The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 3. Scripture reading will start at verse... 3, verse 1, our sermon text is Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. For some context, we'll begin in verse 1. Proverbs 3, this is the word of God. My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. For length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck. Write them upon the table of thine heart. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lead not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. So for the reading of God's word. Amen. You may be seated. Imagine, for those of you who are parents, that you adopt a child, you choose to go with adoption, and you lovingly and graciously accept this child as you would a natural son by birth. And then imagine that this little boy is now overjoyed to be welcomed as your son. He's given a place in your home, a seat at your table, and loving parents whom he can call mom and dad. And one day, not too long after being welcomed as a true son, just imagine maybe he's had a difficult life before this, he questions whether you, his mom and dad, are going to continue to be good to him. Perhaps he doesn't have the trust that you will always provide for him and that you will always give him whatever you think is best. When, of course, after all the effort and all the love that you have exerted in adopting him, in welcoming him as a true son, how would you not provide for all of his needs and more? And how often do we see that kind of lack of trust in ourselves toward God? How often do we acknowledge the Lord's work within our own lives, a transformative work in our hearts, as God who saves us and who converts us, which is marvelous and astounding. And God does in us a work or to us a work of adoption. But then we don't look to God and continue to trust him to keep providing for us, for his provision and for his leading throughout our lives. And so do we not see that the good shepherd has not only found us who were once lost sheep, but now he makes us to lack nothing. He makes us to lie down in green pastures. He leads us beside still waters. And indeed, this is the exact language and logic of Paul, Romans eight. If God did not spare his own son, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? And so today, brothers and sisters, we look at this wonderful truth that God leads us. And of course, we're not going to exhaust such a rich topic in this one sermon, but from this text, we will pull out lots of rich truth. And our sermon title today is Guidance from God. Guidance from God. With the Lord's help, we will look at this in two main ideas as we go through the text. The first of these is this, have faith in God. Have faith in God. And we see this in verse five, which says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding. And so as we look at this concept of this divine guidance, this guidance from God, the first thing that we see, the first step, the prerequisite, if you will, in verse five, it begins with the heart, begins with the inner person looking to the Lord inwardly. Notice a couple things here. First of all, trusting in the Lord. So in the phrase, trust in the Lord with all thine heart. So the text tells us to look outward, to look outside of ourselves. And we have this word here for trust. We have this concept of confidence and really this concept of faith. Because that is what part of faith is. It's trust. It is confidence. And so saving faith, the proverb says here, is a prerequisite to having this divine guidance. This guidance from God is only promised to you if you believe, kind of like you would only provide all the needs of a child throughout all of his years growing up if he was your child, either by birth or by adoption. So this is a promise for guidance only for believers as their great privilege. So if you're sitting here today as an unbeliever, as one who does not have saving faith, that I say that this promise is not for you. This blessing of God to guide you is not a blessing that is Yours. Unbelievers do not have this way. They're not being led by God on his way. They are described as actually wandering sheep in scripture. What does Isaiah say? All we like sheep have gone astray, have wandered every one. Where? To his own way. And this is not an easy way. Proverbs also says, the way of transgressors is hard. And as you go through the Proverbs, they are replete with the general truth that if you live life as an unbeliever in an unbelieving way, this is a harder life than a life that is lived under the face, the smiling face of the Lord seeking to follow him. So if you are here today as an unbeliever, then repent. of that sin of unbelief and exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the great promises of salvation are given to you and adoption into God's family. And that's wonderful and so much more. The great guidance and provision of the Lord throughout your life is also yours. So we have trust and Solomon here also mentions the heart. Now the idea, the concept of the heart is used kind of broadly in the Old Testament, kind of with different functions. Basically, as one preacher said, and I think this is good, it represents the soul, the inner man. And here specifically, as we speak about the soul, We can see it as this faculty for exercising faith, kind of like in the New Testament we talk about believing. Here, the heart is exercising faith as it is trusting in the Lord and then receiving wisdom. So as we are trusting in the Lord, we look outward, outside of ourselves. And let me also note the one to whom we look. And that's because we can't just have faith without an object of our faith. Our faith needs an object. There must be someone that we are looking to if we are looking outside of ourselves. And the answer to that question is extremely narrow, because there is only one being, only one thing. that exists, to whom we must look, and that is the God of the Bible, the one in whom we must have faith, I should say. And the text says to look to the Lord with, does it just say our heart or with part of our heart? No, it says all of our heart to look to the Lord for everything. We should believe to look to him for salvation, as we have said, and also to look to him for providence. As we see here in this part of the text at the very beginning, trusting the Lord with all thy heart, this is setting up kind of the complete holistic, you can say, exhaustive nature of this passage as it describes things happening in fullness and completion. So look to the Lord with all of your heart, look to Him for everything. And of course, this is only natural for us to look to the Lord. If we are paying attention to the flow of thought in Proverbs, and Proverbs already, the Lord has been connected to wisdom. Proverbs 1.9, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 2.6, for the Lord giveth wisdom. Out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. So the Lord here is connected with wisdom and we see that. The Lord is wise. And now we see that the Lord provides his wisdom to his people as a loving father who is helping his own sons and daughters. So we have this first phrase where we are trusting in the Lord. Then we have this second phrase in the verse where we're not trusting in ourselves. Be not unto thine own understanding. And this is basically the opposite of what was just told to us. So we can say conversely, the converse, the opposite here is that we are not looking inward with trust, with confidence, with faith. We're not looking inside ourselves for wisdom. And in a similar manner, verse seven is going to mention the idea of being wise in our own eyes. And we're not to do this. And we can also look at Proverbs 28, 26, which speaks to this as well. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. So what about this word to lean? This word to lean is used here. This is an image for trust in this case. And so Proverbs is part of the wisdom literature. It has plenty of poetic elements in it. Hebrew parallelism is one of those things where where God says one thing in this part of scripture, and then he Comes right after that and says it in a different way And so we didn't we must trust in the Lord with all of our heart and the opposite is that we are not leaning and not trusting in our own understanding I can give you a few other Texts in the Old Testament where this exact word for lean is used to mean trust. I'm not going to do that I don't need to We also see this concept of our own understanding, which reminds us of our own wisdom, our own earthly wisdom, or rather, I should say, the limitations of our own earthly wisdom. And God decides to come down and tell us not to rely on our own minds the way that we think. And why does God have to tell us that? I would say God would not, he would not have to say this unless we had an inborn tendency to look to our own selves for our desires to be fulfilled. Of course, the converse of that, as we said, is trusting in the Lord, looking to him for wisdom and understanding. But we also see here the limitation of our earthly wisdom. Or rather, let me kind of bring out the limitation of our earthly wisdom. Now, is earthly wisdom in itself a bad thing? Well, what does the scripture say here? Does it say not to use our own understanding? Does it say to turn off your minds? It doesn't say that. It says, don't lean on your own understanding. Don't rely upon it. And so our minds, our own understanding that the Lord has given to us, as limited as they are, they are a gift. They are a good thing for us. And we should take advantage of this gift and use it in the way that God has prescribed. And so if our earthly wisdom is not being used in a sinful way, there is some value to that. And we need to acknowledge that. However, our own wisdom, our natural wisdom in our minds is temporary. It is short-sighted. It is faulty beyond description. And so we dare not lean upon our own understanding, rely first and foremost, let alone thoroughly upon our own mind's way of thinking for anything, for any decision that we will make in life. All of it should come through the lens of looking to the Lord. So that's if our earthly wisdom is not sinful. but it also can be. You can have sinful minds, as all of us have experienced. Souls that have been corrupted and infiltrated by sin, that affect the way that we think, the way that we reason, that twist and distort what we think is wise and foolish and right and wrong. So you certainly can have a sinful way to exercise earthly wisdom. And James 3 talks about this. On Sunday mornings, Pastor Jason has been leading prayers through James 3, and we saw this a week or two ago. I think James 3, 15, that talks about earthly wisdom being sensual and demonic. But there's certainly a sinful side of earthly wisdom as well. And even if it's not sinful, of course it has its great limitations that we need to recognize. And so we see our great need. The text does speak to us of our great need not to rely upon ourselves, of our need to rely upon the Lord. And so let us recognize the great dangers of leaning upon our own understanding, upon our own human wisdom. And let me illustrate this for you and seek to apply it to you through the means of some very godly people who have fallen. who needed not to lean on their own understanding. And if I were to ask you the question, who are some of the most godly people in scripture besides the Lord Jesus? Maybe you'll say David or Moses or Peter, Paul or John. All of them were sinners. Were there other people in scripture who were not sinners at one point? And there were. Adam and Eve. There is a point in time in which they stood blameless before the Lord. They did not have sin that stained their souls. They had no sinful desires. They had no inclination unto sinful desires. And indeed, Adam and Eve were perfect. But what happens with Adam and Eve? They sinned, and they fell from their perfect estate. They were so godly. They were so righteous, you can say, in the sense of perfect. What does Paul say about this? 1 Timothy 2, I think it's towards the end of the chapter, that Eve, the woman, was deceived and transgressed. So let's look at Eve. Let me use Eve here as one example. So with Eve, we see that there is a danger of deception when you rely upon your own understanding. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2 that she fell through the serpent's deception, that Satan tricked her. She was relying on her own understanding. She heard what the serpent said. She took that in. And so Eve fell. So how much more today? Do women, sinful women, even sinful Christian women who know the own faults of your souls, how much more do you need to rely upon the wisdom of God and not your own natural understanding? If such a perfect woman as Eve could fall through this, through acting, making this decision through her own understanding, certainly women today, Christian women can do the same and much more so. But what about Adam? What does Paul say there in 1 Timothy 2? He says that Adam was not deceived, but transgressed. So Paul makes the point that what Adam does, he does willfully. He knows, he knows full well that what he is doing is wrong. Paul makes this contrast. Eve was deceived, Adam was not, but he sinned anyway. So Adam's sin, in this sense, is a worse sin. So Adam falls into sin from his perfect godly estate. He makes this decision, a decision of unfathomable and unspeakable folly. When nothing good could come out of this, he had all of his needs provided for him. What more could he possibly want that he did not lack? And so for us who are here today as sinners, for you men, how much more do you need to be aware of how your sin can lead you and corrupt your minds into faulty and erroneous and destructively foolish decision making? And for all of you, you are in need of God. So lean upon the Lord, not on your own understanding for the things that you do, the decisions that you make, so as not to fall into sin. The truth is that you're probably not as strong of a Christian as you think, and I think that's generally true for all Christians. It's certainly true for me. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, or is it 10, 12? He writes, if anyone thinks he stand, let him take heed, lest he fall. So this warning is put out there for Christians, for the church. You might think you're doing well in the Christian life, and maybe you are. However, take heed, be warned, lest you fall as well. And we can bring in here the application, the illustration of Adam and Eve. Look to them and take heed. So what are some ways that this might look like a little bit more practically in our lives? As we lean not upon our own understanding, as we look to the Lord for his understanding, and we can keep in mind the verse that our brother referenced a few minutes ago from Isaiah 55, where God, he compares his thoughts to our thoughts. He says, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways. So let's keep in mind God's ways and our ways. And so what does earthly wisdom say to men who are seeking a spouse, who are seeking to be married? It says you are looking for the most beautiful woman possible. Get the gorgeous girl. And is that entirely off base? Is that 100% wrong? No. Scripture does place some value on physical outer beauty. That's there, and we're not going to deny that. In fact, it's a gift that the Lord gives. He commends it in Scripture. But we need to keep everything in perspective here. What about inner beauty, comparing these two things. I'm not going to turn there, but you could look at the beginning of 1 Peter chapter 3, where he compares these things. And Peter is giving this injunction, this command to the women who are receiving his letter, not to be worried about adorning themselves outwardly, to look outwardly attractive and beautiful. but to cultivate, to develop this meek and quiet spirit which in God's eyes is very precious and very honorable. And so these things, her inward beauty and her outward beauty are first And second, I can say that outward beauty is a good thing, it's a second, but don't get in your mind that this is a close second. Remember that we are comparing heavenly versus earthly wisdom, things that are everlasting versus things that are temporary, and God's wisdom versus man's wisdom. And so we can say that the value of inner beauty is as far above outward beauty as heaven is from earth. Proverbs will say, charm is deceitful and beauty is vain. It's temporary, like a vapor. But what? But a woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised. And brothers, young men, you don't get this from earthly wisdom. This is the mind of God. He's communicating that mind to us. Let us receive that. So that's a great application for you ladies, to be most concerned about inward beauty, about pleasing the Lord, about being beautiful in the soul. There's also an application, a related one, a parallel one, that we can draw for men, and also an important one. So men, probably some of you here today, desire to be strong, to be muscular, to have some kind of athletic prowess. It's not bad. Those are good things as well. But again, let's keep everything in perspective. Paul talks about men in this regard exactly, even as Peter speaks, of women. In 1 Timothy, I think chapter 4, Paul writes that physical discipline or bodily exercise is of some value. It really is, and we're not going to deny that. God made our bodies good, let's take good care of our bodies. But, he continues, godliness is of value in every way. And godliness holds promise for this life, and for the life to come. It's not simply a temporary thing, but one that will last to the everlasting days. And so, for Christians, this principle is an important one, and one that we need to have ingrained In our minds, or in the words of verse three, let us write them upon the table of our hearts. Even a godly man like Samuel needed to be reminded of this. And even such a godly man needed to be told, for the Lord seeth not as man seeth. For man looketh on outward appearance, but God looketh at the heart. And if Samuel needed reminding of this principle, as he was choosing, God was using him to choose a king, how much more should we be reminded of this as well? So we see, first of all, as we go through this text, Having faith in God is this prerequisite for God's guidance. And we see that as we look not to ourselves and as we look to the Lord, we seek this heavenly wisdom, this guidance from him. And secondly, as we go through the text, we see this in verse six, and this is to follow after God. So first we have faith in God, and now we have following after God. And verse six is going to say, and all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. This verse is built on the first verse. It's built on verse five. And we know in this section of scripture, in Hebrew parallelism, we have verses that come sometimes two at a time, many times two at a time. And the second one is going to, in some way, complement the first one. And we see this here. It's building on verse five that has this concept of complete faith in God as well, as a parallel statement. So we have that similarity, but we also have a difference. Now, what is the difference as you compare verse five and verse six? Well, verse five has to do with the heart, has to do with our soul, our inward mindset. And some of that's here in verse six as well. But really where verse six becomes different is that it's now practical. It's as if the heart that you had as a prerequisite is now allowed to grow some hands and feet. It's now allowed to act upon this wisdom that God has promised to his children who seek it. So we see this in verse six. And here, first of all, note this, as we go through these two phrases of verse six. Seek God's guidance. Seek God's guidance. And this is in the phrase, in all thy ways acknowledge him. The word acknowledge here, I believe, is a decent translation. It's a bigger word. It's a lot more broad. It can be translated in different ways. It's literally the word for to know. You could translate it as look, as acknowledge. Those things are good. And so as we look at verse six, let us know God with regard to what? We do. This is like trust in verse five. Verse five says, the trust of the Lord with all thine heart. And now we are knowing God, we are looking to God in all of our ways. And this is the first part of following him. And here, let me say as well, in terms of guidance and Christians receiving guidance from God, that Christians are not going to be following if they're not looking to their guide. So let us acknowledge again that this promise of guidance from God has some conditions to it. God does not give it to everyone. Verse five, we see, trust the Lord with all thine heart. All right, saving faith is a prerequisite. It is necessary for this guidance. And now in verse 6, we're seeing that for those who are believers, we need to acknowledge God. We need to look to the Lord in all of our ways and all these things that we do. And this is a prerequisite, a condition here, I believe, to receiving guidance from God. So again, I say that Christians are not going to be following if they are not looking toward their guide. So, brothers and sisters, let us be looking to the Lord. This is what verse 6 says. And how can we acknowledge the Lord? What does that mean? There are, I think, multiple ways in which we can do this. First of all, scripture. Go to scripture. So if there's some big decision, some big choice or something that you're weighing, scripture should be this place to which you go. And there is much that scripture speaks to. And perhaps also I could recommend going through the book of Proverbs because it lays out so clearly, so lucidly, so many principles of how to live our lives. Go through the Ten Commandments. You can read expositions of the Ten Commandments that will bring out things, positive duties, sins that are there that you might not see at first glance. as we have in our own Westminster larger catechism. And I commend that to you. You can just go through that, look through the scripture proofs and see the things that God requires of you. And just knowing scripture well answers so many questions. A question like, is it okay to work my secular job on the Lord's day? Well, scripture is pretty clear on this point. If it is not a work of necessity or mercy, then it is not lawful to do. The Lord's day is to be sanctified and set apart wholly to his people. And we can multiply examples like that again and again. I'll just give that one to you. So look to scripture. See if God speaks to it. And secondly, pray. And as I did some study of what some people have said about this part of the text, acknowledging the Lord, it appeared to me that such a large percentage of them went to prayer on this point, on acknowledging the Lord. And that's important as well. So as you read through scripture, as you're trying to study what the Lord says is right or wrong, what you should do, what you should not do, It won't always be clear, at least in some specifics, maybe in some broader principles. So go to prayer if you don't see what, if you don't see God speaking to this in scripture. And so in some ways it can be, maybe God does not address this exactly in scripture. Maybe it's unclear from your reading of scripture. Maybe there are principles in scripture that you see that you need to sort through as you work through certain particular situations and as you seek the Lord's face in prayer. And if you ask for wisdom, what does James 1.5 says? What does it say? He gives it to you. So ask the Lord for wisdom. Those are two ways to acknowledge Him. Then we have this word in verse six, this word ways, and all thy ways acknowledge Him. Now this is the literal word for a, like a literal way, like a literal road, as a path that you would walk down. And this is a scriptural image for the things that we do. And sometimes we speak this in our own day. If you talk about someone's ways or the paths that they are taking, it's an image for the things that they're doing. in their life. That's what we see here. So it's actually a synonym with the word pass that comes at the end of the verse. You have the same concept, or very, very similar concepts, two different words that are being used in this verse. Kind of as literary parallelism, they are balancing each other. So we can say, let us look to the Lord first as we are acknowledging Him in these ways for what? For all that we do. So for the things that we do, we should have the Lord first as this is the frame, our frame of mind, our approach to things. Matthew 6 comes to mind when Jesus says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. I had a professor in seminary that made a memorable comment. Sometimes you hear people say, you know, God is first in my life. And maybe you think that they mean that God is first and family is second. You know, my job, my career is third, and so down the line. That's not the scriptural way that we should see things. God is first in your family. He is first in your life. He's first in your career. He's first in your friendships and absolutely everything that you do, the Lord is first. So acknowledge Him in all your ways. This is your mindset. that you need to approach things that you do with. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you. I can draw some of the context from Matthew 6 here, and what is it talking about when it mentions these things that will be added unto you? Well, Jesus is telling the people not to worry about the things that they eat, or drink, or even the clothes that they wear. These are very basic, very fundamental needs. You can't survive without these things. These are the most, besides air, oxygen, the most basic needs of people. And does Jesus say that you can have these basic needs and things here to yourself, take care of yourself in these fundamental things, and then after that, you can look to me and seek second, the kingdom? No, it doesn't say that. Even in these most fundamental things, these things that are essential to your life, the sine qua non of human existence, you are to seek the Lord first. And from that mindset, he will provide these things to you. And so then we can reason if this is how we see the most fundamental elements for human existence, that in these things we do not put ourself first, we put the Lord first, put his kingdom first. How much more everything else How much more do all of our decisions, do all of the things that we want to do, everything that we want to pursue, how much more does absolutely everything in our life, all the way down, needs to proceed from a mindset of seeking first God's kingdom, of acknowledging the Lord's ways, to make sure the Lord is first in all of your life, even specifics. So some more pointed questions as we kind of dig through this and as we try to work through a principle like this. What about for young men who are planning to go to school to pursue a career, to get an education and then one day be making money? So what is a good mindset? What are good questions to ask as you approach a decision like this? How about this? I suggest this to you. How about being close to where you have a good church? That's a very good thing. You certainly don't want to put yourself in a place where your soul is going to starve from not being fed well, spiritually speaking. So we can say that There's a lot more that can be said on a general principle like this. And as I go through these examples, these are general principles and minds and mentalities to have. Some of this, as you work through each specific case, it gets a little bit more, there are more things to consider, but it's still good to work through general principles. How about this one? The place where you will end up living, the place where you will end up working. So suppose you as a young man, you graduate, you have these job offers that are all over the place. I can give you an extreme example that should be helpful. So what if you graduate with a degree in engineering and you're offered fantastic, a phenomenal job somewhere in the Middle East working for an oil company. And it can make you so much money. And maybe that's true. But maybe there are no churches around anywhere close that you know of. And even if there are some, they're underground and you don't know where they are. We shouldn't approach a decision like that asking first, how much money can I make? What's more important is your soul. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. In terms of where you end up living, also consider the place where you will raise a family, making sure that your children are in a good church. If you have children, if you're in an area, generally speaking, again, If you look at specific cases, there are different things at play, but in an area generally that would be conducive to spiritually nurturing them. That's true. How about this question? What church do you go to? Do you go to, and is this the first question in your mind, the church that naturally pleases you more, and whatever that happens to be to your mind, and not that we shouldn't be pleased by going to church, we should, but what about the first question that we ask, our mentality? Is this a church that is pleasing the Lord? Is it a church that is pure, or I should say rather is purer than others? Is this a place that is going to feed your soul, the souls of your family? Great questions to ask. Here's another good question. This is the last one of these examples. How about, how many children do I have? Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Do you decide willfully to have no children, maybe one, or what about many children? many young people of whom Jesus says, of such is the kingdom of God. So we have some basic principles to work through situations like this. And as we continue to work through the text, let me kind of emphasize the phrase here, just harp on the phrase that it's all thy ways. It's every way. There's not a single way, there's not a single thing that you're going to do in your life, single decision, in which you should not have the Lord first looking to him and seeking first this kingdom of God. And so for you sitting here today, do you acknowledge the Lord in all and each and every one of your ways and everything that you do? Or do you reserve some things for yourself that are not on the table for the Lord to touch and to handle and to do with them as he will? Do you have a right to have a clenched fist over anything that is in your life? The truth is that God owns everything. God owns all of us and everything is his. And so we must hold nothing back from the Lord. There is nothing that we should be unwilling to say, the Lord can have this or he can change this about me if he wants. This applies of course to sinful things and this is a great place for us and for you to search your hearts to see if there are any sinful desires, if there are any corruptions of the soul, any inward lusts that are remaining within your heart that you are refusing to take out. And you know, you don't even have to ask the question, you don't need to go to scripture, you don't need to pray, you already know that these things are wrong, and you know it's wrong, but it is the secret thing of the heart, where the Lord is not acknowledged in this way, in this thing that you are undoing, a simple pattern of thought, desire, or of action. And so you must get rid of that. Purge the sin. Purge the evil from within you, to appropriate a biblical phrase there. But it doesn't have to be a thing that is in itself sinful. There can be things that are indifferent, even things that are good, in which we must acknowledge the Lord first. We must hold them loosely, knowing that they belong to the Lord. That everything we do, the Lord can direct us to do differently. Perhaps if it's not something that is revealed expressly to us in scripture, perhaps. And so for all of us, we have this inborn tendency to love the things that are close to us, the things that are near and dear to our hearts. We have these things that are the most precious, that are the most intimate to our souls, the things that we wanted to hold on so closely and are so unwilling to offer to the Lord, but we must be willing to say that, Lord, you can take away these beautiful things, these precious things from me. That is our right. We should be willing of all that we have to hold it in our open hands before the Lord. And Job is such a good model. He says, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. What a good example for us to follow. And probably, in my opinion, the things that we are least willing to give up and for the Lord to change in our lives are probably the ones that we need to be willing to change the most. Things that are closest to us, that have the most bearing upon us. And these parts of our soul that have not yet been turned fully to the Lord. It might just be those places. where some change needs to happen, where God decides he needs to do some heart work, some heart, soul surgery on you. And he might take something away or do something that you're not naturally inclined to do, but it might be good for your soul. Remember, of course, that his ways are higher than your ways, even as heaven is higher. than earth. So brothers and sisters sitting here today, look into your hearts. Search your hearts. And I don't know the hearts of you who are sitting here. The Lord knows your hearts. You know your hearts. And you can make this application. The Holy Spirit can make this application far more specifically than I can. Find these areas that are not surrender to God. Pray for His help to be willing to surrender them in obedience to Him. So we see there in verse six that we must acknowledge the Lord in all of our ways. And this we do in seeking God's guidance. And then the final phrase of our text. Find God's guidance. Seek and now find. He shall direct thy paths. Of course Jesus says seek and ye shall find. And I say find because this is indeed a promise. In all of thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. I say find because basically you can say, there it is. When you look for it, when you are looking to the guide, he is going to lead you. When you are looking for the Lord's direction, for his good gifts in your life, you will see it there. And this is a promise, as I mentioned, doesn't say that he may direct your paths, he might or probably will in most cases, but he will direct your paths. And even as I said earlier, that this promise applies to none who are not God's children, to none who do not exercise saving faith. On the other hand, this is a promise to all of God's children, every single one who is willing to have it, to seek and to find. And again, we have this word, paths, that I mentioned before, this image for the things that we do. Kind of like we saw earlier in the verse, the idea of ways, these things being synonyms working together here in the text. And in our own day, we speak like that. We might use an image as well, like a door, and speak of the doors that are there for us to go through, kind of like we talk about the paths that there are for us to walk down. So then we have this in context as we approach this, that there are, in particular, decisions that we will make. Of course, this happens through everything that we do through all of our lives. In particular, there are decisions, choices that we make. I think that's the context here in Proverbs 3. And I also want to point out here that this is all paths, every single one. The text does not say the word all, all paths, but it does say acknowledge the Lord in all of our ways. Then he directs those paths and these things, this is the same concept, different words for the same idea. And so then our paths that God directs are gonna be just as extensive as the ways in which we acknowledge him, which is to be whole and complete. And so then what a marvelous truth that scripture teaches, that God guides, that God leads, that God directs all of your paths. As a good and loving father, he might take his child, his son or daughter, by the hand and lead them. And the shepherd's psalm comes to mind, the one who leads us beside the still waters, one who leads us in paths of righteousness. So we have there this great, complete promise of the Lord's direction. And as we look through other parts of scripture, it drives this home to an even greater degree. So we have all paths that the Lord leads us on, but not only all paths, other verses mention a man's steps. It uses the imagery of the actual steps that you take. Proverbs 20, 24, a man's steps are from the Lord. How then can a man understand his way? Jeremiah 10, 23, I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his steps. And so then we have following God. We must have faith in God in our hearts inwardly. This is a prerequisite for then following God with our hands and feet outwardly. And we follow God by seeking God's guidance and then finding God's guidance. Let's ask a few questions to really flesh out these truths, to get a fuller understanding now of God's guidance, of his providence in our lives. Here's the first question. What are some ways in which the Lord directs paths? This is a question of how. How may the Lord do this? You can look to other scripture for this. So say, first of all, And this is not an exhausted list. First of all, God gives good gifts. God gives good gifts for you to receive. Let me quote Psalm 37, four, delight yourself also in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37. I want you to note the similarity between Psalm 37 4 and this verse in Proverbs. So the similarity of delight in the Lord with acknowledging the Lord in all our ways and the similarity of the Lord granting the desires of your heart and also the Lord directing your paths. very close, very similar verses. Basically, I think this is largely the same idea. And so as, so God guides you into paths, to paths of His gifts oftentimes. And these gifts which you are going to desire if you are looking to Him and if you are delighting in Him. So that's one way in which God directs, He gives you good gifts for you to receive. That's amazing. It's loving that God will do this for us. Now, there are two ideas that go together, and I want us to get these things straight. So in these two verses, there is the concept of getting good things for us to enjoy, and then the Lord who is providing those good things to us. And we have to get the order of this right. God is the leader. God is the guide. He leads us onto these paths. He guides us and He gifts us with these gifts. And then we follow. We follow with our own desires, which are going to be agreeable to the good things that He has given to us. So, Psalms can say that He gives us the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in the Lord. And it's not the other way around. We can't get into the mental thought process of getting this in reverse, where you might say that you lead with your own desires, and you lead with your own plans of the things that you are thinking and devising and putting together in your mind, and then God follows with his approval to give to you. As if you were writing a wish list to send up to heaven for God to put his stamp of approval on and to say, yes, I'm gonna give you these things that you have requested. It's not that way. It is not being set on the desires of your heart first and then delighting in the Lord in order to get them. And so brothers, we need to get this thing right. And also, as we think about this concept, let's remember that when our hearts are delighting in God, we will desire, we will be grateful for what he gives unto us. See, this is a gift from God. This is a good thing. I love this. Thank you, Lord, for giving me this good thing. Jesus says, how much more will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew chapter 7, he withholds no good thing. Even an earthly father, this is the logic of Jesus, is not going to give evil gifts to his children. If they ask for bread, for example, he will give them bread, give them good things. So God does this for us. So God gives us good gifts. That's one way in which we see the Lord directing paths. Here's another one that I can pull from scripture. This is the only, this is the second one. He opens good doors. He opens doors that are good for you to do. I'll quote another verse. Proverbs 16, verse 3. Also very similar. Proverbs 16, 3. Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. And you probably see this is very similar again, similar to Psalm 37 on gifts. Largely it's the same idea in a different image. So in the same way in which our committing to the Lord first, committing our works to the Lord first, and then God establishes your plans, your thoughts, or your purposes. And that's however you translate that word in Proverbs 16 and 3. These things that concern what you do. Commit to the Lord first, He establishes your thoughts, your plans. And so you acknowledge him in your ways, for him then to direct your paths, the paths where you should go. You first delight in him, for him then to grant desires of your heart. And also you commit your works to God, for him then to establish what you do. So these are some ways in which we can see from scripture, the Lord directing our paths. So here's another question. And we just asked about the Lord directing paths. Now we can ask, where is God's guidance? In what things can we find God's guidance? Of course, we can expect it in moral matters and matters of morality, things that are right and wrong, saying no to the things that are in themselves sinful. The Lord directs us away from that. And that's great. It's a mercy that God does that for us. But is that all? Are those the only ways, the only paths in which the Lord directs his people? Simply to say no to sin, but basically to have it, to let us figure it all out for ourselves after that. Look at the exhaustive language, the comprehensive language in the text. You acknowledge the Lord with all of thy ways. You trust in the Lord with all of thine heart. And we've already drawn the connection that the Lord directs all of our paths, not just the ones that regard, should I do what is right here or wrong? All of our paths, even in matters that are in themselves indifferent and in things that within themselves would not be sinful. And even in these things as well, the Lord's guidance extends. It extends exhaustively. It extends into making wise decisions. And Proverbs is replete with that. Of course, Proverbs talks about not committing sin, avoiding sin, and doing what is righteous. But it also lays out these wise principles. So many of them for Christians to live by. And so Proverbs, the whole rest of the book, lends so much weight to this fact that the Lord is directing our paths. So what loving father would just tell his child the things that are right and wrong, and then leave everything else for his child to decide on his own? Of course, God is loving to tell us what is right and wrong, but he is also the God, as I said, who leads us beside still waters, who gives us good gifts, who restores our soul, who leads us in the path of righteousness for his name's sake. He is the God who directs our lives, the God who gives us these good gifts, who is helping us along the way in the journey of life. So a gift. will look like an open door, oftentimes. But if you will but receive the gift and go through the door and to follow the path the Lord has laid for you, and this is wisdom. It's wisdom to receive the gift, to go through the door, to follow the path the Lord has provided to you in his good providence. And maybe if you're sitting here today, and especially if you're a much older saint than I am, you can look back on your life and you can reflect and see the ways in which God has been very good to you in his guidance that he has given. You can look perhaps at gifts that he has placed in your life. Yes, He saved you and He's adopted you. And it's sometimes, you just might think, it's as if God is saying, here you go. It's a good gift for you to receive. Maybe at another point in your life it happens very clearly. Here you go. And again, here you go. And maybe you blunder some of those. Maybe sometimes you see something that's good for you. Maybe you don't recognize it. Maybe you do. You don't receive His gift. And of course there are consequences for that, and I might talk about that a little bit later. But still, the Lord is going to continue to be good to you, and to continue to help you, and to continue to give you good gifts. And in my own life, the seminary that I went to is a very clear example. It's a clear and an obvious choice. It was an abundantly obvious choice, all things considered. It was a school that was so confessional to the things that Presbyterians historically believed, things which I believe. So that was great. The church was, excuse me, that's a different note. There's also the factor that I got a very good scholarship going to this school. Everything put together, it was a very obvious choice for me, and the Lord is being good. Let's ask another question. I'm trying to hasten us on here. I'm mindful of the clock. I have four questions here. I'm going to skip one of them. I'll ask the last one here. Is there a limit to interpreting God's guidance in Providence? Because we've talked about seeing the things that the Lord does for us, how he leads us in paths of righteousness. He directs our paths, and sometimes that is very clear to us. But we also want to be clear and to exercise due caution against saying things that scripture doesn't say. So we don't want to go too far. We don't want to go beyond scripture. And that's a legitimate caution that we do need to have in our mind. And I think we can say, this is my opinion, and interpreting God's providence and the things that he does and the ways that he directs us We cannot interpret it infallibly. We cannot know it infallibly because scripture is the infallible rule of faith and practice. However, just because we can say that we can't know it infallibly, it doesn't mean that we can't know it at all. Just like you can learn things, you can know things through various means as you're using your mind, maybe as you're reading history books. You can really learn and know things that you don't know infallibly, not from an infallible source. So scripture does teach, and we've seen him teach, that God really does guide through our life. And then sometimes his providence, the way he directs, is honestly gonna be clearer than other times. And sometimes they are abundantly clear. So then God promises this to his children, to his children who seek him for it. And God does not leave us to ourselves, as this text teaches us about guidance from God, as we see, first of all, faith in God, and then following after God. And so the God of wisdom grants unto us, his adopted children, wisdom. And how? How does he do that? God has a son, not a son by adoption. It's a son by nature, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1, he became for us wisdom from God. Wisdom descending from heaven to earth, from God to man in bodily form. And Christ is the one person who has done these things that we have spoken about perfectly. And in fact, if you look at the context of this passage, if you look at verse four, I can't help but imagine that Luke is referencing verse four when he writes that Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Verse four says, so shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Jesus is the one who is perfect, complete wisdom. He is heavenly wisdom and God's son by nature. And it is through God's son by nature to whom we are united as sons and daughters by adoption. that we could have this heavenly wisdom. And so then let us strive for this wisdom, seeking guidance from God, not in our own mind, but looking to the Lord Jesus Christ as we pray that Lord would teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Amen, let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, you've given us many good gifts. You are the Father of heavenly lights and all good gifts descend from you. And so we pray that we would recognize this, that we would give thanks for your guidance that is in our lives. We pray that you would bless us and establish the work of our hands. Let us truly delight in you, that you may give unto us the desires of our hearts, and glorify you in that way. In Jesus' name, amen.