Good morning, church. What a joy and also what a weighty task to come back here before Grace Covenant Church, our beloved family, to bring you the word of the Lord this morning. So if you'd open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs chapter three. That is where we will be spending our time at this morning. And it will be a joy to bring it to you. But before we get into God's word this morning, we've got to answer a question. In fact, every member of the human species must answer one simple yet profound question. What or who do you trust? It's weird, it's like those songs we sang were trying to help us out in our sermon this morning. No one escapes this question. And the way in which you answer this question will determine the course of your life. The answer to this question forms the very identity of your soul. And as you have been considering over this month, different aspects of missions, right? This is your missions month. the mission of Christ to make disciples, or the mission of the church to make disciples of all nations, we see how incredibly relevant this topic becomes to all people who must trust. The question is, who or what are they trusting? We are living in a time where trust is breaking down left and right. Such a time where people are no longer trusting established entities, things like government, medicine, law, trust in ministry leaders, like we prayed for this morning, trust in the church, trust in educational systems, and even trust in the family. In a world of crumbling trust, where are they, or you, to turn? Now, before we jump into God's word, if you are a note taker, I want you to take a minute, not thinking about the eyes that are sitting next to you or behind you or in front of you, and I want you to write down honestly, in this moment, who or what am I placing my trust in? If you're not a note taker, take it in your mind. And then I want you at lunch to be honest with whoever you're eating with, I want you to tell them the thing that you're placing your trust in. Now let's go to God's holy, inspired, sufficient, authoritative word this morning. Proverbs chapter three, verses five through eight. Hear the word of the Lord. 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. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Let's pray. Oh God, this morning, as we come to hear your word, as we come to be fed by the very words of God, Lord, help me as I bring your word to your people, not lean on my own understanding, but solely trust in your word to bring it to your people. May they be filled by your word this morning. May they forget any way or anything that I say that would lead them away from your truth that is found in your scripture. Father, may we trust in you and you alone. Amen. This morning as we jump into the Proverbs, we gotta do a little bit of background, right? Because this church is a church that walks expositionally through scripture. So your kind of normal appetite of the word is that you would just get books of the Bible, right? You guys are working through, I believe 2 Samuel right now and some others. And so for us to just jump into a book of the Bible, we need to make sure we understand what kind of book it is and where we're coming at. So we understand the book of Proverbs as a book of wisdom, okay? This is wisdom literature. And in fact, it's written by King Solomon, who was known as the wisest man who had ever lived, right? And this king, the king of Israel, is now imparting his wisdom to his son, right? He's trying to prepare his son in all ways, in all manners of life, and to rule his people. So we have this as our backdrop as we are dropping in to a well-known verse in scripture. We need to be encouraged by this and we need to see that this is the wisdom of God for your life this morning. This, my friends, is for you too. So when we jump into it, our main idea, or I guess our main problem, is that we don't know any longer who to trust. We need to, in fact, define what does trust even mean? Because there's a lot of definitions of trying to understand what should we trust, who should we trust, how should we trust it. Trust simply is assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. The reliance, just hear these words, of character, ability, strength, truth. And think about what are you trusting right now? Or who are you trusting? Maybe simpler to put it is to be able to place your confidence in something. And that is something I think we've all struggled with over the last, I don't know, four years. Who do we put our confidence in? Now, as Christians, we firmly believe, if you are one, that our trust should be in Christ Jesus, the one who has had the perfect character, the perfect ability, the perfect strength, and literally referenced as the truth of God. He is who we must trust and trust alone. Now I kind of give you the answer in the beginning because as New Testament scripture or as New Testament believers, we look at the New Testament and it helps us understand the old. So when we look at this Old Testament verse, I don't wanna just preach to you law. I want you to know that you must trust in Christ and him alone. But what Proverbs 3, five through eight is gonna do very helpfully for us is that it's going to tell us how to trust. Okay, so we talked about these characteristics of trust, right? And now we're going to see how God has inspired King Solomon to talk to his son about how he is to trust in God. Are you ready? Apparently you're not. You can respond, are you ready? Amen, let's go. Okay, so what we're going to see in Proverbs 3, we're going to see four commands, okay? So we're going to see four commands of Proverbs 3, verses 5 through 8 on how to trust God. And then with those four commands, we are going to see three promises. we're going to be seeing three promises that come out of the light of these four commands. So let's jump into these commandments that God gives us to trust him. Number one, we read in verse five, trust in the Lord with all of your heart. The idea of the heart in Hebrew means all of your being, okay? It's not just the muscle that pumps. And it's certainly not the fact that we would trust in your heart, right? We all have those coffee mugs or whatever that kind of rail against this type of theology. Just trust in your heart to make the right decision. And as Pastor Dennis prayed for us, we know how deceitful our hearts can be. But Hebrew meaning of heart is talking about your whole self. It's this holistic approach to believing in, hoping in, and trusting in God. And again, like I said, if you are a believer in God already, you've been given a new heart, a new identity, a new ability to trust in the truth. So God says, trust in Him. You'll note that word for God is Lord, right, in your Bibles. It's in all capital letters. This is the covenantal name of God, Yahweh. So trust in Yahweh. This would certainly be significant to King Solomon, who was a part of that covenant, right? He was a part of those covenant people. And we as New Testament believers are also a part of those covenantal people. But note how trusting in the Lord with all of our heart is immediately contrasted with a warning. And do not lean on your own understanding. Meaning the atheistic idea of believing in oneself as the subject to trust in is total folly. When I read to you those characteristics of trust, you should not be able to put your name in there. And if you are, friends, I love you, you have a problem. You are not the foundation for truth. You are not the foundation for the perfect ability and perfect power and perfect characteristics. That's not you. You need something outside of you to trust in. And we see ourselves trusting in our own selves and our own understanding is a total step away from trusting in the Lord holy, which is why God wanted to contrast that in his word. So your first command then is to trust God. It's to wholly believe in him. It's to have faith in the Lord. You are to trust in the Lord with your whole heart. Your second commandment then, as we move on, in all your ways, Acknowledge him. This is your second commandment. You need to acknowledge the Lord. This is fascinating. I got so excited and geeked out as I was studying the Hebrew on acknowledging, right? Or just defining what does acknowledging mean? This is a word that we use all the time, but do we know what it means? To acknowledge someone is to recognize the rights, authority, or status of something. So think about that. Recognize the rights, the authority, and the status of something. So what God is commanding you is to recognize His rights, His authority, and His status as Yahweh. And that's heavy. That's weighty. See, simply acknowledging the Lord, I'll try to speak on a Texan level, you ready? I've been in California for a little bit, right? So you're all nervous now. Acknowledging the Lord is not just pointing up your hand after you score a touchdown. Although I am so thankful that athletes will acknowledge the Lord, this is not what it's talking about. Certainly not when Derek Carr throws touchdowns all over the Dallas Cowboys like he did a couple weeks ago. Oh yeah, Jason, I see you. Derek Carr, he's a Fresno boy, by the way, California. Anyways, I see that I've hurt your hearts, so let me keep going. So although I acknowledge this, it's not the simple pointing to God or saying the word, it's actually acknowledging that God has all rights over every part, every single iota of your life. And this is why my friendly dead theologians are so helpful. Old dead theologians, those are your friends. One of them is named Abraham Kuyper. He says, in the total expanse of human life, there is not a single square inch of which the Christ, who alone is sovereign, does not declare, that is mine. So where do we go to understand God's authority over us? How do we know what he says and how to acknowledge it? Is it not in his inspired, inerrant, authoritative, and sufficient word? Friends, quickly, 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. For some of you, this is a very familiar verse. And for some of you, this might be the very first time you're going to it. 2 Timothy is a letter that Paul, the Apostle Paul has written to his protege in Timothy to help him establish the church and know what to do. And this is what he tells him. He says, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Friends, if you are to acknowledge God, you must know the word of God. You must be in the word of God. You must be coming to church, hearing the word of God proclaimed to you. And if you're trying to acknowledge God outside of his means of grace, you're just not gonna do a very good job. I was listening to music as I prepped for this study on one of the days I was prepping. I was listening to Spotify, okay? And just confessing, maybe a little bit of Pandora. And there was this commercial that just kept coming up. It wouldn't leave me alone. It's like it knew I was listening, right? And the whole whatever it is that knows all the things about you and tells you about you and tries to sell it to you. So this is what it does. It says this in the commercial, unfortunately, People don't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's better health therapy. Now, friends, I'm not here to beat up on better health therapy. I'm not here to beat up on therapists. And I genuinely think these people are trying to help people and love people and trying to see where their hurts are, their pains are and come alongside of them. But their narrative is inherently false. They said, we have no manual. There is no foundation for truth in anything. And we as Christians, when we look to God's word, we must say, we don't lean on our own understanding, folks. We acknowledge God and everything that we do. And the way that we do that is by knowing his word, the owner's manual for life. So friends, your imperative so far, Trust God with your whole heart, have faith in him. Don't be like the atheistic understanding of not believing in anything. Secondly, acknowledge him over every square inch of your life. Make sure you are following Christ and you are heeding his word. And then we get to another command. But before it, we have another warning. It says, be not wise in your own eyes. Okay, we have this thing that we do as humans is that we just think we are the best and that our ideas are better than everybody else's and that we can trust in our own way. And what we're reading from the wisest man who has ever lived, inspired by God's Holy Spirit, inscripturated for us to have for all life and godliness, is him saying, don't do that. That's not wise. That's not good for your life. Don't trust in yourself. Be not wise in your own eyes. And then he comes with this third imperative, his third command. This one might make us feel a little uncomfortable. In trusting God, we see that God tells us to fear him. Now this is where the pastor will immediately say, okay, but really this means reverence and awe. But I just want you to hear that when you look into the Hebrew here, it literally means be afraid of him. It is, I'm not saying that reverence and awe is not an application of fear, but I'm saying, it's saying, be afraid of God. See, this inspired proverb, wants you to consider and think about God in all His glory, in all His awe, in His being outside of time, Him being all powerful, all knowing, perfectly just, the standard for all truth. Now, when you honestly think about that, how can you be not just the least bit afraid of that, Do you want everyone knowing every single thought that you've ever thought on a playlist like Pandora? I don't think so. Do you want someone to have all power over you? You certainly in your flesh are pushing back against that. And then when we think about God's authoritative word, how we acknowledge him, And we read the descriptions of God and what he thinks about evil and sin. Do you know what it says? It says he hates it. It uses the word hate. God hates sin, friends. He's going to punish sin. Think about Psalms 46, when we read that he's going to throw the mountains into the ocean. By His very word that He speaks, the earth will quake. Friends, our God is scary. But when you trust, when you believe in Him and trust in Him and acknowledge Him and follow His authority, yes, then that fear turns into reverence and awe of your mighty God. Now, this does make me think of a story I've quoted up here before. The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe. We're familiar, right? With this storybook. Little kids, if you've not heard this yet, parents, put the earmuffs on, okay? Not because like a bad word's gonna be said, I just wanna spoil it, okay? So we have Mr. Beaver and we've got Lucy, right? It's Lucy, I believe it's Lucy. I didn't actually go back and read it before I said this. This is off the top of my head. But Mr. Beaver is leading Lucy around and he's talking to her and he's talking about Aslan. And here's the spoiler alert, Aslan is God in this story, okay, in this book. And so as Mr. Beaver is talking about Aslan to her, she goes, oh, I hope he's safe. And if you've read the story, you know Mr. Beaver says, safe? Who said anything about being safe? He's not safe. He's a lion. But he's good, I tell you. And that is how we understand the fear of the Lord. We understand that yes, God is sovereign. He is all powerful. He hates sin. He's going to destroy it. He will punish it for all of eternity. But he sent his son to die for us. That if you would believe in him and trust in him, that he would forgive you of all sin. Thank you, Jesus. that entrusting in you, acknowledging your word that tells us about the Christ, who is sovereign over all things, that if we put our faith in him, he will forgive us our sins and we will be seen as righteous. But part of that fear, friends, is acknowledging you are a sinner, which is weird, because that's why this commandment is connected to the next one. You saw in verse seven, it says, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. Essential in trusting God with your whole heart and acknowledging him above earthly powers and fearing his mighty power is turning away from evil or from sin. Solomon, right? Again, this king is very well acquainted with the law of God. In those times, the kings had to write out the law of God and they had to study it daily. Okay, we would look at this towards our Old Testament, the Pentateuch, that they're going to be reading, writing down. So Leviticus is gonna be very fresh on Solomon's mind, specifically Leviticus 19.2. And when we read Leviticus 19.2, we see that God says, be holy as I am holy. God is telling them not to be sinners, but to turn away from that and believe in holiness. This is why Christ in his Sermon on the Mount quotes this and then talks about be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Knowing that none of us could strive to that and we would need him in order to be perfect. Turning away from evil Leaving sin because you are to be holy for God is holy is a command for you this morning. Trusting in God means looking to his authoritative word to understand what good and evil is, what is sinful. Sin is any want or conformity unto or transgression against the law of God. So one of the best places you look to understand that is Exodus chapter 20, the 10 commandments. You see how you are sinning. And friends, I'm just gonna take a wild guess. If you read through those 10 right now, instead of listening to me, which that's fine, I'd rather you do that than look at your phone or fall asleep, okay? And if you read through those 10 right now, this very moment, there is no way in which you could say, yep, did those 10 perfectly, got it, right? You're gonna read those and you're going to be convicted of your sin and you are going to hear this act of trust that you must do in following the Lord with all of your heart and acknowledging Him by saying, those are sins and I want to turn away from them. See, in this command, what God does is He puts a giant microscope over your heart. And every fear that you have is now magnified. Turn from evil, from sin. And we see from Romans 3.23, that all of us in this room indeed, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So you might be in here this morning and you might not know Christ. And by hearing this and understanding that you haven't turned from evil and actually have turned into it, I wanna tell you now is the time, turn from evil, trust in the Lord with your whole heart. It's awesome and glorious how we can see the gospel in Proverbs 3, verses five through eight, for some of you that might be in here not believing in Jesus Christ. You cannot be perfect on your own, You must put your faith in Christ and He will forgive you of your sins and justify you in front of His Father. Turn away from evil. Trust in Christ with your whole heart and He promises to forgive you of your sin. We've gone through four commandments, right? Of the proverb that we're reading today. The four commandments are, trust in the Lord with your whole heart, acknowledge him in all of your ways, fear him and turn away from evil. Now, what are the promises that come with these beautiful truths? We saw them sprinkled in. I did read out of order. Some of you might've been like, he skipped it. He's not doing expositional preaching. I am, I'm coming back, calm down. These are the promises of trusting in God. Number one, clarity amidst confusion. God will make your paths straight. Honestly, this is the thing that I think lays at many of our hearts right now. Just tell me what to do. Where do I turn to for truth? And God's screaming at you from his word. Read it. See how you trust me and not yourself. He will bring clarity amidst confusion. And guess what? When you first start hearing these clear things that he's promising you, you're not gonna like it. You're gonna go, wait, this makes me feel uncomfortable. You're telling me I can't do these things anymore? But I want to do those things. And he's like, I know, knock it off. Because when you start seeing the word being authoritative to you in your life, those paths are made straight. Guess what? They're not easy. You can't do them on your own, but they are straight. They're not confusing. God's word doesn't lead us astray. It is the path to life. He has made those things clear for you. If you trust him in your heart, you acknowledge him on all things. You are deathly afraid of him and you turn from evil. I think we would all do well to experience the relief of clarity at this time in our lives. Friends, as you consider Missions Month, think of how clear this word is. They might not like it, but think of how clear it is, how you've experienced it, how it's brought you clarity in your life, and think how many people need it outside these walls. We find this clarity as we submit to every word of God. I read this already in our Sunday school, but I'll read it again. This has been an incredibly encouraging text as the woods have labored and it has been a tough time. Proverbs 30, verses five and six, every word of God proves true. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar. Friends, if you're looking for clarity in your life, what is the will of God in my life, right? I don't say that mockingly. I've asked that question hundreds of times, right? Well, we find that every word proves true in his word and it will bring you clarity if you actually submit to it. Promise number one. Clarity amidst confusion. Promise number two, healing. Now, don't worry. I didn't go to California and I'm not doing healings or anything like that, okay? But we see in God's word, in verse eight, it will be healing to your flesh. What will be healing to your flesh? No longer trusting in false authority, but trusting in God. That is what brings you healing. I would even say, this is a healing from false authorities. As you seek to trust God, or as you seek to trust in other gods, lowercase g, and other things, and you realize that they are not a perfect authority, that they don't have all power, like they promised you they would, Like they don't have the perfect character, like they promised you they would. Like they don't actually have the perfect ability to do the thing you want them to do, like they promised you they would. You realize that you get wounded. If your trust is in who will be your next president, I can promise you, you will be wounded. If your trust is solely in a man who gets up here and preaches, if it's in me, I'll tell you right now, I'll probably wound you. I won't mean to. Or maybe I will because I am a sinner, just like the rest of us. I hope not, I don't wanna say that from behind the pulpit, that feels weird, right? But I'm saying, if you're putting your trust in these things, in earthly things, instead of Christ, who is at that right hand of God, ruling and reigning at this very moment, everything will let you down, besides the one true God. And by trusting in him, friends, the promise is, you will receive healing. This will be healing to your flesh as you replace these idolatrous gods of your heart. All the things I talked about in the introduction. I mean, you guys know this to be true, right? When you actually confess sin or when you realize that something was acting like God in your life and you repent of it and then you go and you follow the one true God, what does it bring you but relief? How many times have you talked with your friend and they're like, dude, I just realized. Dude, I know I've been in Santa Cruz, right? Dude, like I, yeah. I just realized like how I've been following this false God for so long. And they might not say it like that, but they might be like, dude, I've been just spending so much time following this really insightful guy on YouTube. And I've watched every single one of his videos. And then I remembered I have not even referenced the word of God. And as I've turned from that and gone back to the word, it has been like eating honey from the honeycomb. It has been healing to my flesh. We all know that going and trusting in God brings healing. Got a little ahead of myself. because we are gonna go to Jeremiah 15, 16 here in a minute. But we see that the other promise, okay, so first promise, right? He will give you clarity amidst confusion. The second promise, he will be healing to your flesh. He will help you with these false things that have wounded you because you've been trusting in false gods. It will bring you healing. And then it will bring you refreshment to your bones. Friends, I lived here for a while. I know how hot it gets, okay? And in fact, when we came back to visit last month, you guys decided to give us the hottest week of the year. Thanks a lot, I appreciate that, okay? But having that nice cold drink of water on a day like that, you're like, whew, this is good. Now get me in the air conditioning, right? Like that is that refreshment. that we seek in situations like that. And as you end up trusting the only trustworthy one, you will receive refreshment. Now, I already quoted this, but we're gonna do it again. because it's fun. God's word is delightful and delicious, and we should always be in it, okay? So Jeremiah 15, 16. Jeremiah, the crying prophet, I was listening to that this morning before church, and he was weeping, because that's what he does. He is just the weeping prophet as he weeps over his people and what's going on. And this is what he says, he says, your words were found, and I ate them. And your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart. Friends, what is that if not encouragement? What is that if not refreshment to your weary soul in the midst of a world that is untrustworthy? You go to the one thing that you can trust. And even Christ, our Lord and Savior, as he was being tempted by Satan to turn these rocks into loaves of bread, he says, man does not live on bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God. Friends, stop looking in the wrong places for refreshment. When you're like, dude, I have had a really long day. I'm gonna geek out on YouTube. Or I've had a really long day, and I'm just gonna put the podcast in, and I'm out, right? Or reels, like some people I've heard like to jump into, or whatever it may be. If that seemingly fine thing becomes our refreshment in lieu of the word, we're in a dangerous place. Because none of that is trustworthy. None of that is authoritative over your life. None of that has the power to command and control your behaviors, your thoughts, and your words. But if you trust in the Lord with your whole heart, you acknowledge him in all your ways, you fear him and turn from evil. Friends, you know this to be true. You will be healed, refreshed, and given clarity. So as we come to a conclusion, I wanna remind you of the question that we began with. Who or what do you place your trust in? Only trusting in God can bring clarity and confusion, healing to your sinful situations and refreshment to your weary souls. Grace covenant, the world needs to understand the truth. Almost a year ago, we all cried and my family left. And we embarked to go back to California to bring the word to Santa Cruz County, to proclaim the good news of trusting in Christ alone for salvation and the promises that it brings. And friends, I have to confess, if I weren't trusting in God, I would have packed my bags and I would have been back in these seats. Because honestly, it's been rough. This has not been an easy go. Trusting in other things has shown me that it will fade away. It will not say what it promised to do, but Christ will always be faithful to his promises. And he is always trustworthy. So we trust God wholeheartedly We acknowledge him as you have been thinking through going and making disciples of all nations. We must acknowledge him in all that we say and all that we do. We see that he will give us clarity amidst confusion by making our paths straight. We will be refreshed and healed. Friends, I know this has been a hard go for the woods, but friends, this is what we're called to. as believers in Christ. This is just the beginning of you, Grace Covenant. As you look to missions and how you will be defined as a church, as God has been bringing growth to Grace Covenant Church, you must not just come here to be comfortable. You must not come here to just hear good sermons and then hang out. You must be equipped and then you must make your goal to make disciples of all nations. Friends, some of you, some of you must go. There are people in this world who do not believe, do not trust God. They don't fear him. They're turning to evil. They need to hear the truth. So here's my question and my admonishment to my brothers and sisters, my family who I adore. Here's my question for you. Who's next? Which one of you is God raising up? To do whatever it may be to make disciples of all nations. To go where people need to hear the truth. I cannot wait to see what the Lord does through you by his will and to his glory. Let's pray. Oh God, we trust in you and you alone. Everything else will be folly. It will fade away. It will be like sinking sand. Lord, be our foundation. Help us stand on the rock. that is your word, that is our Savior Christ, that is the way, the truth, and the life. And help us share that with all that are around us. In Christ's name we pray, amen.