Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] My name is Dean Annan. I'm the discipleship pastor here. If I haven't met you, I'll be down right here after service today. So I'd love to meet you. Or even if I have met you, I'd still like to say hi to you as well.
[00:00:19] Well, we have choices, right? We make choices to make plans to achieve something, to do something.
[00:00:27] Well, sometimes it's as simple as making plans to meet a new friend or get to know a new friend, or to go to a party on the weekend, maybe something we should. Or maybe. Maybe a party we shouldn't go to, or a hundred other things. A hundred other things that we plan to do. Major life choices. Maybe. Maybe you're pursuing somebody and want to get married. That's a big choice, isn't it?
[00:00:53] There's a plan involved there, or moving into a new location or relocating somewhere else or looking for a new job, or how do I invest my money? There's a hundred things. A hundred things that we plan. Or maybe this even.
[00:01:06] What am I going to do with my faith? Or maybe my lack of faith, or maybe check out this Christianity thing. What's that all about? Maybe I'm thinking about a plan to move forward for my next step of faith, whatever that is. You know, plans are important, right? They're important for important things.
[00:01:24] Skyscrapers, they don't just pop up out of the ground, right? Have you ever been to Chicago? Most of you living here probably have at some point or LA or New York. And you can ask any architect that those things just don't pop out of the ground. There's a plan. There's a plan for efficiency and construction and labor and safety and costs. And all these things are important.
[00:01:47] All things important in life require a plan. You know, not making a plan is like having a plan to not have a plan. I came up with that myself.
[00:01:59] You know, you're probably wondering what author that's from. No, that's from me. All right. When you delivery. Deliberately choose. Sorry, I'm off my notes. Stick to the notes. When you deliberately choose to not make a plan, things can go awry. I mean, sometimes it's okay to just go with the flow, right? You know what I mean? Sometimes it's okay. Not everything in life requires some big lofty plan. But sometimes going with the flow can. Can get you stuck. Sometimes going with the flow can get you in the wrong place. There's two characters from a famous movie back in 2003. The first guy in this conversation, he's stuck in life and the first guy, he says this, he says, I just try to go with the flow, man, you know? And the second guy says, good, yeah, go with the flow. Yeah, go with the flow. And the first guy, the first guy says this, he says, no, no, no, I gotta get out of the flow. I'm in the flow. That's what got me here. The one who's stuck. Anybody know what that movie's from? What movie? That is Elf. Thank you very much. Elf. This first guy who was stuck was Buddy's friend. Buddy's friend in the mailroom, his new friend. He just went with the flow and he was stuck.
[00:03:10] How do you get unstuck? How do we get unstuck? Well, we make plans and we make plans in the right direction because for important things, for big plans, a good plan, I should say a God honoring plan.
[00:03:28] It's important. It's important to get unstuck.
[00:03:31] Scripture says this, that there is a right way and there is a wrong way to make plans. We're gonna talk about that a little bit today. Now, it's after the holidays and we've gotten through that. We've gotten some other series pretty soon. We're gonna be back in second Corinthians in a couple weeks. For right now, the next two weeks, we're going to be in proverbs. We're going to do two different proverbs. Now God gives us proverbs to live skillfully his way.
[00:04:00] They're like life hacks, okay? They're more important than life hacks. But you guys know what life hacks are, right? Life hacks are these techniques we can use to solve problems or maybe just to be a little more efficient or to get something done right. How about a banana? I got a picture of a banana here. You ever try to open it from the top there? What do you do if that doesn't work?
[00:04:17] Yeah, flip it over. Right. Anybody ever open it from the bottom? Yes. It works, right? I think you get your fingers messy, but other than that. How about flying through an airport? What if you have a black suitcase that looks like everybody's else? You ever take a ribbon, maybe a colored ribbon, and tie it to the handle to help identify it a little easier? Especially if you check your bags. Yeah, there's another one. I know these ones aren't life changing. How about ironing clothes? You know, if you have a button down shirt, I've done this one. Flip the buttons towards the ironing board, becomes a little easier to iron. There's probably a hundred of these that that, you know, it would be interesting if I had one that was interesting. None of those were. But those are just life hacks, but a little more serious. All of us have an opportunity to make healthy God honoring choices for our mind, for our body, for our spirit, things that impact us, things that impact other people as well.
[00:05:07] Our proverb today is Proverb from Proverbs 15:22. You can go to the book of proverbs. It's in the middle basically of the Bible. Well, you'll find the Psalms, just go to the right and you'll find Proverbs, Proverbs 15:22. It presents a life hack, if you will, of course, more important than that, obviously.
[00:05:29] And it shows us a problem.
[00:05:33] And there's a problem. The problem here is that your plans might fail. Your plans might fail. My plans might fail. It says this. We'll put it on the screen. Without counsel, plans fail, but with many advisors they succeed.
[00:05:48] You see, there's a solution here too, right in the second line, the solution to help your plans succeed. Of course. What are those plans? Are they good plans? Do they always succeed? You know, these are really good questions for this proverb and for the book of proverbs in general.
[00:06:04] But like most proverbs, there's a comparison here. Usually that's presented choices between the foolish way and between the way of wisdom. And God's giving us that here today. And here's a big idea for today. And it's this. It's the wise seek counsel, but the prideful say, I can do this alone. You're going to hear that a lot today.
[00:06:27] Today put up a slide, talk about kind of where we're going. We're going to answer quickly the why and the what of proverbs and then examine our attitudes of this idea without counsel, maybe what's in our hearts there. Then dig a little deeper into the words in this Proverbs, in this proverb, Proverb 15:22. Look at some of the words there a little bit, get a little more clarity. And then we're going to shift to this idea of a heart issue, really of many advisors and what might be keeping me from that or not. And so go a little deeper there.
[00:06:59] So first thing I want to do is answer the question, why do we need proverbs? This might be new, but it might be review for some of us. We've been in the book of proverbs for a while, or understand what they are. And you might not like this answer that I'm going to give. But the answer of why do we need Proverbs is because the Bible says that we do not says that we should not assume that we know what to do is right.
[00:07:29] The Bible is very clear that we shouldn't assume our intuition is going to be right on something, especially all the time. Especially when you're down or you're sad, or maybe you've had a history of some bad choices, or maybe mentally you're just not there today or you haven't been for a while. Don't assume we know to do, or you know to do the right thing.
[00:07:51] Why do we need Proverbs? Look at the screen here. Screen says this.
[00:07:56] Do not lean on your own understanding. That's from Proverbs, chapter three. But why? Because there's another proverb that answers that very clearly. Because there is a way that seems right to man and to women and to boys and to girls. There is a way that seems right to you. But the proverb says, but its end is the way to death, meaning destruction. Proverbs 16:25. Do you see the warning there? So in Scripture, we are to lean on God, lean into God, and that God's ways direct our paths. Why? Because many times we think what we're doing is right, but it's not. Or at least sometimes what we want to do is the right thing, but maybe it's not.
[00:08:38] We think no one's going to get hurt by what we do, but they do. We hurt them or we hurt ourselves. And our ways, My ways often lead to life away from God. If left to myself, they move away from God towards destruction. But also what we see through history. This is just true. Through history. If you look at history, throughout pretty much every culture, what we see is people try to get God to approve of what they say is right or wrong. But God never changes his standards. Right. God never changes his standards. God knows us, the human race. He knows you. He knows every single one of us. So we need God's wisdom, first from his holy word, and then we need the incarnation of wisdom, of course, which is Jesus Christ our Lord. This is why we need Proverbs.
[00:09:30] But the what of Proverbs? What are Proverbs? And I hope this helps. If you've never been in Proverbs before or maybe serves as a good reminder. Proverbs is simply this. It is wisdom literature, with wisdom instructions from God himself, of course, other wisdom literature, books like Job and Ecclesiastes and some of the Psalms and so on in the Old Testament. It's a category. It's a type of Writing, it's a genre. They call it right, Wisdom, literature. It is philosophy, in a sense. It's philosophical statements. Proverbs are filled with philosophical statements, but it's not like the world's philosophy. World's philosophy is different. If you've taken philosophy classes, there's usually a question that is posed and then a way to consider.
[00:10:14] But Hebrew poetry, Hebrew proverbs, which is poetry, doesn't start that way. It sits very differently and starts very differently. As a matter of fact, it begins with an affirmation.
[00:10:26] The proverbs start with an affirmation. And this affirmation is this is that God exists. Have to stay there and start there, but then move from there. God exists. God exists. And the premise of Proverbs is this. God exists and therefore we can know ultimate truth only by divine revelation.
[00:10:48] This is Hebrew philosophy. God's philosophy, God's proverbs. It sits on this premise. It's not from me, me, you. That's not where wisdom comes from. It is from God. It's not abstract, it's not academic. It's extremely personal. The proverbs are. And theological as well. And to reject God's wisdom is to reject God himself. This is God's thought on that. So Hebrew word. The Hebrew word here is mashal. And mashal is this Hebrew word meaning comparison. It's it. It's the word for proverb. But it's this idea of wisdom in a nutshell. And it's very succinct statements, usually. The goal. And I'll just tell you the goal here. I'll just write a couple. I wrote a couple things down here. Goal would be for us to remember and apply it. So if there is a goal behind Proverbs is for you to remember it. That's why it's short, usually. And for you to apply it and for you to honor God. And it will change your lives. There's also a strategy that God uses. Besides the goal, there's a strategy. And strategy is very interesting. I think that God uses this idea of poetry. Our creative, beautiful, imaginative, loving God uses poetry of all things. The vehicle, the packaging that he uses is poetry. And some of those Hebrew poetry characteristics, we'll put those up there, you see, Concise. Why concise? Maybe. Maybe so that we can remember. I mean, I honestly don't know exactly why Hebrew poetry is so concise. It might be that. So we can remember. We can grab it and it's packed with lots and lots of meaning and figures of speech and imagery to intrigue you, to Grab you to get your mind and your soul and your emotions involved in what God is trying to teach us. But also there's this parallelism where you'll see a line of the poetry from God in another line, and one of these lines after the other will intensify, specify, be more specific, perhaps expand on the other line and so forth, or contrast it and so on. But what I don't want you to be is to be confused by proverbs. So if you haven't heard this before, maybe this next point is maybe the most important. There are some warnings about proverbs. Typically these are things that are true about life, but they're not always going to be true in your life, in your life's experience. These are time tested, of course. They're always a safe guide for us. They're the default, they're way to go, they're what to pursue. But also they're not promises. Proverbs are not promises. Proverbs are a form of literature that are essentially different from promises.
[00:13:34] So the number one most common mistake, at least that I've seen this is just my experience, is that people read them as promises. Proverbs are theological and pragmatic principles, meaning practical for us, ways we are called to live. Promises, on the other hand, are straightforward statements of assurance that guarantee an outcome. Are proverbs ever promises?
[00:13:59] Well, yes, if in Scripture we see that outcome is promised, but of course, not all the time. Proverbs are practical principles of living. I'll give you a couple examples of these practical principles of living that don't always come true. How about this one? Proverbs 22. I'm just going to read it. Proverbs 22, 6. Some of you know which one this is. It says this train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from that. Doesn't always happen, does it? It's not our lived experience, but it is God's principle for us. If you're around little ones, helping little ones, or maybe they're your own children and you're helping your children to know the Lord and what is right and good and true, but that it's not a promise, that that's always going to happen. How about debt? Going into debt, you know that's kind of a big deal, right? In general, the wisdom of the Bible, this is pretty clear that there are warning, there's issues, there's problems with going into debt. Debt can make you a slave to the loan itself. It says in Proverbs 22:7. The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender. Going into debt itself is not a sin. But the Bible also warns about the dangers of going into debt. And some of you have lived through that, right? And have experienced that. Again, this is a. These are principles.
[00:15:20] All right, here's the first line of our proverb. Today, again, without counsel, plans fail. That's a problem.
[00:15:30] But there's another problem. And maybe one of the problems we have here is for your plan. Maybe your plan should be trashed.
[00:15:39] Maybe your plan needs to be adjusted. Maybe the plan's okay, but maybe the way you're trying to get there initially or the outcomes may be fine, but what you're trying to get to, that's fine. But the way you're trying to get there, maybe that needs to be adjusted. But that takes a good attitude on your part, doesn't it? Takes a good attitude of humility on my part, doesn't it? To make adjustments and to change. Seeking counsel itself, that's not a sign of weakness, but wisdom.
[00:16:09] But wisdom. Seeking counsel isn't a sign of weakness. It's a. A sign of wisdom. Pride says. Here's that phrase. Pride says, I can do it alone. Humility, though, seeks perspective and guidance and advice and of course, prayer. And a phrase I like to use sometime. It's a little bit of hyperbole, but attitude means everything.
[00:16:33] Attitude means everything. You know, do you know, as an aside, do you know what an idiot light is? Anybody know what an idiot light is?
[00:16:44] An idiot light is a warning light on an instrument panel of a car, right? Sometimes it's called an idiot light. It shows you when there's a problem in the car, something about to go wrong or is going wrong. And people's bad attitudes about being willing to seek advice are not. Well, they're like idiot lights. They're like warning lights. People's bad attitudes reveal the condition of our heart. Your heart, my heart, my selfishness, or your selfishness. It's the pride that's under the hood. Frankly, God doesn't want that for us. When we go that route, the Bible would call us fools, which leads to failure, system failure. And God doesn't want that for you. He doesn't want that for me. So think about this. What is your attitude towards teachers? We probably have some students here still. Are you being taught by someone? What's your attitude towards teachers? Or maybe parents, maybe towards authority in general? What is your attitude about even getting advice? Instruction, receiving instruction? This applies to everybody, doesn't matter if you're young, doesn't matter if you're old. And if your attitude is less than being willing to hear and listen and receive and apply good advice from from other folks, then proverbs would say that what you are doing or what you are being is prideful and arrogant and foolish. Ouch.
[00:18:12] To add to that, our proverb says that your plans, my plans will mostly and often fail when we don't seek out counsel. Now, this proverb isn't saying that every single thing, like choosing toothpaste or every single thing in life you need to get advice for, obviously. But it does advocate for this. It advocates for a personal internal attitude adjustment in our hearts towards a willingness to hear others advice because that's God honoring. And does that describe you? Does that describe you today? Are you willing to listen to others or change direction and why or why not? And think about that.
[00:18:57] What's under the hood?
[00:19:01] Attitude matters. The wise seek counsel and the prideful say I can do this alone. Or this phrase. I got it. You know that one. Well, sometimes you don't always got it.
[00:19:13] Let's look specifically at some of the words. Now, some of these words, just to dig down, get a little geeky, have a little fun, see what God is giving us here in this process. A little lower level here.
[00:19:24] You see the Proverbs 15:22. Again, we'll put it on the screen. There it is. Without counsel, without advisors, our plans often fail. This is the principle. But there's a variant. Before we talk about that more, I want to go to a variant. There's a proverb that's closely related, very much like it. It's Proverbs 11:14. And I'm going to read it, have it on the screen. It says this.
[00:19:47] Where there is no guidance, a people falls.
[00:19:53] But in an abundance of counselors there is safety. In other words, this closely related proverb to ours today is saying that with no guidance, meaning direction. From where? Where we look at, look at the second line. It says we get guidance from an abundance of counselors, meaning many, of course, people falls. That's interesting because a people here is a population, a citizenry, a country even. I don't know if that's Elgin for you. I don't know if that's Pingree Grove, I don't know if that's Streamwood, I don't know if that's Bartlett. I don't know where you're from. Forgive me if I didn't say where you live.
[00:20:30] But it's saying without wise Leaders seeking advice from many a people wind up in ruin.
[00:20:44] So let's take that as a call to pray for our city leaders, county leaders, of the leaders we know and certainly our government. Amen to that one. Let's keep praying. But the second line, you'll see. But there's a change here, a contra. If there is guidance sought, if advice in the direction is sought by leaders through many advisors, then there will be safety. The safety would mean more probably the idea of security, the idea of prosperity, the idea of deliverance by God is the way we would probably understand it today.
[00:21:23] So that's that for the people, for the citizenry. But our proverb's a little different today. Our proverb is focusing on. Though there's similarities in the abundance of counselors. It's focusing on us personally, you and me. There it is again on the screen. And it says the plans. We'll look at that word, plans. The word plans is up there on the screen. They're devices or schemes. But in a good sense the word literally means devices or schemes. But not in a bad way. Not in this idea that we have ulterior motives with our plan or we're selfish or we have hidden agendas, or we're deceitful or to trying to get our way only, or trying to hurt somebody. No, none of that at all. These are God honoring plans. And what would happen if we do not seek, most likely practically advice from others? They're going to fail. And that word fail of course just means go wrong or go to ruin.
[00:22:17] Proverbs also clear as to why. Why we might fail in our plans is because we don't seek counsel. Counsel up there. We'll put that on the screen also. The counsel is simply advice. Recommend suggestions. Suggestions, really? Yeah, input.
[00:22:34] This does not have to be a professional counselor, but it can be a professional counselor. It can be both ends. This can be friends, this can be others that we know the word counsel. You can see that in the first line. It parallels the word advisors in line two. See how they work together? It's the same idea, but quickly.
[00:22:59] This can mean getting input, but from who? And this is the question that really we should answer. Who would be wise to get input from? Who would be wise? Someone who is faithful and has been faithful. Someone who is trustworthy. A trustworthy friend over time that has made wise decisions. Or. Or maybe someone you don't even know, but you know they are trustworthy. You wouldn't go to somebody for counsel who has had a really bad track record. Have you would You. No, we wouldn't do that. You go see somebody with a history of wise, godly decisions that you can see in their life. These are people that you can identify and you can see they have. Now, we can love our impulsive friends, right? We can love our friends who seem to consistently make pretty, pretty bad decisions. We can love them. But you don't have to get counsel from them, right? No, we don't have to. We love them. We don't have to get counsel from them.
[00:24:02] All right, the two lines again of our Proverbs 15:22, we look at those. If the first line of the proverb presents a problem, the second line then gives us a solution. There's a contrast there. You see the word. But on the second line, the first line is failure. The second line is success. From foolishness again, to wisdom. Oftentimes proverbs work like this. We see parallelism as well. The second line provides a solution, but it also enhances the first line quite a bit, right? It clarifies things. And that's what parallelism is. Again, in Hebrew poetry, it specifies or compares or it expands on the first line.
[00:24:45] Plan in the first line is even mentioned. In the second line, you see the word they. That's the plans again.
[00:24:52] These plans generally, they generally have a better chance of succeeding when we seek counsel.
[00:25:03] But it's getting advice then from many advisors, a multitude.
[00:25:10] And that's what I want to spend the next minutes we have together on this idea of many advisors and the idea behind that.
[00:25:19] So we'll tackle that next. The tone of Proverbs in seeking advice is overwhelmingly to seek advice from many advisors, not just one, not just one person. In order to do that, you and I, if we're trying to seek advice from many advisors, then we have to do something. A couple things we're going to have to do is we're going to have to slow down a little bit, maybe think about our plan a little more, and then find somebody to talk to, right? So we have to slow down a little bit. The book of Proverbs 4 times talks about getting advice, the importance of getting advice. And three times of those four, it says we're to seek an abundance, a multitude, or many advisors. Three of them say to do that. All right, as an aside, books are great, right? Anybody love to read books? Or maybe we're into podcasts nowadays and there's some really good ones out there, right? And some not so good ones out there, right? Books are great. We want to be educated. We want to try to understand Better the way to go in our lives. That's awesome. But here's the thing about books and podcasts, though. They can help us in great ways. They. They don't know you.
[00:26:31] They don't know your tendencies.
[00:26:34] They can't speak to your blind spots or my blind spots. They can't do it. They can't even give you feedback. They can be great, but they cannot do those things. None of those things.
[00:26:44] So we talk to people.
[00:26:50] Why many advisors? I want to keep going and pressing into this and try to go even a little deeper. Why? Why many advisors? Again, this general principle is that seeking a wide range of advice on important plans or matters or whatever is a value of God. Frankly, multitude of counselors is a value of God for us. Instead of relying on myself or yourself or your own intuition, Proverbs say to seek a multitude of advisors. Let me throw up just those three right there. You've already seen two of them, but I'm going to look through those three really quick. Just read them.
[00:27:27] Proverbs 11:14. Reading it again. Where there is no guidance, a people falls. But in an abundance of counselors there is safety. Our proverb for today says this. Without counsel, plans fail. But with many advisors, they succeed.
[00:27:43] There's another one that talks about an abundance of counselors in the proverbs, and it's a military application, but the principle applies here. It is for by wise guidance you can wage your war.
[00:27:56] And in abundance of counselors, there is victory.
[00:28:02] You see the point, right?
[00:28:05] Why do we need many? Well, because people have limitations.
[00:28:12] People have limitations. That's why we need advisors, many advisors. Because everybody that you really trust, this friend, that friend, your grandma, your grandpa, a mom or dad, a trusted friend, every pastor, they all have limitations. All of them have limitations and even blind spots. More counselors, God is saying, are better than one.
[00:28:34] One author said it this way when reflecting on why many counselors. He says this to offset the weaknesses, the ignorance and the limitations of each individual. And this includes you, and this includes me and our advisors.
[00:28:53] You know, there's a slide here I'll put up. We've already seen this. There's the idea of why do we need many to offset weaknesses of frankly, people that we go to, let alone ourselves. And the limitations increases safety, of course, and success and victory in all of those things and plans moving forward. Proverbs 16:25. I'll read this again. There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end is the way to death.
[00:29:21] Sometimes our natural tendencies, sometimes our proclivities Sometimes our sin leads us in the wrong direction. We may not even meet it, of course, but that's the direction we're going.
[00:29:34] So wisdom understands that other people also have wisdom. So we consider other points of view and we look towards and learn from other people's experiences. And that is good. And that is God honoring.
[00:29:53] Over the last 10 years, I've sought counsel from three particular men as I was considering moving into full time vocational pastoral ministry. And their names are Harry, Gary and John. That sounds like a great movie, doesn't it? Harry, gary and John. Three guys, faithful guys. They're all about 20 years older than me. Faithful, godly men.
[00:30:13] They wore all of these things to their. They were married men. To their wives, to their family, to their kids, to the church and to the community, all of that. And over 35 years, I had another advisor who was proven responsible and just discerning and mature in her faith, and that's my wife, Chris. But the point of that is, again, many advisors. Right, many advisors.
[00:30:45] Because the wisest and most godly person you know among us has limitations and they can be in error. And so we're gonna set ourselves up for disappointment. You are? I am. With plans of whatever it is in our lives or in ministry or whatever it is, if we look to the counsel of just ourselves and sometimes even to just one person, remember the big idea. The wise seek counsel. The prideful say, I can do this alone.
[00:31:15] All right, I wanna start to close this sermon. I do have so what's. But before we get to the so what's, I hope that as I ask these questions here and prompt us in a gentle way, that these are helpful today. Are you unsure about a direction you're going? Maybe a decision you may have to make, something important? Or how about this? Has someone talked to you about something you're doing, you're going, or planning to do, and they've given you advice and have you listened to it at all? Have you considered what they're saying? Actually considered? Have you listened to them?
[00:31:52] Or maybe your case today is this, you have some anxiety and maybe you're even a. Maybe you're overwhelmed in something, circumstance, whatever it is, and you feel stuck. Have you talked to others who have been down that road before? Others who have proven to be faithful, proven to be mature, proven followers of Jesus Christ? I didn't say perfect people, I said followers of Jesus.
[00:32:15] If any of this that I just mentioned strikes a chord with you today, then Proverbs would say to you, seek guidance. Seek guidance and seek prayer for sure. 4. So what? First two are pretty quick, and it's just coming right out of Proverbs 15:22. Then the first thing that came to my mind was expand your circle. Expand your circle of people to people who know the Word, who are godly people. I didn't say perhaps perfect, but someone you can trust. Begin to expand that circle, have a coffee with someone, get to know somebody, maybe join a group where these people are. Get together with people who know God's word and they live like it.
[00:32:55] Second thing you could do then maybe with this, is ask them for what I call decision input and also life feedback. So by decision input, I mean if you're trying to make a big decision, get some input from people, from people's plural, get, if that's a thing. I don't know if that's right, grammar, grammatically, but get input. But also just. How about getting feedback from people about you, your life, Ask questions, all of that. Ask people, ask, ask.
[00:33:26] Third, so what is to fear the Lord and know God's Word? Why? Well, because that's the most important thing we could possibly do in life. But why for this sermon today? Because then when we fear the Lord and know the Lord and respect the Lord and follow the Lord and know His Word, we can take that advice from people and then we will know what to do with it. We can filter it, we can understand it better, and we can sort it out.
[00:33:56] Our proverb today didn't specifically talk about that. But all of the book of Proverbs, all of the book of Psalms, the entire Bible is based on fearing and loving and knowing and following the Lord. From chapter one of Proverbs and chapter one of Psalms, I'll put a couple of those statements up there. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
[00:34:25] Then the beginning of Psalms says this, Blessed is the man. This is for everybody. When women, boys and girls, blessed are you if you delight in the law of the Lord, meaning the Scripture itself, and on his law, on his word, he, you, I, we meditate day and night. We need to know the Bible, because without it, we are lost. We're left in the dark to our own devices. So finally, get to the fourth. So what? The fourth. So what is this? It's a core heart issue. So this is important. It's a core heart issue. We wanna come out of and away from pride. This idea of, I can do it, I got it, all of this. And we wanna move towards trusting God and valuing other people Trusting God and value other people and their input. So we move from excessive reliance. You know, self reliance isn't necessarily a bad thing, but. But certainly excessive reliance is. We want to move to trusting God and valuing others. Humility seeks perspective.
[00:35:33] Humility seeks guidance and advice and of course prayer support. Humility says I'm going to trust God and I'm going to value others. Prideful. Excessive self reliance says I got this. I don't need others. But with humility, with humility we can honor God and we can make plans to serve him.
[00:35:55] And then I just want us to remember this today. Excessive self reliance could never save anyone. Amen to that.
[00:36:06] Nobody ever. How could we possibly be standing in our own self reliance before a holy God who is good and is perfect? It's only a humble heart. It's only a humble heart who believes that God sent Jesus and Jesus died on the cross to take our penalty we deserve and asking him then for forgiveness of sins. Only a humble heart does that. Only a humble heart agrees and believes the truth of all history that he rose again from the grave. And it's only a humble heart that is saved for all eternity. Again, from self reliance to humility.
[00:36:45] Let's pray.
[00:36:48] God, thank you for your word.
[00:36:51] Thank you for your love.
[00:36:54] Thank you God that you have given us Jesus, who is the incarnation of wisdom, who has given us Proverbs.
[00:37:05] God, would you teach us to be less self reliant when we should? That we would not be excessive in that way, that we would not be arrogant and proud? That we would lean into you and your holy word and seek advice from others as well and God, I'm sure there are people here today that in one way, shape, form or another, what you have taught us here today is speaking to their hearts. Would you help them God, and carry them along and help them to the next best thing for them in your eyes? And we pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
