reaction. It's a symptom of the choice to love and the thought life that is centered on, and love is giving of yourself. It is self-sacrifice for another person. It is the thought life saying, I'm going to love this person no matter what. No matter what they do, no matter how they speak, no matter how they respond, I'm going to love this person with my whole heart. I'm going to give them every fiber of my being. I have made that choice and now I will put my mind to work at how can I love them, instead of why don't I like them. Instead of why don't I like what they're doing, I'll think about what I like that they are doing. I will get control of my mind and say, I will not let my thought life get away from me. It is going to think on ways to show love to this person. And in turn, what happens, in a matter of time, in a matter of time, the emotions go with the thought life and the choice. But if you let your emotions get out front, well, you know, I just kind of, I don't feel like loving this person anymore. I've lost all feeling for them. You know what you'll end up doing? You'll have 10, 20, 30 wives or husbands in your life. You'll marry wrong. And then once you marry, you'll be sorry you did and think, what have I done? Why did I do this? And then you'll be thinking, well, why don't I get out of this one? You know, I don't love them anymore, so can't I just quit? But it's because you don't understand that it's not the emotions that are to run a person's life, but rather it is the choices of life and it is the thoughts of life that then will turn the emotions in the right direction. Let me show you. Matthew chapter 22 and verse 37. A fellow comes along and he says, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Master, there's 613 laws. Which one do you think's the best? You know, we argue about this among ourselves, and why don't you tell us what you think, and then you can get into the fight with us. Verse 37, Jesus said unto him, He said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. Could I do a little application here for you? What's God saying? Is He saying, I want you to walk around and just feel goosebumps all over? Oh boy, I just love God all the time. Is that what He's saying? No. None of us can live at that kind of a plane. That's not what God's after. What He is after is for us to love God. It's a command. It's a commandment. It's not a suggestion. It's not a, this happened to me. You know, one day I fell in love with God. I was just walking down the road and, you know, I don't know what happened, but, you know, I just kind of, whoo, boy, I love God, isn't this great? Never used to it before. It doesn't happen that way. Love is a choice. You choose to love the person that you're married to. You chose to do that. You make a conscious, deliberate choice. And you choose to love God. And when you choose to love God, then what you must do to complete that action, to carry that action of love out, you must set your mind on that person, on their welfare, on their good, on their desires, on meeting their needs, on meeting what they want out of you. And as you do, your makeup is such that your emotions are kindled. And there are times when you're around that person that the chemistry is right. Whoa, man, I just love being in their presence. But there will also be some times for other reasons why the chemistry may not be there. But the commitment is, and the thoughts are, and therefore you will go on living in love with that person whether the emotions charge your life or not. Now, the Bible says that we're to love God like that. with all our heart. Could I ask you a question tonight? In every choice in life, every decision you've ever made, every conscious, deliberate choice you have ever made on this earth since you've been born, have you loved God with all your heart? Have you chosen God over everything else? Chosen God over self-interest? Chosen God over what you want out of life? Chosen God over where you live? Chosen God over your own benefits? Chosen God over everything else? You have always totally chosen God. Not one. There's not one of us. Let me give you another element of the heart. If you love God with all your heart, friend, you'll not just choose God every time. You will literally think of God and His glory first in everything. Oh, I've got to make a decision about this. I wonder what the Lord would have me do. I wonder which would bring greater glory to Christ. I wonder which would cause me to be a better child of God, to better serve the Lord Jesus. Or do you first think about, I wonder how this is going to affect my pocketbook? I was talking to somebody, I don't remember who it was, and he was mentioning a fellow in Brother Freiman's church who had just gotten a big promotion and he's moving off. Brother Freiman's really heart sick because this guy, he won the Christ and been discipling. The guy's grown leaps and bounds and doing tremendous. He got this promotion and he's leaving. And this fellow said to me, he said, you know, sometimes promotions may just be of the devil. Curses from God. And you know, that's a possibility. I'm not saying every promotion is that way, but I'm saying it can be that way because what we do is we set our mind on how much more money in the bank is this going to give me, and then we justify, well, you know, if I make more money, I can always tithe more money. And you know, the church will be happy about that, won't they? No, they won't. Not if it means your heart is divided from God. I'd rather have half the offerings that we've got here and have every member of this church sold out to Jesus Christ than have our offerings triple where they're at right now. Couldn't you do a lot with that money? Not with the next multitude, I couldn't. What God is saying here, and this is the first and great commandment, this is the one, my friend, that you're going to have to keep perfectly if you're going to get to heaven apart from Christ. You hear me? Every choice you have ever made, you say, well, I've made some bad choices, but from now on, it won't matter. God says from the day you were born until the day you die, every choice had to be made for Him. Is that the case? And if it's not, you're in deep trouble, friend. Your thought life should be so centered on God that you think of God, of God's welfare, of God's needs, of God's glory, of God's desires for your life, that you put God first in everything you do. You know, I've got this boyfriend over here, and I really like him, and it doesn't matter whether you like him. What does God want? Well, you just don't understand, preacher. You know, I've got to make these choices in my life, and I've got to get ready to go on with life, and I can't be spiritual all the time. Why not? That's what God demands. What does James say in chapter 2? You offend in one point of the law, you're guilty of it all. Now, let's just be honest here tonight. There's not a one of us can say, I have chosen God in every situation and I have fought on God throughout my life. I've dwelt upon Him every waking moment that I've had. I've kept God in the forefront of my mind, His honor and His glory first. You haven't been there. Your emotions? You know something? If you really put God first and chose Him in every single thing, totally unselfish, and then gave God every waking moment so that He was not necessarily that He is the only thing you think about, but He's the center of attention in everything that you think about. If you had lived that way, I do believe you'd stand around with emotions just beaming. That's where they'd be. But you know why they don't beam all the time? Because that's not how you live. And God knew that when He made you. When you fell, when we fell, when the human race fell, God knew that. He knew we couldn't live like that. He knew we couldn't attain that. Not a one of us have attained that kind of a lifestyle. We're not there. That's why Jesus Christ came into the world, my friend. He came to pay the penalty of the law. He came to redeem us from the curse of the law. We're cursed because we have not lived wholly perfect before Him. But Jesus Christ came into the world to buy us back, to make us His. Now, where are you at? Do you know Christ? If you know Jesus Christ, then friend, it's time to get your heart in order. Get your choices in order. Get your thought life in order. And begin to use your emotions as an idiot light to wake you up What's going on in my life? Why am I happy? Why am I mad? Why am I sad? What's happening? Why is this happening? What am I thinking on? What are the circumstances I'm going through? Am I seeing things from God's perspective or not? If you're lost here tonight, you do not know Christ as your Savior. There is no way, friend, there is no way you can pull your life completely together, because if you don't love God first and foremost, You can't put the heart together the way God intended for it to be from the beginning. You cannot get control of your thoughts like you need. You cannot make right choices. And you will not be able to get your emotions totally in order. That's why people pop pills. God can't do it. Maybe this pill can. I believe God knows how to straighten people's lives out. Will You let him have a chance at Your life? Father, we thank You. Lord, there are people in this building tonight that do not know You as their Savior. You love them. You sent Christ to die for their sin. Lord, they're in the same position that most of us in this building were at one time, apart from You. O Father, we ask You tonight to work in their hearts and lives. Help them to know that we love them and we care about them and that more importantly, You love them and You care about them. Help them to understand their sin before Your eyes, how You see them. O God, I pray You'll bring a sorrow in their heart, a godly sorrow that works repentance. Draw them to the Savior. Speak to our hearts tonight. Help us to think right. Help us tonight to put aside all the other thoughts and just determine, how does God see us? Lord, help us with that. Lord, there are Christians here tonight who, though saved, have allowed their thought life, their choices, and even their emotions to run rampant. Instead of training their heart on You, they train their heart on themselves and become Very selfish. I pray You'd break that selfishness in them tonight. Help them to see themselves as You see them. In Jesus' name we pray. With heads bowed and eyes closed tonight, as the pianist plays the song, Have Thine Own Way, Lord, Have Thine Own Way, I'm going to invite you in just a moment to slip out of the pew and come. Some of you sitting here do not know Christ. If you died today, you do not know you'd go to heaven. You just don't know that. You don't know your sins have been taken care of. And yet God very clearly in His Word demands that you love Him with all your heart. You fall short of His mark. Doesn't that bother you? And if it does, I invite you to come and let us take a Bible and show you what God's remedy for that situation is. Slip down the aisle, meet me here at the front. Just come. I'll get someone to sit down with you in private and just open up the Scriptures and show you what God says. Maybe tonight you're here as a Christian, saved and you know it, but you recognize some things that are out of control in your life. Maybe you're not taking charge of your thought life as you ought. Maybe you've allowed your emotions to begin to influence the choices that you're making in life, and God's not pleased with those choices. And tonight I recommend to you that you come and say, Lord, I don't fully understand how to do it all, but tonight I want to commit myself to putting my life in a place of blessing, in a place of usefulness for You, in a place where You can begin to reshape my whole heart so that it can be fashioned so that the issues in my life speak of a person who loves God. I can be a vessel in your hands. With heads bowed, I'd ask you to stand to your feet. As Mark begins to sing our verse of invitation song, I invite you to come. You need to pray, you come. You need to be saved, you come. Make yourself known. I'll be here, be glad to help you. Will you slip out and come tonight? As Mark sings. Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way. Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after Thy will. Yielded and still. Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. Search me and try me, Master, today. Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now, as in Thy presence humbly I bow. How about you? Will you come as we sing on? Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way. Wounded and weary, help me, I pray. Power of power, surely He is kind. Touch me and heal me, Savior divine. Invitation's still open tonight. I wonder, where are you at? Where's your heart at with God? Very simply, the way you evaluate it is, what are the choices you've made today? The choices of words that you've spoken, places you've gone, actions you've performed, the thoughts you've allowed to abide in your heart, in your mind, in your life, the things you've ponder today, do you really love God? That's the question. Will you let Him have His way in your life as we sing?