Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I often hear the story that I heard this week. I kind of overheard a story of a man who was talking about pursuing God's will for his life.
[00:00:13] And he told this story of how he cried out to God for months.
[00:00:19] He was desperate to know what God wanted for his life. He was following Christ, committed to Christ, love the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he felt compelled every day to pray. God, show me, show me what you want me to do with my life. Do you want me to be a missionary? Do you want me to be a pastor? What is it that you want me to do with my life? What is it that you want to do with my life? And I listened to sort of this agonizing testimony.
[00:00:52] The guy even said at one time I asked God, please speak to me the same way you spoke to people in the Bible and tell me, even audibly, if you would, what you want me to do with my life. Very desperate prayer.
[00:01:10] And one thing you'll notice if you've heard sort of this testimony before, maybe, maybe this is your testimony, wanting to know what God wants you to do with your life.
[00:01:25] You'll notice that we so often talk about God's will for our life in terms of the future.
[00:01:32] Something that's just out there in a lot of ways. It's always abstract. These big dreams that we want God to have for our life, our career, our family. We want some insight into how all of this is going to look. If God could just show us where it's headed, we could walk in the right way and we could get there, maybe even sooner.
[00:02:01] God, how are you going to use our life? What are you going to do with us?
[00:02:07] Well, the truth is the Bible never frames God's will for our life in this way.
[00:02:13] Never.
[00:02:14] I'm not even sure the Bible calls us to pray in that way.
[00:02:20] What the Bible does is, tells us God's will for Jesus.
[00:02:26] We see very clearly what God's will for Jesus is in the Bible.
[00:02:32] And one of the things we're learning is to be wise.
[00:02:36] We align our lives with, with Jesus. That's God's will for your life. Everybody here today is that your life would be aligned with the purposes of Christ. It's not some abstract thing. It's not something disconnected as this individual from what God is doing in the world. It is to ask yourself, what is God doing with, for. Through Jesus in the world?
[00:03:09] And then how do I align where I am and who I am and what's in front of me, my decisions, my plans and purposes with God's Will for Jesus. That's wisdom. Well, how do we find that wisdom? Some of you saying, yeah, that still sounds very generic. How do we live that sort of wisdom out on a daily basis? How do we find that wisdom? The title of the sermon, we would say, where is wisdom? Well, where is it?
[00:03:41] Well, first of all, we see that it's found on a daily basis. And the first thing we see is wisdom is found in running to Jesus. We run or run into wisdom. We run to God's wisdom. We see that in our text. First of all, notice verse 5. We run daily to God's wisdom. Notice the verse, trust in the Lord with all your heart. The word trust here means to cast yourself upon something, to rely upon something, to put your whole self and sense of security in something or someone. The Word actually carries with it a sense of security and peace. I pursue my security and peace by casting my life upon the Lord, by trusting in Him. And notice the qualifier here, with all your heart wholeheartedly trusting in the Lord. A lot of times we think about that word heart. And for us, we think emotions, we think feelings. But biblically, specifically the Old Testament, when God talks about the heart, he's talking about the whole person.
[00:05:03] He's talking about the core of who you are. And it involves your mind, how you think, your wisdom. It involves your heart, your. Not feelings necessarily, but. But desires, what you want, and then how you act in light of your thinking and your desires. And here, for wisdom, we run to God's wisdom. We cast our whole self, our whole being, all of who we are, mind, heart, soul, emotions, will. It must all be aligned with the Lord.
[00:05:45] We must cast ourself upon the Lord running to his wisdom. But also when we think about this wisdom, it involves two aspects of our life. We're talking about this idea of God's will. And how do you work that out? What involves two things. Trusting in the Lord's providence for your life. The word providence just simply means your circumstances, those things that God is allowing to go on in your life. And what Solomon is saying here is, to be wise, you have to trust God's providence in your life. Your whole self has got to be confident that there is peace in what God is doing. And I may not see it all or understand it all, but I trust God's providence in my life. It also this, this wisdom of trusting in the Lord with all your heart involves God's guidance in your life. I trust what he's doing in the circumstances, but I also trust what he's telling me. To do how he's guiding me. And so wholeheartedly I want to know what God wants me to do. And so how do we do that? Well, In Proverbs, chapter 30, verse 5, we see that every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Notice the idea in that verse of protection, of security, of finding peace in who God is for us. How do we find that peace? Well, we trust his word. Notice that always proves true.
[00:07:30] Every promise of God will prove true.
[00:07:35] He is who he says he is, and he does what he says he will do. And so I can wholeheartedly trust in the Lord. Solomon says that's where wisdom is, trusting the Lord what He is doing in your circumstances, because he's always going to do what he said he would do. And then every command proves true. Every command of the Lord is right and good. So it is safe to believe in Him. And it only makes sense. It's only wisdom to do what he says. So we trust in the Lord by running to his wisdom. Where is his wisdom? It is in the word of God.
[00:08:13] Now, for the Christian, we have a full picture of how all that works out because we have the Gospel.
[00:08:21] Every word that God has ever promised has come to fulfillment in Christ.
[00:08:26] So you can trust everything he says, because we have the whole story. He's done it all.
[00:08:32] And so we can find security and peace. And wisdom is in finding security and peace and believing everything God said He would do.
[00:08:42] But it's also in doing what he calls us to do because of the Gospel, we know God is good.
[00:08:50] He sent his son to die for your sins.
[00:08:54] He's raised him from the dead.
[00:08:58] When you believe in him, you are accepted, you are forgiven. And he loves you as he loves Jesus.
[00:09:07] We know he's good, and so it's only wise to trust him. But you know how that works out in your life.
[00:09:16] Again, back to the issue of guidance. When he tells you to do something, you know it's for your good. And there is no other option but to find peace in doing what God has told you to do. So when he calls you to repent of sin, there's no debating, is this good for me? No. The Holy One who died for my sin, proves God loves me and it's for my good. So when he calls me to repent in this way, oh, that's got to be in my best interest.
[00:09:47] And so wisdom is trusting the Lord in that, trusting the Lord in what he is calling you to do. When he calls you to love someone who you don't want to love, you don't know. You don't sit back and say, I wonder if that's going to work out okay for me.
[00:10:02] No, he's proven he's good and right and faithful and true, and every word of his will prove true. And it is a refuge for you. It is safe for you to love that person and forgive that person. You don't have to worry about yourself because God's calling you to do something that is good for you. And so to find his wisdom on a daily basis, we run to that wisdom. We run to the word of God. We run to the gospel. You will not be wise if you are not running to God's wisdom daily in the word of God and in the gospel. But as we run to God's wisdom, we also are to flee our wisdom. I think here is the trick. We have the gospel, we are to trust in the gospel. But this is where sanctification kind of works out in our life. I believe in Jesus. So what happens next? Well, God begins to purge us of our own understanding of the world, and that's what we do on a daily basis. To be wise, to figure out God's will for my life, I'm running to his wisdom. While I'm running away from my wisdom, Notice the text and do not lean on your own understanding. The word lean here means to. It's like to lean on a crutch or a staff.
[00:11:24] It's shaky. You probably shouldn't do this. It's going to end badly for you if you lean on your understanding. It's another word for wisdom, but it carries the idea of your definition of reality, the way you see the world. So I'm running to figure out how God sees things and let him define reality. And I'm running away from the way that I see things because that's not going to be good for me. I'm not going to lean on my understanding. I'm going to trust in the Lord. So when it comes back to those issues of providence, instead of looking at the circumstances in my life and going, this is the way I think things should be, or this is the way I perceive things. No, we're running away from my understanding, from our understanding. And we want to know how God sees this situation.
[00:12:19] And again, God's always going to do what's good for us so we can trust him. When it comes to guidance. I run away from my understanding to God's wisdom. When it comes to what I want to do, I don't say what do I want to do in this situation? I say, God, what do you want me to do? So I'm running to God's wisdom as I flee my own wisdom. Proverbs 28, verse 26 says, Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool.
[00:12:49] Whoever lives in his own little mind and his own little understanding of the world is an idiot, a moron. He's stupid. He doesn't understand the world because he's not looking through God's lens of the world, God's wisdom of the world. He's trying to make sense out of the world around him in his own mind, and he's a fool.
[00:13:11] But he who walks in wisdom will be delivered. He will find safety.
[00:13:16] We know that it is foolish to rely on our own understanding for a moment.
[00:13:25] Remember those days when you were a teenager and you think about your 10 year old self.
[00:13:34] Let's say you were 15 thinking about your 10 year old self and you always looked at your 10 year old self and said, he was such an idiot.
[00:13:41] He didn't know anything about the world, didn't know anything about relationships.
[00:13:48] He's playing Dukes of Hazzard in the dirt.
[00:13:51] There's a massive world out there.
[00:13:55] But then when you were 25 and you look back on your 15 year old self, you thought, oh, that guy was, he was such a moron, thought he knew it all, thought the decisions, who he thought he was going to be. How foolish was that? 15 year old. We could just keep going, right? 35 year old self looks back at 25 year old self. Idiot. 45 year old self looks back at 35 year old self. Moron.
[00:14:23] Y'all know I love Proverbs because of all of the idiots and morons and fools.
[00:14:30] And we're going to get to the end of our life and look back and say, wow, you were really not smart. I'll use more, I'll use better language. You weren't very smart most of your life, we know that of ourself, we know we can't be trusted with our life, but there's a deeper reason why.
[00:14:54] And so why is it foolish to lean on our own understanding or. Or to trust in something else with all of our heart? When Proverbs 29. We read this verse last week, who can say I have made my heart pure, I'm clean from sin. So from the deepest part of who I am and all of who I am, I am not clean of sin, I am guilty of sin, I have sinned. I am rebellious to the core. And so my understanding is distorted.
[00:15:32] Jeremiah 17:9 says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can understand it?
[00:15:40] And so from the deepest part of who we are, we are wicked and we are distorted.
[00:15:47] That means we don't understand things the way that we should and we can't be trusted. We've got to run away from that understanding to the one who's not wicked, to the one who is right and good.
[00:16:00] You see, the reality is secular philosophy denies and rejects that reality that we are sinful.
[00:16:10] And this is why so much wisdom that's in the world is faulty, because its starting point is off.
[00:16:18] Wisdom of the world will say, you can fix yourself.
[00:16:22] Wisdom of the world says that the solution of your problems doesn't start with repentance before God.
[00:16:30] And so we get off in wisdom and counsel and advice because we don't have a good starting place.
[00:16:38] Wisdom of the world says, fix your problems with your own understanding.
[00:16:44] And we know how miserable that makes us because we realize our understanding is off.
[00:16:52] And the Bible explains why we have wicked hearts. This is why trust your heart is the most horrible advice anybody can give you.
[00:17:03] It's bad advice because your heart is wicked.
[00:17:08] This is why God knows. My heart is one of the most horrible ways to justify your sin.
[00:17:15] When you talk to someone about their sin. Well, God knows my heart. Yes, he knows your heart, and it's wicked. And he doesn't like it. And he doesn't want you to live by it.
[00:17:29] He knows your heart. He also loves you and doesn't want you to obey your heart.
[00:17:37] You know what our hearts do? You know how our hearts fuel our understanding when it comes to Providence, I don't deserve what's happening to me.
[00:17:48] I don't deserve this life.
[00:17:50] If I were in charge, I would do it a different way.
[00:17:54] That's what your heart's gonna tell you about what God's doing in your life. You know what your heart's gonna tell you when it comes to guidance?
[00:18:01] Sin is freedom, and God's design and way is slavery. That's what your heart's gonna tell you. Your heart's gonna say, if I could just have this sin, I would be happy. If I could just have this moment and say this thing and feel this thing, I would be free.
[00:18:22] Back to the garden. God's keeping something from me. That's what your heart's going to tell you.
[00:18:28] You can't trust your heart. You got to run from your heart.
[00:18:32] And one of the other dangerous things about our culture is it's so easy to live inside of our heart on a daily basis. This is the way our culture is designed now.
[00:18:44] We stay in our homes, and in some sense we stay in our rooms, and then we stay inside our own little worlds. I know we talk about devices around here a lot. I just believe it's so dangerous because we live in our own little understanding constantly with that thing in our face. And we create worlds by our own little understanding where we are king and we are queen, and our rules are the desires of our heart. What I want is what is right. And we create that little world.
[00:19:24] You know what Proverbs says? We're foolish. We're foolish. When we live that way, we acquire our own little TikTok counselors who tell us exactly what we want to hear.
[00:19:38] We live inside the little algorithms of our preferences. When it comes to sports, when it comes to politics, when it comes to parenting, when it comes to all these things, we create our own little understanding.
[00:19:52] And what has to happen, and I know this is getting redundant, is we have to be in the word of God to burst forth from those things.
[00:20:02] So when we get in our car and we look at the windshield in Kentucky in January after an ice storm, and it's just caked over with ice, and you can't see anything. So you don't need to be driving your car anywhere. You don't need to be going anywhere. It's the same thing. We live inside the bubble of our own little understanding. So we are fools. And we don't need to be maneuvering through life as fools because we can't see correctly. This is why we must begin our days in the word of God. And we see In Proverbs, chapter 1, verses 20 through 23, read this with me. Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the marketplace. She raises her voice at the head of the noisy street. She cries out at the entrance of the city gate, she speaks. How long, O simple ones? Those of you living in your own understanding, your own little mind inside your heart? How long will you love being simple, foolish? How long will you scoffers delight in their scoffing? And fools hate wisdom. How long will you live encased in your own little understanding, not understanding the world around you? If you would turn at my reproof, I will pour out my spirit to you, and I will make my words known to you. What God says, if you would just turn from your own understanding on a daily basis, he would share his heart with you.
[00:21:49] He would tell you his plans for human history.
[00:21:53] And in the Bible, you know what they are Jesus is king and you're not king. This is what it means to live before the fear of the Lord. I'm not God every day and Jesus is king and this story is about him. And you know how that would change your day?
[00:22:08] You would begin to see everything that happens in light of Christ and not itself. You have to burst from that with the story of the Bible, with the Scriptures. Proverbs 8, 10 says the wise of heart. Those who have wise hearts, which we know happens by the transformation of the Spirit, will receive commandments. But a babbling fool will come to ruin. You know what a babbling fool will do? He will continue to set encased in his own little understanding iced in and tell himself, I can see the world just clearly. And he will run off the road and die and make a wreck out of his life.
[00:22:45] And so we get in the word of God and we see the story of Christ and we say, jesus, what do you want me to do today? I'm going to obey it immediately. I'm going going to make changes for you and in honor of you.
[00:22:56] This is why we read in Proverbs 11:14, where there is no guidance, a people falls. But in an abundance of counselors there is safety back to that word refuge that is found in the word of God.
[00:23:11] But notice how Proverbs over and over makes mention of others who must speak into your life.
[00:23:19] There are others who must take the ice scraper and scrape the ice off of your life so you can see clearly, so you can drive straight, so you know where you're going in Proverbs. This is a really big deal in Proverbs, if you're reading it.
[00:23:37] Kids, you need to listen to your parents. They know some things. Quit being so foolish. Listen to their wisdom, especially when it lines up with God's wisdom. They know better than you.
[00:23:51] And you've got to listen to spiritual authority in your life. We see that in Proverbs you have mentors in your life who are spiritual mothers and fathers that you need to go to. There's certain things in some of your life right now that you're not bringing up to people who know you because you know what they're going to say to you. But you need that so you can see clearly, so you know what's going on. And that is one way you run to God's wisdom. As you flee your own wisdom, you lay your life before others and say, help me see it. Help me see more clearly according to the Word of God.
[00:24:30] And so we run to God's Wisdom. We flee our wisdom, and then we live all of life before Him. Notice the next part. Or notice here, verse six. In all your ways, acknowledge him.
[00:24:45] The word ways, we see that it refers to paths or streets or road. It's. It's where you walk.
[00:24:54] And so everywhere you walk, you are to acknowledge Him. You remember he is there. He is present. It's his world. You are a creature. He is the Creator. But his word, acknowledge him also can be translated confess, which also means to agree with God.
[00:25:18] So in all of your ways, you are agreeing with God about what he says about your ways.
[00:25:26] So as you walk throughout your day, what Proverbs is going to teach us is God has something to say about every single thing you do. Everything.
[00:25:36] Your money, your marriage, your kids, your friends, how you talk, how you spend your time.
[00:25:47] God has something to say about it all.
[00:25:50] And in everything you do, you're supposed to agree with Him. That's what he's saying here. Agree with God in every way. Agree with God in everything that you do. The song we sang early was so beautiful. In this way, you are to live your life saying, I am not my own.
[00:26:11] And you are to remember you belong to someone else. And that is to shape the way you think about where you're going and the things you're doing and the things you're saying. It is to shape it all. You don't get to just do whatever you want. You don't. God brought you into this world.
[00:26:30] He's given you your life. He's given you the purpose. And so I agree with him in every area of my life.
[00:26:39] And we see this in Proverbs chapter 8. We talked about wisdom and how God created the world with wisdom. But Proverbs chapter 8 begins with this declaration that God is declaring over all our ways, his wisdom. There is wisdom to be found, as we just read, in the streets and in the roads, in the busyness of life, there's wisdom to be found everywhere. Proverbs 8:2 says, on the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads, she which is Lady Wisdom takes her stand.
[00:27:11] So every step that you're making, every twist and turn, wisdom is there telling you where to go. And you don't put your head down and go a different direction, ignoring her. No, she's telling you where to go for your good. And so you acknowledge her. You acknowledge what God is calling you to do and telling you to do, and the commandments that he has given you in every step and in every way.
[00:27:38] I imagine this is a good illustration. I don't know if it is because I don't understand a lot of things about the military these days.
[00:27:46] But I imagine a soldier on the ground fighting a battle, fighting the enemy, running through the jungle wherever he is.
[00:27:58] And above him, modern day technology. Mr. Marsalis is probably going to rebuke me after he's over. He said, you don't know anything about the military. Would you quit spreading lies?
[00:28:09] But I imagine a drone in the sky telling this soldier every step to take, do not go that way.
[00:28:19] The enemy is there. You will get shot. Over there, a drone that sees everything.
[00:28:25] The rescue chopper is over here. Go this way, hide here. Every step.
[00:28:32] And at no point is the soldier going to say, you know what? When I was in basic training, they gave me this janky compass and I'm going to pull this thing out and try to make my way through this war zone without help from above. I think I can do it on my own. I think I can figure this out.
[00:28:52] I have just good instincts.
[00:28:55] No, there's going to be a constant listening and checking. The battery are my batteries. I need to hear what's going on from above.
[00:29:07] And that's the same thing that's going on in your life. There is no step that you can take without having to acknowledge that there is someone above it all who sees what you don't see. When you got in your car today, think about this, and you drove here and you just see the road in front of you. God already knew and could see what was going on in this building.
[00:29:33] Even last night when nobody was here.
[00:29:36] He knew what was going on here. He knew where you were headed.
[00:29:41] And it's the same thing in life. He knows days ahead, months ahead, eternity ahead.
[00:29:48] In light of what you are facing, he knows the next step. He knows the next week, he knows the next month. He knows the next year. So why in the world would you rely on anyone else's wisdom? And then why in the world would you take out the compass of your wicked heart and try to follow it?
[00:30:08] Notice Proverbs 16:25.
[00:30:11] There is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way of death. If you're maneuvering through life just listening to your heart, you're headed to destruction. You don't know what's going on. And there are ways that are going to seem right to you. There is sin that's going to seem good to you. There is wisdom and counsel that's going to be what you want to do. And it is going to lead you to destruction. And so in all of your ways, what do you do? God, you're right about this. I have no idea where I'm going or what I'm doing.
[00:30:47] And you acknowledge God in all of those things.
[00:30:52] This is why we feel so unaccomplished at times and lost with our lives, is because we live the vast majority of our life by our own wisdom.
[00:31:06] And we live the vast majority of life by the wisdom of the fools of this world.
[00:31:13] And rarely do we stop and say, God, what do you want?
[00:31:18] Not just what do you want? What have you said? Let me search the scriptures and find out what you've said about this.
[00:31:26] This is what I want for my life. I want to honor you in this way, whatever that means, instead of buying into the wisdom of the world.
[00:31:36] One of the things that's happened with my two girls as they've grown up, people ask them all the time.
[00:31:46] It was more so when they were younger teenagers, what do you want to be?
[00:31:53] And without hesitation, which we tell our kids, you need to always think about what you want to be and what you're going to do with your life. From like they're three, what are you going to be? And it changes. I'm going to pitch for the Atlanta Braves. Well then it's, I'm going to be electrician. That's what really happens.
[00:32:11] But we're okay. You need to have purpose in life. You don't just exist.
[00:32:17] And our girls, when asked, what do you want to do with your life? What do you want to be? Without hesitation they would always say, a wife and a mom.
[00:32:27] And well intentioned people would laugh in their face and not being harsh, but just laugh.
[00:32:36] Oh, that's sweet. You're there with your little precious baby doll. That's so sweet.
[00:32:42] And then say things they thought were being helpful, like, don't you want to do something with your life? What do you want to do? What do you want to be? What kind of career do you want to have? And in their mind it didn't make any sense, but they had set their way before the Lord.
[00:33:00] And they said, let me think about how I can make the most impact in the world.
[00:33:08] And you know who the most impactful person to them is?
[00:33:14] Their mom.
[00:33:16] And they said, that's how. That's the way I want to go.
[00:33:21] But sometimes the wisdom of the world and God's wisdom are going in two different directions.
[00:33:28] And you've got to consider whose wisdom you are following.
[00:33:32] And you set the wisdom of the world against the wisdom of God and you say, okay, what does God say about this, I want to do what honors him, what is good and what is right. I want to find the most meaning in my life so that I go to God. Proverbs 5, 21 says, For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. You don't live life haphazardly. You don't.
[00:34:03] I talk to. This is going to be a long sermon. I talk to all kinds of people in their mid-20s right now, and they have no idea what they want to do and who they want to be. And you know why? It's because they just now started thinking about it.
[00:34:18] You don't meander through life.
[00:34:21] You set your ways before the Lord and you say, how can I honor Him? How can I acknowledge Him? What do I need to do with my life? And you're constantly, this is the point of the sermon, daily asking that question. You should wake up every day and set your ways before the Lord. This is what it means to make everything holy. Nothing is secular in your life. Nothing is mundane. You set it all before the Lord. What you're going to eat, where you're going to go, how you're going to talk, how you're going to spend your time. You set it all before the Lord. Your ways are always before the Lord. And a wise man ponders his path. He considers what would honor God. Listen, you don't want to be successful at things that will not matter 200 years from now, do you?
[00:35:16] Do you? We just kind of go the way of our own feelings and our own heart and the wisdom of the world.
[00:35:22] Well, God has a glorious plan for all of us to honor him and bring him glory, no matter where we end up, no matter what our occupation is, no matter the paths it takes us down. But you can live life with that purpose day in and day out.
[00:35:38] And notice the final, well, second to last point.
[00:35:43] We do this, we run to God's wisdom, we flee our wisdom.
[00:35:48] We acknowledge him in everything. And then we just trust his plan. We just trust him. If you're doing all of those things, the point is you can trust God where you are, if you're doing all. If you're running to God's wisdom from your wisdom and you're acknowledging him and everything, then you trust his plan for your life.
[00:36:08] You don't have to regret where you are. Notice he will make straight your paths. The terminology here is that he will make your way. It actually means easier or smooth. What it means is I want to get from point A to point B. And instead of zigzagging back and forth, if I am trusting the Lord, his wisdom, relying on him, my path to this is going to be straight.
[00:36:35] That is the imagery here.
[00:36:38] And this is where Proverbs gets a little uncomfortable for some of us, because it does make these promises that if you do things God's way, it's just going to be better for you.
[00:36:52] Now, do I think that means you're going to be happy and rich and everything you ever wanted? No. But if you live with righteousness, the trajectory of your life is going to be towards wisdom. It's always going to be in that direction. And if you live in rebellion, the trajectory of your life is going to be toward foolishness. That's the way it's going to work out. You're not going to be able to live in rebellion and then look back and say, wow, I'm full of wisdom.
[00:37:20] No, you're going to live in righteousness and you're going to look back and say, okay, God made that easier for me because I did what he said.
[00:37:29] This is how it works out. Proverbs talks about this with parenting daily. We get up and we have an intentional plan for our kids.
[00:37:37] And we ask God, what is your plan? What would it mean to have wise kids? And every day we grind and we plot as parents to have kids who live in the fear and admonition of the Lord. And one of the promises of Proverbs is if you work really hard at that, it doesn't happen overnight, and it's not easy, but you work hard at that, you're going to be. Your kids are going to be headed in a good trajectory.
[00:38:03] Now, we still trust that God is sovereign and doesn't work out the way we want every time for our kids.
[00:38:11] But we train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is older, he will not depart. Proverbs tells us that doesn't happen every time, but there is a trajectory there. If you wake up every day and you work with wisdom, you repent of laziness and you don't see work as a curse, and you work every day for the glory of God, your career path is going to be easier for you.
[00:38:40] Proverbs teaches us that as you walk in obedience to God every day, he will handle the trajectory of your life. He knows the end, and he's going to make sure you get there. We see that in These verses, verses 16 and Proverbs, verse 16, 9 says, the heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes His steps. What that means is God is sovereign over all things. He knows where you're headed. But on a daily basis, you still make decisions. And you make decisions that are honoring the Lord. And as you do, your path in the Lord is established.
[00:39:20] Every day we wake up in obedience, understanding. God knows where I'm headed. I'm just going to trust him day in and day out. Proverbs 16:33 says, the lot is cast in the lap. This is just a way of, you know, you can make decisions by flipping a coin, but ultimately every decision is from the Lord. He knows the end, the decisions you're making now. He's still going to make sure his path is charted for you, but you are still responsible to obey him in the dailiness. Proverbs 19:21. Many are the plans in the mind of man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. Meaning if you get up every day and you just want to honor and obey the Lord, you honor and obey Him. His will for your life is going to be accomplished. That's how it works out. It's not some abstract decision ten years from now.
[00:40:16] It's every day honoring the Lord. That is his will for your life. And you look around and you are on the path. You are on the way that the Lord has for you because you are honoring him day in and day out. He handles the course, he handles the end. You handle the daily obedience. God tells none of us the next five steps.
[00:40:41] He tells every one of us the next step, which is to obey Him. You obey him, you obey him, you obey him, and you're headed in the path he has for you. That is his will for your life. And you should make plans and set goals and fill out applications and make investments. But you know, God's handling all of that. You're wise with all those things. One of the problems that I notice with so many people today is they want the whole path right now.
[00:41:12] I want it all right now.
[00:41:16] I want the marriage, I want the kids, I want the grandkids, I want the successful career. I want the retirement at the beach, and I want it all right now.
[00:41:28] That's not the way life works. You plod day in and day out with Jesus, and He takes you in that direction of wisdom. And then wherever you end up, you can trust his plan because you were trusting him all along. And then finally, how do we know God's will for our life? How do we find it? If you're doing all of those things, you should just do what you Want to every day.
[00:41:53] If you're doing everything I just said, just do what you want.
[00:41:57] Why is that? Psalm 37:4, Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart doesn't mean he's going to give you everything you want. That means as you wake up every day and you plod in obedience, you hear the word of God and you do what God is calling you to do. He begins to change the wants of your heart to his wants. And so when you come to those big decisions, God's will for your life is reflexive. It makes sense to you because your heart and your mind have been cultivated in his wisdom, saturated in his wisdom. And so when you have to make a big decision, it doesn't mean you don't pray about it. You don't agonize over some things, but you know the direction of wisdom because you've lived and you've walked in wisdom and it makes sense to you the more you live before him, you begin to make decisions that are most optimal for for his glory. You wean yourself off of your self centered desires and you begin to glut on God centered desires. And so when the decision is before you, it makes sense to you. I'm going to do what honors Christ in this moment. And some of you are making big life decisions right now.
[00:43:17] First of all, are you praying about those things?
[00:43:20] Can you track obedience up to those things?
[00:43:25] Are you acknowledging the Lord in those things?
[00:43:28] Are you asking the question, when it comes to where you're going to live, are you going to live in a place where there are people who are going to help you walk with Jesus?
[00:43:39] When it comes to what you're going to do with your resources, how you're going to make resources, do you ever consider how you're going to make much of Jesus with those resources?
[00:43:50] Are you acknowledging the Lord in all of those things?
[00:43:55] No wonder I'm so lost half the time because I'm making decisions by my own wisdom.
[00:44:02] What do I want? What do I want? What do I want? What do I want? Oh no. Here's a decision. I need to know what God wants.
[00:44:11] Gotta start over, right?
[00:44:13] Good news, we can all start over. Jesus is God's wisdom. So whatever paths we've gone on away from Jesus, we turn and we run to Jesus. Today. He's God's wisdom. He's the reset button. He's the start over button.
[00:44:28] Well, the man I was talking about earlier, I'll never forget this moment.
[00:44:36] He declared very passionately, I finally heard a word from God.
[00:44:42] He said he heard a word from God in a dream.
[00:44:46] And I was on edge. I was like, okay, where? What word did you hear from God?
[00:44:53] This is a very godly man, by the way, trying to express himself in the most God honoring way.
[00:45:02] See, I heard just a voice.
[00:45:05] And the voice was follow me.
[00:45:10] And I'm sitting there thinking, follow, follow him to Zimbabwe.
[00:45:16] Follow him where? And he said, no, that's it.
[00:45:20] That's the. That. That was what I finally came to, that God's will for my life was to follow me. The words of Jesus that we find in the gospel, you didn't need a dream or vision for that.
[00:45:33] Follow me. That's God's will for your life today. I can say that with authority for everybody here. God's will for your life is to follow Jesus. Follow him today, follow him tomorrow. You don't have to be anxious about decisions that are out there somewhere that you don't even know what's going to happen just yet. Just follow him.
