Our scripture reading for this morning, the passage for the sermon, is from Proverbs chapter three. Proverbs chapter three. And you'll find that in the Pew Bible on page 450. 450. Let's stand as we have the reading of God's word. I'm reminded of the prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah on one occasion, he used the figure, the image, in terms of taking in the Word of God. He likened it unto food. He said on one occasion, I have found your Word and I ate it. And so it's very picturesque for us. It depicts the matter that we need the nourishment of our God, and He feeds us in His Word. This is the Word of the Lord, the very Word of God, Proverbs 3 beginning at verse 1. My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. so you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Let's ask the Lord to be with us in his word. Let us pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we come to you as your sons and daughters this morning, And we ask indeed that in your word and of your spirit, you would tend to us and that you would feed us upon these, your words, your promises, and your commands. We know, O Lord, that of ourselves we would not be given over to your word, and so come and incline our hearts to you. We pray that you would open our ears. You would give us a tender conscience, a very pliable heart. And Father, be our praise this morning. Truly, our chief end of being in your word is to give you glory and to give you honor. And so minister unto us as we would long to be your disciples. Be our help and be our strength. Go with us now. We ask these things through Christ our Lord. Amen. You open up your Bible and you start back in the Garden of Eden, the scenes there with Adam and Eve. You move on into the storyline, let's say, having to do with the episode of Noah. You keep moving into the life of Joseph, move on over to the book of Exodus, and there's Moses and the whole scene of what's happened in Egypt and God's deliverance of His people and moving them to the wilderness. You go into the life of Joshua and the campaigns that take Israel to conquest the land, and you just keep on moving through. Certainly you come to one like King David there in the lessons of Samuel and the Kings and Chronicles. And you go on down eventually to the New Testament and you say you come to one like young Mary, the mother of our Lord. And there is a repeated theme throughout. That dominant theme that keeps appearing throughout the storyline of the Scriptures from the Old Testament on into the New is that men and women are called to faith. Our passage has it here in Proverbs 3 at verse 5, trust in the Lord. It's inescapable. It's from start to finish in the Scriptures from Genesis down through Revelation. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths. Trust. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. That repeated call throughout the Bible. That's the Christian life. Now, it's not our natural default place in life, is it? It just doesn't come, as we say, our second nature. It's just not there to trust in the Lord. Our default is to seek control. That's where we live, is to seek control. Men, men and women, boys and girls have a control issue. But we're called to trust. We're called to give life completely and fully and wholly and entirely over to the Lord. Trust the Lord. Now someone has written, and I think it's very apt, I think it's very Very timely and again it depicts for us realities of what we're talking about. Someone has written that perhaps in our day there's not a better illustration of trust, of giving ourselves completely entirely over to the Lord, there's not a better illustration of trust than when we get on an airplane. We completely relinquish everything. We give complete control over to the life experience and the skill and the wisdom, to the judgment, to the practice. We relinquish everything over to the mechanics, the ground crew, the air traffic control personnel, the flight attendants, most certainly we would say the pilot and the co-pilot for sure. What an apt illustration. Trust. So let me ask you as we launch into this Proverbs 3 passage, do you struggle with control issues? Do you raise your voice? When you're in conversation, do you ask one more question? Are you about making one more point, just one more point? Do you need everything in its place? Do you obsess about keeping a schedule? Do you worry about what's coming next? Do you think about the past and dwell on the past with worry? Do you think about what's further down the road yet and a sense of worry, a sense of hopelessness? Do you struggle with control issues? We're called to trust in the Lord. So where do we start with these well-known verses? Likely, many of us in the room this morning, we've memorized these verses. Where do we start to take in that which God wants us to receive? Well, I bring to you two lessons here. two points of teaching with these well-known verses. First of all, we are to start by remembering our God's relationship to us, His relationship to us. That's where we start. And then secondly, we want to We want to press home. We want to press home this relationship by what? By what the proverb is really commanding us to, to this continual reliance. We want to drive home to our hearts the place of continual reliance upon our God with whom we have this relationship. Let's take up the first lesson. It's His relationship with us. And so the question is natural to ask, what is that relationship like? What is it? What is this relationship with our God? Well, in our passage, and we're going to stick with the passage, with our passage here in Proverbs 3, the relationship is one where He is the teacher and we are students. He's the master teacher and we're disciples. How so? Go back up with me to chapter three, verse one. The emphasis is on the Lord who is our teacher. Chapter three, verse one. My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Now this is King Solomon. Solomon is giving instructions to a son of his. It's the physical relationship between the father and the son. But we are being reminded that what is a visual lesson for us, a depiction for us, it's like a lens or a window through which we would look. We're being reminded that our father is the one who instructs us. We're sons and daughters. We need His teaching. And certainly we can say, most fundamentally as Christians, we place our hope in the relationship between the Father and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That is being implied in the passage, that there is a relationship where commandments have been kept, where there's teaching and instruction that has been embraced from the heart, the one who has come in our place to live out that life of that full, complete, and total devotion unto his Father. Indeed, it's his own Father that would tell the Son, the Lord Jesus, my Son, listen to my commandments. Embrace them. Keep them. in this sense that here is the one whom we need, the righteous one, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to live that perfect life for us. He is the Son who receives unto His Father all that the Father has for Him. But the principle remains same in the practical Christian life. We are sons and daughters. Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ this morning? Is Christ yours, even right where you're sitting this morning? You pray in your heart, Father, teach me of your son. Father, show me the way of living in your son. Show me the life of faith of being united to Christ in your son that my sins might be atoned for and that his righteous life might be mine, that I might be a son, I might be a daughter to follow your ways, to trust in the Lord. That's what Solomon's doing. We're being instructed about salvation, the gift of salvation, the walk with the Lord, to walk in faith and to walk with eagerness and a fervor and a zeal about receiving the Lord's commandments and the Lord's promises and to walk with our Savior. Now friends, when you open up your Bibles, whether it's later on this afternoon or tonight or tomorrow, later this week, and you open your Bibles, please be reminded there's a very significant point here going on about this instruction, that we open up our Bibles and we have these clear pages and these dark words on these clear pages, these white pages. But friends, be reminded that when you open the Word, you are taking in the instruction of your Father. The principle that Scripture teaches that is when we open the Word, we are not merely reading these dark letters and printed words on these pages. The Father is speaking to us in the Word. The Father accompanies His Word for instruction to our hearts. How do we know that? Listen to Proverbs 3 verse 1 again. My son, do not forget my teaching, my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. There's an application that as Solomon's son was about following his father's instruction, it was his father who accompanied this Word. My teaching, my commandments, follow them, my son. A mother to a daughter, a mother to a son, a father to a son, a father to a daughter. And the same is true with us. Our God, who is our Father, He accompanies the Word. They are His commandments, His teaching, and He abides with us. And we can have the sure foundation of this even with the doctrine of the incarnation, where our God came in the person of the second person of the Trinity to nature's fully man, fully God, one person forever. The Lord Jesus Christ, we're told, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And it goes on to say, and the Word became flesh. That's that accompanying nature and principle of Scripture. The Word indeed is enfleshed. Our God accompanies His Word as He's instructing us. So friends, when you open your Bible tomorrow, you're not merely reading a book. Your Father is visiting with you. Your Father is counseling with you. Your Father is correcting you. Your Father is summoning you to faith. He is our teacher. He's the master teacher. He's the Lord. He doesn't write lesson plans on a whim. He's not about floundering in matters of His teaching. No, He's the Lord. He's the master. Indeed, He is the King. Jesus Christ Himself knew this when He was ministering to His own disciples. You remember on that one occasion where there was difficult teaching going on in John chapter 6. And there were some who wanted to leave that teaching, some that wanted to leave His presence. And Jesus turned to those disciples and He said, are you going to go away as well? And Peter answering for the group, Master, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life. The point being, the Master and the Teacher is with His Word instructing and calling us and teaching us and nurturing us. He says, do not forget my teaching, do not forsake my commandments. And then our principle, our text today is trust in the Lord. He's our teacher. You see, what he says, because of who he is, means he can be trusted. Jesus Christ came into this world to walk that walk for us. to suffer the ridicule, the scorn of men, to be one faced with every temptation, yet without sin. He comes and He knows. He comes and He teaches. He comes and accompanies us. I like what Job says, the book of Job, Behold, God is exalted in His power. Who is a teacher like Him? I like what Isaiah says. Isaiah is speaking to a people who are thinking that maybe there's no understanding of their own and God has no understanding and they're groping in the dark. Do you not know? Have you not heard? You've heard this passage. Has it not been told from you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sets above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted and scarcely sown, and scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth. And when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble, to whom then will you compare me? That I should be like them, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see. Who created these? He who brings out their hosts by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one of them is missing. And why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and to him who lacks the might, he increases their power. This is our God who teaches us. He has his eye on you, to counsel you, to guide you, to correct you, to instruct you, to nourish you in his word. Listen to Psalm 86, teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name. I will give thanks to you, O Lord my God, and with my whole heart I will glorify your name forever and ever. This is the relationship in which we live by his grace, by his mercy, and he is our teacher. But now to the commandment here, to trust in the Lord and not to lean on our own understanding. We're being called by Solomon to this life of continual reliance. That's our second point. It's a summons to continual reliance. You see, trusting in Him is to trust His Word. and trusting his word is saying, Lord, I am here to adorn your word. Clothe me with your word. Make your commandments to be inscribed upon the heart. Indeed, may they be a garland around my neck. Lord, take my life, a life of obedience. This is continual reliance. Listen to the proverb. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. That's that language of this continual reliance. In all of your ways. In all of your ways. acknowledge him. And Solomon is instructing his son, and the Lord is instructing us that the summons to this continual reliance is to walk in the word. His word is our sure fruit-bearing guide. His word is our sure, fruit-bearing guide. Listen to Proverbs 30, verse five. Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Proverbs 16, 20. Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord. His word is our sure, fruit-bearing guide. Your prayer ought to be, my prayer ought to be, Father, take me into your word. Open my heart, my mind. Open my hands, prepare my feet. Lord, everything about my life, it's all yours. And Father, pour out your spirit on me for that continual reliance and obedience. Psalm 25, to you, O Lord, I lift my soul. Oh my God, in you I trust. Let me not be put to shame. Let not my enemies exult over me. Indeed, let none who wait upon you be put to shame. They will be ashamed who wantonly are treacherous. Make me to know your ways, oh Lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me. For you are the God of my salvation. For you I wait all the day long. For you I wait all the day long. That's continual reliance. Psalm 56 at verse 9, this I know that God is for me. What a wonderful promise. Take that one home with you this afternoon. This I know that God is for me. We need to hear that nowadays. In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? I must perform my vows to you, O God. I will render thank offerings to you, for you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life. That is continual reliance. Now, brothers and sisters of Tyler Church, It should be very clear in your heart and mind that as you're reading the Bible, you're reading along in the Scriptures, and you're taking in God's Word, this language that we're using today about continual reliance, acknowledging Him in all of our ways, this language of continual reliance is very closely associated to biblical teaching about dependency. Dependency. Every manner of strength is of the Lord. Every area of health, every area of mindset, every area of the inner man is of the Lord. It's dependency. There's biblical teaching as well about humility here. Self-reliance is associated with dependency. Self-reliance and dependency is associated with humility. Humility in the Bible is getting underneath. That's what it means. It means to get underneath. And then it's just a short step away with these kinds of themes, self, getting rid of self and relying upon God and indeed showing dependency and demonstrating humility to get underneath, to get underneath. It's just a short step away. Then we go to submission. And that's the truth that Solomon is driving home. Submission. Listen to Isaiah chapter 57. For thus says the holy one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Do you hear that kind of proportion? Our God is the holy and high, the lofty one, and he dwells with those of lowliness of spirit, of contrition of heart. We're talking about relying upon him continually. Oh, Father, I am here as your son, as your daughter, to depend upon you for all things. And oh, Father, take my life, and I want to live my life underneath. I want to be that one who is humble before you. And then, Father, drive home to me obedience. I'm here to submit. We go once again to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Savior. He saves us unto reliance. He saves us unto dependency. His saving work takes us into this traffic of humility. He takes us and he saves us unto, his person, his work is to save us unto submission. He knew this firsthand. Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, sit here. Sit here while I go over and pray. And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. And then he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death, and remain here and watch with me. And going a little farther, he fell on his face, and he prayed, saying, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, so could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that ye may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again for the second time he went away and prayed, my father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And so leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. And then he came to the disciples and said to them, sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand and the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Why do the Gospel writers in this scene at Gethsemane give us those three times of going away, stepping away from the disciples, and going to pray? Because it's being etched into our hearts and minds that our Savior is the one who submits on our behalf. He goes to the cross for us. He willingly offers His own body, that living sacrifice unto His Father for us. It's His submission taking the place for us. He's our substitute. He's our Savior. He's the glorious One who gave Himself away. And friends, this is what submission at its core means. It means that my life is over. That's why submission is so hard. The lessons of submission in the Bible, it comes to us in the places where we want our own way. We want our own feelings. We want our own life experience to be upheld. And God says, no. At the same time, he says, yes. Walk in this way. This is the way of eternal life. In all of your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. It's continual reliance, day-by-day dependency. Praying, praying and praying, Father, I want to be underneath. Please show more, more of the fruit of humility in my life. I want to be underneath. And Father, on this particular area, this particular decision, this matter before me, this matter of a relationship, this matter of a calling, this matter of some area of opportunity, oh, Father, please, you come. and you work in my heart of your grace and of your wisdom, please take my life out of the way and I want to submit myself to you." Is that where you're at this morning? Tell the Lord plainly of all your cares, your concerns, your burdens, your fears. Tell him it's not your given place to live in submission. and come and take in his word and receive his promises and in the strength of the Lord Jesus to walk with him. I close with these words of the hymn writer, be still my soul. Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side. With patience bear the cross of grief or pain, leave to thy God to order and provide, in every change he faithful will remain. Be still, my soul, thy best, thy heavenly friend, through thorny ways leads to a joyful end. Be still, my soul, thy God doth undertake. to guide the future as he has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake. All now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul. The winds and the waves still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below." What a favorite hymn of the Christian, right? Be still, my soul. We're being called to trust. The Lord is our teacher. He has his eye upon us to guide us, to instruct us, to counsel us. And now he summons. Come. Come follow me in all of your ways. Acknowledge the Lord and he will make straight your paths. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we ask now that you would come and minister your word and of your spirit to our lives and our hearts. Oh God, we pray that we would be a transformed people for your honor, for your glory, for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray for ourselves, we pray for our congregation, for one another. We pray as well, O Lord, for the witness and the testimony with which you would grant us here in our community wherever we live. You tell us, O Lord, that we are to make the most of every opportunity, that our words might be seasoned with grace, that, Father, From this passage, in words and in deeds, we'd be given over to your service. And so be with us and lead us. We thank you for all the good gifts you pour out upon us by your spirit. Take us now and lead us. In Jesus' holy name we pray. Amen.