A Man and His Heart
Discuss: How is it that a person can be outwardly nice but have an impure heart?
Prov 4:23 Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life (or for from it is the fountainhead of life)
Discuss: What are the implications of Proverb 4:23?
1 Tim 1:5 (The Apostle Paul’s instruction to young pastor Timothy) But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
[View the Vertical & Horizontal Relationships Diagram]
Matt 5:8 (Sermon on the Mount) “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
- Psalm 73:1 Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart!
- Psalm 24:3–4 Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood
Discuss: Whatever a pure heart is having one is crucially important. Why?
Discuss: What is a pure heart? How would you go about answering this question based upon Scripture?
- Psalm 73—Contrast Ps 73:2–14 with Psalm 73:25–28
- Exodus 19:1–6, Ex 20:1 Deut 6:4–5 and 1 John 2:15–16
- Psalm 40
Discuss: How can a man begin to discern the nature of his heart?
Question: Can you answer the question “for what do you live?”
- What do you love the most in life?
- What do you desire most in life?
- Where do you find your hope or security or refuge most when pressures come?
- What do you fear and worry about?
- What do you think you need the most?
- For what do you spend most of your energies trying to obtain?
- What does your world revolve around?
- What angers, distresses, depresses, or worries you the most?
- Whose performance matters the most?
- Whom must you please?
- How do you define success?
- In what person’s acceptance, possession, achievement, “makes you somebody?”
Discuss: Why is it that some folks have a very hard time answering these questions?
Discuss: What are the consequences and dangers of living for anything else but God
Personally?
in marriage?
in parenting?
at work?
Discuss: How is it that the Gospel can rescue us from the penalty of our impure heart?
Discuss: Give practical examples of how the Gospel can transform our hearts to be purer and purer each day? How should a man think practically with a pure heart based upon the Gospel to help transform his
- Relationship with God?
- Purpose at home?
- Relationship to wife?
- Relationship to children?
- Purpose at work?
- Anxiety?
- Fear?
- Anger?
- Immorality?
Man’s Great End (The Valley of Vision, p. 13)
Lord of all being,
There is one thing that deserves my greatest care, that calls forth my ardent desires,
That is, that I may answer the great end for which I am made—
to glorify thee who hast given me being,
and to do all the good I can for my fellow men;
Verily, life is not worth having
if it be not improved for this noble purpose.
Yet, Lord, how little is this the thought of mankind!
Most men seem to live for themselves,
without much or any regard for thy glory,
or for the good of others;
They earnestly desire and eagerly pursue
the riches, honours, pleasures of this life,
as if they supposed that wealth, greatness, merriment,
could make their immortal souls happy;
But, alas, what false delusive dreams are these!
And how miserable ere long will those be that sleep in them,
for all our happiness consists in loving thee,
and being holy as thou art holy.
O may I never fall into the tempers and vanities,
the sensuality and folly of the present world!
It is a place of inexpressible sorrow, a vast empty nothingness;
Time is a moment, a vapour,
and all its enjoyments are empty bubbles,
fleeting blasts of wind,
from which nothing satisfactory can be derived;
Give me grace always to keep in covenant with thee,
and to reject as delusion a great name here or herater,
together will all sinful pleasures or profits.
Help me to know continually
that there can be no true happiness,
no fulfilling of they purpose for me,
apart from a life lived in and for the Son of thy love.
Additional Resources:
- www.faithlafayette.org/heart
- Brad Bigney—The Gospel Treason https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Treason-Betraying-Hidden-Idols-ebook/dp/B0099UT9QI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534361795&sr=8-1&keywords=Gospel+Treason
