Trust, Lean, Acknowledge (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to uh Monday morning. Welcome to 915 devotional. And uh hope everyone had a great weekend. Uh our church did a uh a message this weekend on tithing, which is always tough to do. Um churches do need money. Uh it is a it's uh let me restate that churches don't need any money. God needs our obedience and he asks us to do that. And that's not what we're going to talk about today. Um, uh, but it's always a difficult message to give because money is one of those things that's like the last thing we want to be able to submit to.

And, uh, and it's tough. And Pastor Craig, our our pastor, does a real good job. Uh, not that he'll hear this or or watch this, maybe doesn't need my accolade, but he still did a great job. All right. So, today we're going to be uh, in Proverbs. We we we didn't get a chance to be in Proverbs chapter 3. And and for those that have on, you've heard me say this. Proverbs is the built-in daily devotional, not to take place of 915, but it is the built-in daily devotional of our Bible. Uh there are 31 chapters. If you read a chapter in Proverbs every day, the end of every month, you've gone through um the book of Proverbs.

And I've done it I I don't know. I I I have no idea what the number is. Hundreds, a thousand times I've read the the book of Proverbs. And and what's amazing is every time you read it, you f that God gives you something else in that chapter that you're at a different season in your life that he the Holy Spirit opens up a phrase or a meaning for you. It's it's only something God can do. Today we're going to be in chapter three. This is the two verses that uh you will see on coffee mugs again and and well known and tapestries and shirts and hats and all that stuff.

and it's Proverbs 3. Uh I I'm going to I have it up here on my screen, but I I want to read it in the uh New King James Version. It's very similar to the NIV. Um but I'm going to read it in the New King James. And so this is Proverbs 3:es 5 and 6. Oh, before I get there, housekeeping. We're going to go away from Zoom. Uh Neil, who's on the call this morning, uh and and uh is a great partner and friend and has built bunches of stuff for our business. Uh we've he's I don't know what to call it. He's redone Zoom. Uh and he'll put a link in the chat here.

Uh if everybody will copy uh and paste that somewhere before the call ends. I'm going to log in tomorrow here as well with a message on the screen that says, "Hey, we are over here instead." Um, but it's a it's a new utility. It's simpler. It's easier, more controls. It's just super and well and free. And so, it's really cool. And so, we'll be there tomorrow. All right. So, back to God's word. Chapter 3:es 5 and 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths." I'll also read the NIV because it's very similar.

Uh trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him. Little difference. And he will make your paths straight. And so let's kind of break this down. The first and and what this is is a verse and a half of direction and a promise at the end. And so I'll repeat that. It's a verse and a half of a formula. It's a verse and a half of direction. It's a verse and a half of command. And when you follow it, there's a promise at the end. And so trust in the Lord. What does that mean? The interesting thing when we think about trust is it's kind of like that that process when you're looking for a job, but you have no experience.

Um, in order to get the experience, you have to have a job, but you can't get the job unless you have experience. And so, you're kind of caught in this little quagmire. Well, trusting in the Lord is difficult for people to do if they haven't seen the promise fulfilled. But you can never see the promise fulfilled if you don't trust in the Lord. And so it's kind of that same sort of thing. And so it it requires us to take a step first. That's what God asks. He wants our obedience. He wants our love. He's not come he's not forcing you to do it. And so that's on us.

We have to do that. We have to trust in him. And so it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart." The Hebrew for heart, and hopefully I don't butcher this, there's any people on here who speak Hebrew, is bac. And in the Old Testament, the heart has many meanings. It but but it doesn't just mean feelings. It's not just how you felt today. So it's not just trusting with your heart, like with my feelings and my emotions. The heart in the Hebrew is the command center. It's your thinking. It's your brain. It's where your desires live and the things that you do and your habits and all of that resides in your heart.

And so what what he's what God is saying is trust in the Lord with all your heart, all your mind, all these things that you that you that you have desires that that you want to do. And so he's not talking about, you know, come to church on Sunday and feel great when you leave. He's more interested in the decisions that you're going to make on Monday. And that's what he's talking about here. So trust in the Lord. Trust. We have to do that first. With all your heart, your brain, your soul, everything that you're going to be doing, all those decisions that you're going to be making.

It says, "And lean not on your own understanding." It doesn't say don't use your understanding. It says don't lean on your understanding. leaning is what what Solomon is describing here is that we we need to give this to God. That's he's asking for that. He's asking for that relationship from us. And so Solomon is saying lean on him. It's like a cane. It's like leaning into the wall. You're going to you're there's issues and circumstance and decisions to make and God wants to know those things and he wants you to lean on him. He wants you uh Solomon has said to get understanding to get wisdom.

Paul Paul uh echoes that sentiment in the New Testament. Uh James does ask for wisdom and God will give to you without finding fault. And so he wants us to have wisdom. He wants us to use our understanding, but he wants us to lean on him when we're doing that. And so lean on him. Uh uh so and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him. Uh the NIV says to submit to him. That acknowledge is is the is the footnote for these verses. And what that means is to invite God into everything. You're submitting to him. You're acknowledging in in what ways?

In all. When you take the word all, there's nothing to the left of it. There's nothing to the right of it. There's nothing above it. There's nothing below it. There's no escaping this word. It's all encapsulating all. In all your ways, submit. In all your ways, acknowledge him. And so, he wants that. Dwayne, you're telling me that he wants me to talk to him about where I'm going to go for lunch? Yeah, that's part of all. Do you have to ask God where you should go to lunch today? No, you don't have to. But he's not going to go, "Hey, I'm busy." Yeah, you figure out yourself.

You're going to go lunch. He wants that kind of relationship. And then comes the promise, and he shall direct your paths, which is what the King James version says. And the NIV says, "And he will make your path straight." So those are those are kind of two two examples. So the King James, the New King James version says he will direct your path. So here's what's the promise is if you do these things above this verse and a half, if you you follow this formula, you follow this list of directions, what God is saying is uh not only am I going to give you the proper direction because otherwise we're blind and we're we're we're or you're squirrels and shiny objects and we're all over the place.

He's going to give you the correct path. He's going to light up just the steps that you need to take in the direction that you need to go. And then in in addition to that, he's going to uh m um uh make them uh uh uh make your path straight. So in other words, not only is he going to give you the course, but he's going to flatten them out a little as well, too. He's he's he doesn't promise to remove the obstacles. He doesn't promise to take the mountain and get it out of the way. He just promises that he's going to be with you through that. He's going to straighten them out so that we can walk through those things.

Why? Because we're trusting in him with our entire heart, our mind, and our heart and our whole being. We're not leaning on who we are. We're recognizing the authority and the love that we should give to him. We're we're we're we are submitting to him or acknowledging him. We're bringing all of this to him. And when we do those things, then he's going to make our path straight. He's going to direct us in the path and where we need to go. All right. Comments, thoughts, suggestions. I'm going to Texas, so I'mma uh give it all up and hopefully he makes that pass straight this week.

Cool. That's awesome. Anybody else? I just uh just a comment uh Dwayne I guess you know like you said he was saying that you know discretion I guess is a part of it and having understanding I guess you know just a comment I guess you know having that's a part of it also I guess you know yeah for me it's it's really the you know we have no control over the promise that's God has to give the that God's going to give that to us so we don't have control over that what we have control over is the formula. What we have control over is the first verse and a half.

And so it's the trust. Uh it's in every area of our life. It's inviting him into those conversations and it's basically submitting to him and his will and his authority. When we do that, then then comes the promise. Then comes and and and very similar to what I I started this conversation off by talking about uh our tithing, the message at our church. And it's the same thing there. It's the only It's the only area in the Bible where God gives us an opportunity and he says, "Test me on this thing." And so what I'm what I'm saying by that is that when you follow that formula, well, I can say one thing I've never heard ever.

And and I'm not I'm not saying it's not out there. I've never heard anyone say, "I tithed and then I couldn't make it through." I've never heard that. I've heard people go, "I'm just afraid to tithe. I don't have enough." But I've never heard I've heard just the opposite. The moment I began tithing, my finances turned around. My situation turned around. And why? Because there's a promise. And when you take the steps and you're obedient, God follows through. He loves us. He wants those things for us. So, all right. Anybody else? All right, let's bow our heads.

Father, thank you so much for today. Thank you for the the the uh the equation and then the the everything that comes to the right of the equal sign. Thank you for this process and then this promise that goes with it. So we know that if we follow the process, Father, you've you've you've given us a promise and and Lord, I just think that reading the word becomes so simple when we look at it that way. Um we don't we don't have to do it. You're not forcing us to. um you're you're not you're not, you know, a dictator. You're a loving God. You're a loving father.

We love that. We want to serve you. We want to acknowledge you in all ways. We want to submit to you. We want to trust you. Uh Lord, we just know that we need to lean on you in order to do those things because we we know that we get that strength from you. And so, Father, I just pray that we would make a point to do that, to not lean on our own understanding. I I did that for years and years and years, Lord. I'm so thankful that you you've uh you've corrected me. I'm so thankful that I saw that that that I I couldn't do this stuff in my own strength and that when I when I finally gave in and when I finally submitted, when I finally acknowledged you, when I finally stopped leaning on myself, it's when the entire world opened up, Father, and and I could see things more clearly.

And so, Lord, I pray that for everybody on this call that uh that they would remove themselves as the authority in their life and and and give that to you, God. Father, watch over us today. Guide us, direct us. As always, keep us safe. Give us an opportunity to to be that person for someone today that that they may see the only version of Jesus that they've ever seen in their life. Father, we thank you. We love you. We praise you. And as always, in your son's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. See you guys tomorrow. Have a peaceful day.

Thanks. Happy birthday, Ken. Thank you.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.