Episode Notes:
Episode Transcript:
Hello and welcome to the Luke Miller podcast again, I'm glad you're able to join us. We have been going through the Book of Proverbs and really looking at wisdom as a whole. And as we've been doing this, we've been covering several different topics from several different places within the Book of Proverbs.
One of the things that we've seen as we do this is very rarely in the book of problems. Do we find ourselves isolated in one specific chapter. In fact, in most cases we find ourselves bouncing around several different chapters as it is more topical.
And many of the versus that we cover are not even back to back. We'll see that even in one chapter, it will cover a topic in the first verse and the seventh and the 18th and the 22nd verse. And so there is a bit of jumping around, and it's a great practice and using your cross references in your cross reference Bible, and so hopefully you're getting pretty good at practicing it.
You definitely get a workout doing that in the Book of Proverbs, but we've looked at what it looks like for us to have wisdom in our in our friends and on our friendship. We've also seen what it looks like for us toe have wisdom in family and what it looks like for us in the family life on what it means for us to be good husbands and good wives and good grandparent's and good parents and then even good Children and what that should look like now.
Today I want to take a look at Cem practical help in knowing and in doing and enjoying the will of God in our lives. Realizing that we need to exhibit both faith and commitment as we trust in God, with all our hearts toe, listen to the wisdom of others and also to discern God's will in our lives.
And and no doubt that the passage that we're going to go over as we look at this today is is a passage that you've heard probably over and over. Proverbs Chapter three, verses five through six says trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways.
Acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight Now, right from the very beginning, when some of us here. These verses. I want to say that that it probably resonates with us. We've heard it over and over on and even just starting that verse.
Some people immediately just started finishing it before I even finished it. I know all about that verse. And I think one of the things that is good with proverbs and good with wisdom is it really looks at and forcing us to not disengage or shut down, uh, stuff that we already know, but rather build on what we know and build on the truth that God has already ingrained in us over time, but still to be able to discern and see new things that God is teaching us.
And that is something that you've probably heard. The phrase familiarity can breed contempt, or, I guess, to say the least, maybe boredom. Andi, That's something that we probably find ourselves doing at times when we think Okay, I've heard a sermon on this passage before.
I've heard a Bible study on this passage before. Oh, this is my daily reading of this verse. I've read this verse and heard this verse since I was five years old. Well, I want to camp out in Proverbs Chapter three verses five and six so that we can learn how to make wise decisions.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways. Acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Andi. This was in about 2000 and one. A survey was done by the Pew Report of Churchgoers in America.
Question was asked, What topic would you most likely to like to hear your pastor preach on? And the number one matter was, Anybody want to guess? I wish I could add a drum roll in here, but I cannot. But the number one subject matter that people wanted to talk about was biblical prophecy.
And that's probably another Siris for another day or an actual sermon series that we will will cover it sunrise, But But second, which was requested the most, was how to understand God's will for your life, and and I think that's where I want us to be.
Right is how do we take a look at God's calling in our life and God's will in our life? One of the quotes that I came across a Zai was looking at this This week is one that says God wants you to know his Wilmore than you want to know it and he takes personal responsibility to see that you discover it, Really meaning God isn't playing some sort of game and hide and seek with us.
He delights in revealing his purposes and his plans, and especially if we're serious about finding his will in our life. God takes the light in it. And so I wanted to take some time. Today as we go through this toe, understand that there are some truth about God's guidance and there are some.
I guess we could call the myths that that are fairly common, that people think as well. And so I'll started with some of the myths that we have, um, and some of the common ones we see and we probably and I know we need to identify.
As we go through this and again, we're sticking in proverbs. But probably the biggest one is God's will is hard to find, and I know that it is something that is very prevalent in Christians around the globe is I wish I knew God's will and I knew I wish it wasn't as hard to find.
And I think some of us struggle with trying to discern what God wants to do in specific situations. Ah, whole bunch of what he desires has already revealed in the Bible and referring to God's words of wisdom in Proverbs Chapter 6 22.
God puts it this way. When you walk, they will guide you. When you sleep, they will watch over you. When you are when you awake, they will speak to you, meaning the word of God guides us. It protects us.
It speaks to us. And in many ways, what we're saying here are not. In many ways I am saying here that the Bible has already revealed God's will in most of the situations in life. As we've been looking through the Book of Proverbs over the last, I want to say six Podcast.
Now God's will is for us to revere him and seek after wisdom. It's also God's will that we monitor what we say. So we speak words of life instead of, uh, using our tongues to divide. God also gives giving us guidance for our family relationships for husbands for wives, her parents, for grand parents, for Children.
And we've also seen God's will for us with friendships in our life and what faithful friendships look like and what it means to put our faith, uh, in in this good in Jesus and also what it means to share our faith with others.
So what I'm saying in all of this is over the last six weeks, we've looked at wisdom and we've been searching hot, and some of us have been searching hard for guidance when we forget that God has already revealed in, ah lot of the pages of his word what that should look like.
You know, God, what's your will for me and my for my family or what's What's your will for me is a husband. Well, we just went over that in the choices that I'm making. The friends that I make way also went over that, God saying, You know, I got you covered.
It's something we don't often talk about when we're looking at the Book of Proverbs is just how much of God's will is actually revealed in the wisdom that is given in Scripture. I think the other myth that we see is that is a myth, that God wants us to know the future.
God does not reveal what's coming next week or next month or next year, but instead urges us to take the next step. We kind of want to get ahead of ourselves, don't we? Now I've been It's well documented.
The process of of our family moving down to California and and for 11 months it seemed like there was just silence. Month after month, day after day, we're just we're wondering, you know, when when are we gonna get this call on And then all of a sudden, in a matter of two weeks, we saw not just awesome God open doors, but God put them in the exact order that they needed to happen from us selling our house, tow us, finishing for me, finishing my job up in Canada.
For me, moving down to the U. S. Are being able to come down here for us getting our visa approved for us finding a house for us being able, uh, to head back and and not go through as many obstacles and and often when we think of God's will we think in the future, rather than just the very next steps that we need to take.
We think in the next week, in the next month and the next year. But he's saying in the next step, Are you able to trust me? Proverbs After Proverbs, Chapter 6 22. Where talked about when you walk, they will guide you when you sleep.
They will watch over you. We get to Proverbs Chapter six, Verse 23 which says. For these commands are a lamp. This teaching is a light, and and I'm sure you can understand the picture and the imagery that's happening here.
The picture is not a spotlight that that beams down the road a mile with a million candlelight power. Mhm and in fact, it doesn't even feel an entire room. But what it's saying is, as you're walking along a trail, you will be able to see where your feet go next.
And in the Old Testament, it was really just oil lamps and New Testament as well oil lamps that blows just enough to reveal the terrain right in front of you. When you take a step, the light provides the guidance for the next step after that.
And I want to suggest to that one of the reasons why God doesn't reveal our entire future is because he wants us to trust him moment by moment as we take one step at a time here. The other thing is that the other myth is, and we've looked at two, right, so we've got the first myth is that God's will is hard to find when we can see that a lot of it is just shared for us, right in Scripture, in the wisdom that's given.
Okay, Myth Number two is that God wants us to know the future on myth Number three is that we need to be 100% sure before we make a decision in our search for certainty about God's will, we can end up being paralyzed by reservations and uncertainty, and trusting God means that we put our faith in him even when we still have some nagging doubts and fears.
Don't wait and wait and wait till you are 100% certain. Otherwise, you'll be waiting for a long time. God wants us to step out in faith and and maybe because it's just fresh. And as I was just telling you about the journey of what it meant to get to California the first, the first and biggest step that we needed to do in that and that we believed and we both woke up one morning and we just said, you know, God is telling us we need to sell our house.
We've been waiting and holding back and saying, Well, what if? But God needs us, You know what saying, you know, sell your house and trust in him. And so we put our house up for sale and uhh without having our visa approved or anything like that.
And as we went and put our house up for sale, we also knew that our house had thio get on the market and right then and there in Saskatchewan, houses were on average 40 50 days on the market before they would sell.
That was the average. And what didn't you know that our house sold in three days? I mean, after that happened, sir and I immediately we're having the conversation of, you know, God is doing something right.
We weren't 100% you know, in our in our human minds. We knew we were called to California, and if we knew, we were called to California and we knew the church had called us to California and we knew that God had called us to California, then why an earth were we holding on to our house? It's amazing the moment we gave that over, all of a sudden everything started happening one after the other.
And to the point where we're saying, you know, God is just releasing all of this stuff, the more we trust him, you know it z not having to be 100% sure Before we make a decision, you'll be waiting a long time and then stepping out in faith.
When we do, I think we'll see that he accomplishes his purposes, especially if you look at Proverbs Chapter 16, Verse nine, which says in his heart a man plans his course. But the Lord determines his steps, meaning I can plan where I want to go.
And I looked down the road in the future. But God is looking right in front of me as well and saying, You know what? Here's the next step that you need to take and and that's a challenge for us. This week is really saying and using.
I wanna suggest using that Proverbs, Chapter six, Verse 23 something that is worth highlighting, which says, For these commands are lamp. This teaching is a light and getting that real picture of of you walking this path and God is illuminating the next step, not the next 100 steps.
God knows all of that. But he's saying, Trust me in this next step, and the sooner you do that, the easier the next steps will become for you. Um, and I think the next one and this is the last one that I want to do today, and then we're going to really talk next week about what it literally means to trust in God and leaning on God.
Um, but I think the other biggest myth that we see is that God's greatest goal is my happiness. I think in Western culture, many of us have been brought into this idea that we deserve to be happy and successful, and some of us believe that God must want us to be happy as well.
And this is a myth. God is committed to Our Holiness, not our happiness. Let me say that again. God is committed to our Holiness, not her happiness. And in order for that to take place, sometimes he allows us to go through some tough times.
Last part of Proverbs, Chapter six, Verse 23 makes this clear where it says in corrections of discipline are the way of life. And and some of us spend way too much time trying to figure out what God wants us to do and where he wants us to live right.
While God cares about these things, he's much more interested in the kind of person we are. In other words, instead of focusing on our vocation or our location, it's goddess saying focus and commit yourself to personal transformation in your life.
This is God's resolved for our lives. According to First Thessalonians, Chapter four. It is God's will that you should be holy period. That's it. It's God's will that you should be holy, and often we equate that with happiness as we fall into God's will and and we've talked about this as as we've looked at the beatitude living.
If you join us on Sundays or watch us on Sundays. We've been looking to be attitudes, and blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted, realizing that one of the promises God makes is that when you follow him, there will be persecution and there will not be necessarily great times.
But there can still be joined in that, and God's will can still be accomplished in that. And when you're falling in God's will, joy will follow. And there's a difference between happiness and joy. So So we see here that it's God's will that you should be holy is we Next week unpacked.
Actually, Proverbs, Chapter three, verses five and six. And, of course, in true pastor fashion, I have said we're going to stay in Proverbs Chapter three, verses five and six And we didn't even get to Proverbs.
Chapter three, verses five and six. We were really in chapters Chapter six, Verse 22 23. You have tow bear with me on this. I usually find I I end up splitting it into. That's my justification. That's another sermon serious for another day.
But But when we next week start to unpack what it means to trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean, not on our own understanding and in all our ways acknowledge him and that he will make our paths straight.
We'll start to see some key responsibilities that we need to have, but also what we need to give up for God to lead us. And so, as we look at these myths that we see today in God's will on and while we try and determine for his God's will again, number one the myth is that God, God's will is hard to find.
It is not. It's there for us in Scripture, in its evident for us and how we should live, myth to God wants us to know the future. God is going to illuminate our next steps for us, and we need to trust him on that.
The other is that we need to be 100% sure before we make a decision. And, fourthly, that God's greatest goal is my own happiness. When his true goal and his true will is for us to be Holy eso So we've got those, and that's gonna be our building block for making wise choices, leaning on God and as a kid who was asked many times as growing up.
Do you think that was a wise choice, Luke, When I think I know the answer was No, I don't know. I I actually I do know. I'm just hoping that my parents never come on as guests on here and actually start to tell the other half of the story that I tell.
So let's Let's finish it with that. And I hope you're enjoying this is we continue with wisdom And so, um yeah, God's will in our life on just discovering what that is. It's not as difficult as it seems.
And the wisdom that God gives us is right there in his word. So let's pray and then we'll finish up. God, I just thank you for today as we listen to this, as we read through. Your word is we study proverbs.
We study wisdom. God, I pray that you take away the barriers in our lives where we feel like we may need. We feel like we need to happiness and and then you're not giving us that rather replace out with joy.
God help us to be willing to trust you, even if we're not 100% sure we know that you are. And, God, just, uh, show us the next steps that we need to take Andi. And finally, God, we just pray, um, that that even though we may feel that your will is hard to find God, I pray that you just open our eyes and soften our hearts to see where you were leading us right through reading your scripture.
And so we just pray that this will be our, uh, our action steps for this week, as as you lead us and guide us in all of the steps that we take, we just pray these things in your name. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us.
And and again, I hope you're enjoying this. As we go through this together, there's a lot to unpack. And next week I promise, I promise that we will get to Proverbs Chapter three verses five and six. But until then, take care.
Have a great week, and I will talk to you next week.