Doctors are always telling us, aren't they, that we should be getting regular checkups. And they tell us about all the benefits of doing that, and we know the benefits of it, but somehow or other we're still very reluctant to actually go through with it, maybe especially those of us who are men. And it's the same spiritually. We can greatly benefit from regular spiritual health checks. and many benefits of such a check regularly, annually, or maybe more frequently. And again, we feel there are benefits to this, and yet again we're kind of reluctant to take the time and the effort to actually undergo a spiritual health check, and in the spiritual realm it's probably male, female, about the same kind of reluctance. So I want to use this passage tonight to try and persuade you, and myself, of our need for a regular spiritual health check. And not only to do that, but hopefully give you some help to do it. We're really going to be sitting at the feet or in the clinic of Dr. Wisdom this evening as he helps us to undergo a spiritual health check. And the background to this chapter is significant because you remember that the first three chapters we've looked at are all about trying to get us to enroll in wisdom university. And now, really, Solomon is assuming he's persuaded us, and he's saying, okay, we're about to begin semester one of Wisdom University. You've been persuaded to enroll, but I want you to do something regularly. Let's begin with a spiritual health check, and let's just keep that going as we stay enrolled in Wisdom University. You might ask, well, why? What are the benefits of a spiritual health check? That's where we want to go, first of all, here, because the first reason is spiritual health checks are incredibly helpful to us. It's not something that we should view as an enemy, as something that we should try and avoid or oppose or run away from. In fact, the benefits of a physical are about the same as the benefits of a spiritual. There are amazing parallels in this. For example, the benefits of a physical health check include reducing the risk of sickness. Those who get regular checkups have a reduced risk of getting sick. Second, there's early detection of problems before they get more serious. Third, it results in more successful treatment because the problems are addressed earlier. Also, it helps prevent complications for existing or pre-existing conditions. It reduces cost because the treatments that we need will not be so significant and serious. Also, it increases our lifespan and our life quality. Getting a regular checkup, it reminds us of bad behaviors that are harming our health and help us remember the good habits that are good for our health. All these reasons doctors use to get us into their surgeries, their clinics, And really, it's a no-brainer. When you look at all the benefits, you wonder, why am I so reluctant? And it's the same spiritually. All of these things are true in the spiritual realm as well. The benefits of actually engaging in this are massive. It reduces the risk of spiritual sickness and disease. It helps us detect spiritual problems early before they get too serious. It therefore increases the chances and the hopes of successful treatment for any problems that we may have spiritually. It helps prevent complications of spiritual problems that we already have. It reduces the cost, the spiritual cost of spiritual problems. helps us increase our lifespan and certainly our life quality, our spiritual quality of life. And it reminds us of the things that are harming us and the things that will help us live more healthily. And so when you put that all together, you think, well, why don't I do this every day? Or at least every week? Or at the very least, very regularly. given how helpful, how beneficial, and how good for us such a checkup of the soul is. And actually, when you start thinking of the reasons why we don't do this, you can't help but think how ridiculous our reasons are. And we might not articulate them verbally and clearly, but they're in there. And I want to use a dialogue to help us identify the ridiculous reasons that we might be using to stop ourselves getting such a helpful checkup. I want to tell you about Joel. Joel was in his 40s. He really lived a pretty healthy life. I mean, he'd had his ups and downs, but never went to the doctor. He didn't sort of believe in that. But in his mid-forties, he was out in the yard. He was doing some digging, some yard work, and his wife actually saw him, Lisa. She was looking out the window, and she saw him there. He suddenly got very tense, stood up with his hand on his chest, and he looked very distressed. She ran out, and she said, what's wrong? What's wrong, Joe? And he said, oh, I'm okay, I'm okay. I just had a bit of chest pain. And she said, Joe, you need to go to the doctors. You need to get checked out. And Joe, as normal, was really reluctant. And the first ridiculous reason he came up with for not doing this was he said, but Lisa, I have no time to do this. And Lisa replied, Joe, no time? Like, if you don't do this, you're going to run out of time. And it came back to Joe, and he said, well, okay, I mean, I can make the time for it, but I don't want to go, because the questions and the investigations are so uncomfortable. And Lisa replied, but Joe, can you not just take a few seconds of discomfort for long-term comfort and peace of mind? Surely that's an illogical way to look at this." Well, he said, yeah, I kind of get your point, I suppose, but I don't really want to know what's wrong. And Lisa replies, Joe, not knowing doesn't change the reality of something being wrong. And Joe replied, well, you know, Lisa, I don't feel that there's anything wrong with me, really. And she said, Joe, you know, your feelings have nothing to do with it. Your feelings anyway are not very reliable. You're a man, and don't go by your feelings. And so he was kind of running out of excuses, and so he started saying, well, I don't have a doctor. Lisa said, Joe, don't be ridiculous. There are five doctors within a mile of where we live. And then said, yeah, but doctors are always after our money. They're always trying to get something out of us. I said, Joe, come on, be serious. The doctor cares for you and desires your good, not your money. And his sort of last throw of the dice, when he couldn't really come up with anything else. He said, well, I mean, I can't afford it. And Lisa said, Joe, we have free checkups in our insurance. This will cost you nothing. Now, eventually he succumbed, at least to stop her arguing with him and say, okay, okay, I'll go, I'll go. And you might listen to Joe and you might think, poor Joe, he's not a very rational man. His excuses are crazy and illogical and weak, and yet, and yet, and yet, are they not reasons that we use ourselves to avoid a spiritual checkup? Ridiculous reasons. I have no time. I don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't want to know. I feel okay most of the time. Who's a good, reliable soul doctor anyway? Aren't they always trying to get something out of us? I can't afford it. Can you afford not to? Try and ferret out, try and discover the ridiculous reasons we use to refuse the perfectly reasonable arguments for us to have a spiritual health check. That's what Dr. Wisdom is here calling us to. Substitute, Dr. Wisdom, for Lisa. Substitute your soul heart for Joe's physical heart and substitute yourself for Joe and just go through that narrative and be honest and get these ridiculous reasons out the way. Ask Dr. Wisdom to show you how crazy it is to use such an argument to refuse to go for a spiritual check-up. Spiritual check-ups They might make us feel sick, but they actually help us get better. We might feel sick when we're thinking about them, but they make us better as we go through with them. Spiritual checkups are helpful. Okay, I'm going to go for a checkup. What's it going to be like? How wide is it going to be? How extensive? And that's really one of the great emphases of this chapter, that spiritual checkups are incredibly extensive, wide, wide-ranging, covering so many areas of life. You look, for example, in verses 4 and 5. It covers our memory. He taught me and said, lay hold of my words with all your heart keep my commands and you will live, get wisdom, get understanding, do not forget my words or swear from them." You see what he's saying here? Develop, look at your spiritual memory and ask yourself, is it a memory that retains, that lays hold of God's truth and doesn't forget it? That's a good sign of spiritual health. Secondly, he points us to wise love in verses six through nine. Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you. Love her, and she will watch over you. Wisdom is supreme, therefore get wisdom, though it cost all you have. Get understanding. Esteem her, and she will exalt you. Embrace her, and she will honor you. She will set a garland of grace on your head and present you with the crown of splendor. Wise love, he's saying, let your heart love Settle on wisdom. Embrace her. Bring her into your life. Hold her close. And she will return the favor and return the love. This is an amazingly wise love. Wisdom is supreme. Therefore, get wisdom. Thirdly, receptive ears. We see that, for example, in verse 10. Listen, my son, accept what I say. In the years of your life will be many. It's also repeated in verse 20. My son, pay attention to what I say. Listen closely to my words. Retain to receptive ears. Then, sound sleep, fourthly. We see that in verse 16. Talking about the wicked, and it says they cannot sleep till they do evil. They are robbed of slumber till they make someone fall. What's pictured here is spiritually unhealthy people, when they're in bed, they can't stop thinking about how to commit more sin. Their sleep is disturbed by their plans to do more evil. And of course, it implies the opposite, that a spiritually healthy person has a sound and a peaceful sleep. Their mind is not preoccupied with committing sin or covering up sin, but rather confessing sin, forsaking sin, and getting forgiveness of sins, and therefore sleeping soundly. Then there's a peaceful diet, verse 17. Again, speaking of the wicked, they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence. This is speaking again of the spiritually unhealthy, their media diet. Not just their food diet, but their media diet. They let into their eyes and their ears lots of scenes and sounds of violence and evil. which is so disturbing and traumatizing. And the inverse, of course, is true, that the spiritually healthy lets in images of peace and sounds of peace and tries to keep out of the mind and the heart all that would trouble unnecessarily. And then verse 18, there's a bright lifestyle. The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. So here we've got the spiritually healthy person and we're told that as they walk through life, their path of life, more light shines on them and more light shines in them and more light shines out of them. As they live, as they are sanctified, they feel more and more a sense of the love and the light of God in their life, and that is reflected out of them as they go on. Their lifestyle is light-giving and life-giving and love-giving. Then there's a truthful mouth in verse 24. Put away perversity from your mouth. Keep corrupt talk far from your lips. straight eyes." Verse 25, let your eyes look straight ahead. Fix your gaze directly before you. He's picturing somebody who's going through life and there's a ton of distractions trying to pull his attention to the right and to the left. And yet this person, they have straight eyes. They're looking straight ahead. They have their eye on the prize, their eye on the finish tape on the great crown of life that they will get from the Lord at the end of their days, and nothing will turn them one way or another. They have straight eyes. They are focused. They are single-minded. And then they have a clear purpose. 26 and 27, make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Don't swerve to the right or the left. Keep your foot from evil." Just somebody who knows where they're going and goes there. They have a purpose in life. They know why they're here. And so here we have a wonderful checklist, an incredibly extensive checklist. that covers our minds, our memories, our love, our ears, our sleep, our diet, our mouths, our lifestyle, our eyes, our purpose. It really goes from top to toe. And it says focus on these areas, And check, do you have these spiritually? Do you have this kind of retentive memory, this kind of wise love, these kinds of receptive ears, this kind of sound sleep, this peaceful diet? Do you have this bright lifestyle? light-giving as well as light-receiving? Do you have a truthful mouth, straight eyes, and a clear purpose? Covers a lot, doesn't it? Well, Joe ended up at the doctor's, and the doctor started examining him. Joe started by telling the doctor that, I've got a heart problem. Yet the doctor started looking in his eyes, in his ears, even checking his nails, started looking at his back. And eventually, Joe said, doctor, I don't think you heard me. I said I've got a heart problem. I think you're looking in the wrong areas. And the doctor said, first of all, Joe, you're not a doctor. You don't actually know what's wrong with you. Trust me, I know a bit more than you. Secondly, what if what you thought was your heart may be right, but that's a minor problem? You might have other things wrong with you that are far more serious. What would you think if you came in here with a minor heart problem, and you had major problems in other parts of your life that I didn't even ask you about? What would you think of me? And Joe, of course, was silenced once again. And this passage, therefore, challenges us to bring our whole lives under this chapter as an examining light. Let Dr. Wisdom take this and shine it. on every part of your life. Don't say, no, no, I don't want you to go there, and I don't want you to go there. If you could just look at this part, this is really the only area I'm concerned about. And Dr. Wisdom says, no, I'm sorry. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it well. I'm going to do it properly, out of love for you, out of care for you. I'm not going to let you dictate the terms of this consultation and examination. If we want to be holy Christians, we must be wholly examined by Dr. Wisdom. Well, that covers a lot of ground, doesn't it? It covers us extensively. Spiritual health checks are helpful. Spiritual health checks are extensive, but what about insight? Well, that's where Dr. Wisdom takes us. He takes us to this. Spiritual health checks are intensive. It's not just extensive but intensive. It's not just wide but deep. And if you were alert, you might have noticed that I actually skipped over the most important verse when we were doing the extensive body scan here, soul scan. That's verse 23. Above all else, above all else, how important though all these other parts of your soul are, I want you to think about this most of all. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. He's saying the most important part of this examination is going to the deepest part of who we are, our CPU, our central processing unit, our engine room. Kenneth Kitchen, who's one of the experts on the book of Proverbs, said this. If there were one verse I could give to Christian young people, it would be this one. Nothing is more essential than guarding the heart. Why is it so important? Well, it's because the heart is the real you. It's the unmasked you. It's the central part of you. If you're to try and find your core, it's that. It's your energy source. It's your battery. It's your fountain. It's where everything springs from. As it says here, it's the wellspring of life. Depending on the condition of the heart, everything else follows. If you've got a heart pumping out clear spring water, then you can expect a soul that is going to be healthy and strong and vigorous. If you've got a heart that's filthy and pumping out muddy, polluted water, then you can expect the whole soul to be poisoned. In fact, the whole life to be ruined. Out of it are the wellsprings of life. It's the most important because it's the inmost part, it's the real you. And it's the most valuable, too, because it's the heart that's immortal, that never dies. It's the heart that was made for communion with God. It was the heart that was made to be the throne of Jesus Christ in the soul. It was the heart that was made to be the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. See how valuable and how influential it is? And therefore He says, above all things, guard your heart. Guard it, keep it, garrison it. Do that first, do that most, do that always. Guard it from dangers outside and dangers inside our thoughts and desires and what we think upon. Guard it from being hardened. Guard it from being weakened. Guard it by cultivating it. Guard it by tuning it. Guard it by feeding it, guard it by uniting it, guard it above all by having it regenerated, by having God give you a new heart, a new soul. That's the only heart worth guarding. when Joe finally accepted the doctor's counsel, and he submitted to the full examination. The doctor's prescription diagnosis was that he had a heart issue, but it wasn't It wasn't as serious as maybe it could have been, and it was treatable. And as Joe listened to the doctor give him his prescription, the doctor said to him, now Joe, you're going to have to look out for some special times in your life when your heart's going to come under a special strain. You've got to guard your heart from stressors and anxieties. at work or at home, watch yourself playing sports, climbing mountains, just avoid conflicts as much as you can, just be very careful. You're vulnerable. And they sobered him up. This gave Job pause for thought and made him very serious going forward. It really changed the way he viewed himself and the way he went on to live. And similarly, with our spiritual heart, we have to look out for special times when our hearts are especially vulnerable. John Flavel, the Puritan, wrote a little book called Keeping the Heart. And I put a link to it in the sermon notes. You can get it free online. And he spoke of different seasons of the Christian life that were particularly dangerous. He spoke of times of trial when the heart might grow impatient, times of temptation when the heart might begin to wander, times of prosperity when the heart might grow proud. Times of adversity when the heart might grow rebellious. Times of poverty when the heart might grow discontented. Times of danger when the heart might grow fearful. And a number of other seasons of the heart that must be times of special guarding of the heart. above all things. There's nothing more important in terms of securing. I mean, we put a lot of time, energy, maybe even money into guarding our bodies, guarding our cars, guarding our homes and possessions and alarms and all kinds of things, and He's saying here, above everything else, guard your heart. What out of it are the issues of life? It's the wellspring of life. And you know, you cannot guard your heart unless you've given your heart to God. That's one of the great calls in Proverbs, my son, my daughter, give me your heart. You can't guard it yourself. You won't manage it. You have to enlist God. You have to come to God and say, Here is my heart. I want it guarded, but I know I can't do this myself, so I give it to you, and I want you to be my ultimate guard." This is a challenging passage, isn't it? But remember who is calling us here to do the checkup, and who's doing it for us? It's Dr. Wisdom. And remember who that actually is. Wisdom in Proverbs is the Son of God, the wisdom of God, who eventually became incarnate as the wisdom of God. So we know that the heart behind it is caring and loving and gentle and out for our good. And in fact, Dr. Wisdom, when he came to this earth, he lived a perfectly healthy life. No matter which part of Him you were to examine, you would find nothing but perfection. His memory, His loves, His eyes, His sleep, His diet, His mind, His feet, His eyes, every single part of Dr. Wisdom incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, was perfection. perfectly healthy, even in the midst of the hugest trials and testings and temptations and adversity and persecution and danger, a soul and a heart that was pressed and pressured and stressed and traumatized and abused like no other, and yet His worst enemies couldn't find fault. His worst enemy at one point said, I find no fault in this man. It was like he'd had a scan from top to bottom, inside out, top to toe, and they could find nothing. And so we were brought to worship the One who enfleshed chapter 4, who brought it alive, who lived it perfectly and powerfully and savingly in this world, who cannot but fall before Him and say, behold the man, behold the Savior. And that's not all. Because Dr. Wisdom not only became perfect man himself, but promises to do the same for all of God's people. You'll become a perfect man or a perfect woman. Proverbs 4 will be the experience of all the people of God, not here in this world. But when we're glorified in the soul initially, and then the body at the general resurrection, we'll do a body scan of ourselves, and we'll look at our memories, and our eyes, and our ears, and our noses, and our tongues, and our hands, and our feet, and our legs, and our hearts, and our lungs, and our desires, and our passions, and our ambitions, and our will, and our conscience, and every part of us, inside and outside. And we will find no fault in this man or in this woman. Proverbs 4 will come alive in our own experience. Can you imagine what that would be like? I mean, it's a great feeling to go to the doctors and to walk out with a clean bill of health, but we know it's not going to last. It's not going to last. One day we're going to walk out of that doctor's probably with a bad diagnosis, maybe a short time to live. But this, this examination, this moment will be forever and ever and ever. We shall be like Him when we see Him as He is, perfect Christ and perfect Christians. That's worth going through some health check-ups in this world for, isn't it? They're helpful, they're extensive, and they're intensive. Therefore, get regular spiritual check-ups for your good and Christ's glory.