Trust in the Lord

And make this work. Alright. I did. I asked. It's a good thing we didn't move over there because then I'd had to ask you.

Alright. We are in Proverbs chapter three, and we are looking at verses looking at verses five through eight. Three five through eight. Might sound familiar. Kinda hope it sounds familiar.

Let not trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Lean not into thine own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil.

It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones. And that's where we'll stop this evening. In chapter three, we're starting to get down to the nitty gritty of Solomon's counsel, the Lord's counsel to us concerning his wisdom. In the first two chapters, it very it spoke quite broadly about the subject of wisdom and how important wisdom is. Okay.

Now, we're getting down to some particular principles of God's wisdom that we need to apply to our lives. Number one, don't forget God's law in verse one. Keep his commandments. A long and peaceful life will follow. Number two, hold mercy and truth in your life.

Embrace them. Practice them. You will find favor and understanding with God and man. Number three this evening is trust in the Lord with all your heart. Listen to God over your own reasoning.

God will direct you in the way that you should go in life. We have the opposite of this verb stated later in the book of Proverbs. There's a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Okay? And so trust the Lord with all your heart and he will direct you on the right path or ignore God and just listen to your own heart and it leads to ruin, death, and destruction.

So very good counsel and but counsel that humanity finds very hard to accept. We want to do things whose way? Our own way. And in Christ, God has given us by by his spirit grace to help us to turn our eyes off of our way and to accept and follow God's way. I think I've given this illustration before, but some of you may not have heard it.

I had a bright idea a few years back when I lived in Macon. I decided that we weren't going to take any of the interstates going to Ohio. We were going to take the straightest possible route up to Charleston, West Virginia. So we're driving from Macon to Charleston, and we always drove the interstate. I thought, I wanna do something different.

So we just took the straightest route, which means we had to get off on a bunch of other, you know, arbitrary roads, many of them two lane, in order to get up to Charleston. I listened to my heart and it was memorable, But I would not say it was enjoyable, particularly for my wife who was trying to keep me awake at two in the morning because I was desperately trying to get to Charleston because we were in absolutely nowhere West Virginia. I think it was four o'clock when we got into Charleston. The advice God gives us here is not just to trust, but to trust in him and not in ourselves. Our heart or our reasoning ability alone.

When at last you must choose betwixt two, choose God, choose the Lord. Now sometimes our desires and his desires are in line and as believers, that should become more and more the case. But sometimes we we just can't see around the bend and he can. If we need to pick between one and the other, choose God, choose the path, as a poet once said, less traveled. And sadly, the path less traveled is the one the narrow way that God has laid out for his children, the one that God is clearing for us.

We live in a world today of lost people, directionless in life, even more so spiritually lost and separated from God and his direction. The the Lord describes that as dead in trespasses and in what? In sins. Okay? So those that are lost do not hear.

They are unresponsive to the Lord. The Lord says go this way and the dead body just what? Lays there. Okay? Because it's dead in trespasses and in sins.

We who know Christ, we are alive in Christ. So now when we read God's word, the Holy Spirit helps to interpret and up us to apply God's word to our life so that we can respond to the Lord, but much of the world is still dead in trespasses and in sins. And so, they don't hear. They're directionless, confused, dismayed, not knowing where to go, where to turn next, often trusting in the wrong people. And there are plenty of those out there.

We've been discussing some of them in Sunday school for the past three, four months. There are a lot of false prophets, a lot of false Christ in the world, and those who are blind spiritually, those who are dead spiritually, often when they're seeking, they're drawn to the lie rather than to than to the truth. Some are at the end of their rope in despair. Even many Christians having found Christ are still wandering in life unsure of their calling and of decision after decision they make. They wonder, did I make the right one?

Did I make the right one? Oh, I wonder if I I don't know if I can I and they get they they are paralyzed by the fear of I don't know which way to turn? And sometimes they do make the wrong one. Sometimes we all make bad decisions but praise God. It's not the the the will of the Lord is not like, okay, there's this one little windy path you've got and if you step off, oh no, it's over.

No, it's not like that. God is a god of mercy and grace and patience and praise the Lord. His will isn't over because we made one bad decision. Lot did not find himself in the great deal of trouble he found because he made one bad decision. Lot found himself in the pickle he was in because he made bad decision after bad decision after bad decision after bad decision.

And that's how Lot got to be where he was in life. He wasn't seeking the Lord's what? Direction. I mean, all Abraham did was to say, Lot, you pick what you want, I'll take the other way, trusting that God would steer Abraham in the direction that God wanted him to go. He really left a lot of it in whose hands?

In God's hands. You can have direction in life. You can know where you are going eternally and also today and tomorrow. You can have confidence in your decisions. You can have peace and joy and fulfillment in the way you are going.

You can get on the right path even if you've been wandering astray for a good while. There is a solution. There is a map and a director you can trust. And he is Jesus, and this is his word. And if we will learn more to trust, how to trust in the Lord, then we will not be so confused.

We will not be wondering so often, am I in God's will or am I not? Especially when we learn to turn some of those things over to him and let him make some of those decisions for us. The question is not, will God? He said, if you lack wisdom, ask of who? Ask of God and he will and he giveth.

He giveth liberally, generously. He doesn't he doesn't hold back. But the question is really, will we will we ask? Will we wait? Waiting is sometimes necessary.

Some of us don't like waiting. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. Now, the world may scoff at such a suggestion of letting God guide us and make decisions for us.

They would tell you to chart your own course, to cut your own path, to follow your own heart, to do it your way, but God is telling us differently. And and, you know, I mean, the world what the world has to say really does seem to make a lot of sense to the old way of thinking. I can figure it out. I don't need God to help me do that. What if God takes me somewhere I don't want to go?

Well, let God take you somewhere you don't want to go because maybe the somewhere you want to go is the place you need to what? You need to be. But it's not always the place we want to go. He warns us not to follow our heart but to listen to our creator. At least to make the one which is easily led astray subject to the one who will never lead us astray.

Let me say that again. At least make the one which is easily led astray, who's that? Us, Subject to the one who will never lead us astray. It isn't that God doesn't want you to use your brain. It isn't that God doesn't want you to weigh the pros and the cons.

It's just that then weighing the pros and the cons and the decisions that we subject that to the guidance and the will of who? To the will of God. So, to our text, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Trust in the Lord. That's point number one and under that point, we have a few things.

First of all, the imperative. The imperative, the command is what? Trust. Sounds simple. You know, just trust the Lord and he will he'll take over.

He'll he'll direct if you will just trust him. The word trust in Hebrew literally means to hide for refuge. To hide for refuge. That's that's what the word what the mean of the word trust in Hebrew, To hide where? Well, to hide in the guidance and the direction of who?

In this case, of God. Trust in the Lord. In the turmoil questions, successes and failures, doubts and fears, we look for a place to turn to in life for direction, for peace and help, refuge from the storm, a place to anchor ourselves. Look to find refuge in the Lord Jehovah. He he commands us to trust me.

Trust in the Lord. Go to him for refuge. When you're overwhelmed, when stress is like, have you all tied up in knots? Remember who? Remember God.

Remember God. Philippians four six and seven. Be careful for nothing. Be anxious for nothing. But in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Trust him. Trust him isn't just a a magical word like abracadabra. Trusting means actually you have to take those as we're told in Philippians, take those burdens to who? To God in faith and turn them over to him and release yourself from the worry and the anxiety, especially among those things that you can't control or the things that haven't happened yet. Sometimes we are just paralyzed with fear over making the decision because if I do this, it will turn to that and it'll end up here and end up it's like a chessboard.

If I move here, then it'll move there, move there, and oh, no. What if I okay. You can't control the whole what? You can't control the whole board. You can't control everything other people do in life.

Here's a secret. There's somebody that can have a great influence, only over your life, but over the lives of what? Others. There's somebody up there that sees the whole board that has power over it all. Trust in him.

In the New Testament, we are told to have faith and what faith and what is faith but believing in and putting your trust and confidence in someone you cannot prove by your human senses. That's what that faith is. Now, I have one up there. Hebrews eleven one says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not not seen. Okay.

But who can see them? God can see them. What is our prerogative? Learn to trust him. Learn to trust him by faith.

Romans one seventeen, I have that up on the screen. For there for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. The righteousness of God revealed from faith, but the goodness of God is real. From faith to faith is we take one step in faith and then we take what? The next step in faith.

Say, God, you know, I really wanna Lord, help me. We take the next step in faith. As we take the step in faith day by day by day, we are walking in faith. We are living by faith. Living is a continuing action, a progressive state.

We are saved by grace through faith, but we are also children of faith who should be living it every day, walking by faith and not by sight. And it is not a suggestion. It is a what? It is a command. Number two, the object.

Who are you trusting in? Trust in who? The Lord. All capital letters, that's Jehovah. That's God's name.

That's a name that doesn't apply to anyone in the else in the universe but one. The true and living God, his name, the Lord Jehovah Yahweh, however you pronounce it. At this point, it seems only God knows. We'll find out one day. Probably Yahweh.

But the Lord is the object to be the object of that trust. Indeed, the object of faith and trust is critical. If you trust the wrong person, you will regret it. God is not the wrong person. The Lord is the one you can trust in all things, who is both completely trustworthy and capable to help you.

So I don't know who to trust. Trust him. Trust him. Ask him. Ask him for direction.

Ask him for guidance. He sometimes speaks to us through his word as we're reading in devotions. He speaks to us sometimes through through other godly counsel. He he speaks to us in our heart and guides us, and he speaks in different ways. But if we're listening, if we're sincere, and if we really trust in the Lord, the Lord will respond.

And boy, is he able to do so. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who always keeps his what? Promises. He is the God of Moses who delivers his children from the hand of the slave master of sin with a mighty hand. I mean, I'm sure Moses, I I know Moses was one he was wondering when God came to him and said, well, he'd call somebody else, not me.

Not me, Lord. No, that's just not not you got the wrong person. God said, no, I've got the right person. Just trust in trust in me. And then he went before the pharaoh for the third first time, the second time, the third.

First, he went before his own people and they didn't want to have anything to do with him. Then, when he tried something the first time, it it blew up in his face and then and then we have plague one, plague two, plague, you know, he come forth. No, I'm not going to let him go. Here we go again. But you know something?

Did God deliver his people? Did God use Moses? Why did he do it? How how what? Because Moses trusted in who?

In the Lord. Now, he was learning along the way just like just like all of us. Praise God he's patient. The God of Joshua and David who gives those who put their trust in him the victory over the mightiest strongholds and the most formidable giants. The God of Ruth who is our provider and kinsman redeemer.

The God of Nehemiah who answers our prayers and assists us in completing incredible tasks. He's the God of Peter who sets us upon a rock. Jesus Christ forgives all our sins and gives us the keys to eternal life. He is the God of Paul who transforms us in the light and love of Christ into his glorious image and makes the vilest sinner clean. Trust in him.

Not only in ourselves and not in others, especially when they are in conflict with with us. And by the way, it it it's awful easy to trust in others sometimes because they will tell us what we want to. God doesn't do that. God doesn't tell us what we want to hear. God tells us what we need to hear.

And it's awful easy sometime to trust in the voice of someone who tells us what we want to hear and not the opposite. So trust in him. Put yourself, your path in life, your eternal soul, your faith, and hope, your prayers and dreams, and daily decisions in his hands. It is not enough to trust, believe, and hath faith. It must be in who?

It must be in Jesus or it is of no eternal benefit. John five twenty four, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but has passed from death into life. John six thirty five and Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst.

The object is very, very, very important And sometimes, we hear in in in common culture today the word faith used quite a bit, but not used necessarily in reference to who? Reference to God. Just have faith. What does that mean? Faith in who?

Often that is a reference to having faith in yourself and not having faith in God. Having faith in the universe that everything's just gonna work out. But that's not what this is talking about. It's faith in a person. Trust in the Lord.

So it's a command, trust. There's an object, the Lord, and the extent of it, with all your what? With all your heart. Okay. So keep giving, keep listening, don't hold back.

The problem is a lot of times we we listen to God, we listen to God, we listen to God, and then, ugh, I don't know. That's that's just a little little too far. No. Give him give him give him an all. Trust him.

Deuteronomy six five, here, O Israel, the Lord, our God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Matthew six twenty four, no man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one or love the other. He will else hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God in mammon, money, or material possessions.

That's something Jesus said. You can't serve what? Two masters. So, you know, you can have money, you can earn money, you can have a career, you can you can do these things, but only one what? Only one master.

K? Only one that we put all of our trust in. Only one who has first place in our heart. Some of those other things are necessary. These other things are good, but there's only one God and the God is not money.

And the God is not fame, and the God is not power, and the God is not pleasure. It's not a brand new car or an old antique 1964 Corvette. Joshua 20 four fifteen, choose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, I will serve the Lord, Joshua said. What is he asking them?

Who are you gonna what? Who are you gonna trust? And how far are you gonna trust him? This far? This far?

This far? It seems really odd in a way that it's easier for us to trust God with our soul and our eternity than we are to trust God with a decision we have to make tomorrow about, you know, what job to take or where to go or what to say or whatever the case may be. God cannot be on equal footing with others or even self. He must be above all. Which is it?

God herself who has the final say, which brings us to the next phrase. On the straight path, lean not on your what? Understanding. So trust over with all your heart, lean not on so here's the positive and the what? The negative.

K? Trust not with all your heart, turn away, lean not, don't depend on your own understanding. Okay? I can depend on this stand to hold me up. Bad choice.

Okay. Why? Well, it isn't made for that. It doesn't have that power. But I can lean on who?

I can lean on God. Yeah. And he's there. If we are to have any hope of living on straight path, good, right, beneficial, then we must learn to place ourselves, way, our ambitions, our intellect, our reasoning, our desires under the umbrella of God's will and wishes, his way. Let him have his way with thee.

Now, it doesn't mean not having ambitions, not using your intellect, not reasoning, not having desires. You just need to take all those things and put them under the what? The umbrella of God's will. That's all God asks us to do. And when you put all that under the umbrella of God's will, who's protecting us?

God is. When we lay all that on us, we say, yeah, God, you say this but and I don't know and, you know, we step outside of the umbrella and, you know, either you get rained in or you get, you know, struck by lightning. Not good. Jesus said in Matthew sixteen twenty four, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. That just means take all that stuff and put it under the umbrella of God's will and let's what?

And let's go. Matthew six thirty three, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be and unto you. Psalm thirty seven four, delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart. Now, I don't know whether that verse means and I've looked at it in Hebrew and I am no means a Hebrew scholar. I don't know if that means that God is going to give you what you desire or he's going to give you the desires that you should have.

But either way, it works. If you delight yourself in who? If you delight yourself in the Lord, that's the part. I mean, lean on him and not on our own understanding. Follow me, Jesus repeated in the gospels and so his disciples did.

He asked his disciples to trust him and not their own understanding. At times, they found it difficult as do we. Judas found it impossible, and look what it cost him. Fortunately, Joshua listened and followed the Lord even when his mind told him differently, and the walls of Jericho, what? They came down.

What God told him made no earthly sense. And sometimes, something that God wants us to do to us just does not make sense. Trust in trust in the Lord. Sin problems, relationships, work problems, emotional problems, walls of Jericho in our life that need to come down, we need to learn to lean on him and not on our own understanding. Part of serving the Lord and getting the victory is learning to depend on him and not us.

When I was a youth pastor, we went to this thing called a corn maze. And anybody been to a corn maze? Corn mazes are fun. You know, they take cornfield, they cut this maze through the cornfield, and then you send all the teenagers, I was youth pastor in there and and they wander around sometimes for hours not being able to figure their way out. If you there was the one we went to, they had a little tower next to it and you could go up there and you could watch everybody, you know, from up above.

Oh, they're almost there. They turned around and went the other way. It's funny when it's a corn maze. It's not funny when it's what? It's not funny when it's life and we can't find our way out of the maze.

Who is on the tower looking down? God is. God is. God says you need help? Please ask.

Lean on me a little bit because I I have the answers. Life is like a maze with God looking down, guiding us through. It would be foolish to ignore him, and yet so often we do. Like the GPS, which I often ignore to my detriment, I know better than the GPS does. My way is quicker.

That that's something I think my generation has a problem with. The younger generation, they just type the address in, stick it up there, and off they go. Turn right, turn left, turn I just I don't know. That just bugs me. You know?

I I I just I wanna see if I want a map, I wanna see the whole map. I wanna see the you know? And and so a lot of times I just turn the GPS. I'll find it. And again, eventually I do, but maybe I would have found it sooner if I had just followed the GPS.

Unlike Joshua, we often act more like Lot. We wonder why we are off the path of blessing, not luxury and pleasure and ease, but blessing and peace and joy. You can have all the luxury, pleasure, and ease and have little or no peace and joy in life. There's no reason for the child of God with the word of God and spirit of God to find himself or herself in the place of Lot. Lot had pleasure and and ease and luxury and he lost his wife.

He lost his family and everything else over. But I I do say I think the thing that mattered most to Lot was his family. And because he didn't trust in the Lord with all his heart and lean not on his own understanding. I mean, it spells it right out there for us. He looked on the Plain Of Of Jordan and thought, oh, well, this looks great.

This is perfect. And he didn't think about the fact that he was moving all his herds right next right outside the walls of this wicked city of Sodom. And trust the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, what? Acknowledge the Lord.

Acknowledge the Lord. So here's where the rubber meets the road. When you have a decision to make or an action to take, remember who? Remember God. Acknowledge his wisdom, his authority, his love.

And all your ways were just the ones that suit you. It uses the word all. I had a professor who says, all means all and that's all all can mean. The word all is a very simple word. It means what?

It means all. It means all. And we know what that means. But we do have a hard time with that sometimes. And the little things as well as the big ones.

Do you look into his word for direction, for principles to guide you? Do you go to him in prayer to help choose the right or stop from choosing the wrong? Do you listen to the voice of the spirit warning against your approving your choice? I remember going to a a concert when I was in high school. It was called a Christian rock concert.

I remember going to the concert. I remember sitting there at the concert. I remember the the fellow that was the primary singer there for the concert. I won't mention his name. I had a CD with some of his songs on it and they sounded pretty good.

I went to the concert. Well, that CD was old and yet, do you know how Christian rock music or Christian contemporary music works? It sounds, you know, really kind of tame and the next the next CD that comes out, it's a little less tame. And the next CD that comes out, it's less tame. And pretty soon, this guy that sounded like George Beverly Shea now sounds like, you know, Led Zeppelin.

And so how did we get from a to e? You know? Well, that's if if you're following after money and fame, that's that explains largely how we got from a to to to where we went. But I I remember sitting there in a concert and I'm I'm thinking this is not what I was, you know, I don't feel this this doesn't, you know, but but I looked around, hey, everybody's having a what? They're having a good time.

So after about thirty minutes, I got over it, and I was having a good time just like everybody else. Now some would say that I was a fuddy duddy and that I should have gotten over it and I should still be over it. But I went through about ten years of my life in that, and I have very good reasons, I believe, based on God's word and my experiences to to not make that the driving entertainment in my life or particularly worship. Do you push ahead without giving God a thought or going to him for counsel? Do you go any go on anyway knowing it's got not God's will, walking in the flesh rather than the spirit, or do you justify yourself and twist the scripture to fit your desires?

I have done all of those at one time or another. And when I do those things instead of just simply acknowledging and following God, then I regret it. When it comes time to act or choose who makes the call. That takes us back down to verse seven and eight of chapter three. Be not wise in thine own eyes.

Fear the Lord. Depart from you. Be not wise in your own eyes. Be not wiser than who? Than God.

Okay? Be not wise in your own eyes, step one. Fear the Lord. Fear the Lord in the Old Testament is another way of saying trust in him. Trust in his authority.

Trust in him. Fear ignoring him. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and then what? Depart from evil.

And evil isn't always something that's wicked, but it may not be God's direction, God's path for who? For you. And sometimes, you know, God I'm sure God has called wonderful Christian people into nuclear physics. And that's what I wanted to do when I went to Bob Jones University. They had a physics program, and I started out as a physics major.

But I learned quite quickly, and it took me two years to finally surrender, but that was not what God wanted me to do. He wanted me to be here. He didn't want me to be at Fermilab in Chicago. If you want to learn more about that, ask me. It's a really cool place.

But you're not going to find the answers of life at a nuclear accelerator. You're gonna find them in where? In the word of God. You're gonna find them in the Lord. And though God does need nuclear physicists and he needs people in all walks of life, but you need to follow his will for who?

For you. Yeah. For you. Depart from the way that is counter to the will of God. Trust in him.

You will have rest for your what? Soul. You will find rest for your soul and health for your navel, for your body. Peace in your heart, refreshment, and healing in your spirit and to your body. You will succeed as you follow God's advice as Joshua did most of the time.

As we read in Joshua one eight, God spoke to Joshua. He said, this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. There's that that little word all again. It just keeps popping up. That thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.

For then, thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have what? Good success. Be not wise in thine own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It shall be health to thine navel and marrow to thy bones.

Those verses are saying the what? They're saying the same thing. Just different words, different time, but they're saying the same thing. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not into your own understanding all thy ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

God does know what's best. Sometimes, he leads us to that path quickly and obviously. Sometimes, it takes a while. But just keep trusting in and following the Lord. Let's pray.

Dear heavenly father, thank you, Lord, for your love for us, that you do care and that your way is best for each of us. And, Lord, we just need to learn to trust in that, to listen when you speak, to follow where you lead, to ask that you might share your wisdom with us, to give you first place in our heart and make you our first and foremost guide and director in life. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.