Transcript
The following is called: “All I will ever need to know I learned from Noah.”
- Don’t miss the boat.
- Remember that we as believers are all in the same boat.
- Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.
- Be ready to serve at any age. When you’re 600 years old you may be asked to do something really big.
- There may be critics, but don’t listen to them, just get on with the job that needs to be done.
- Build your future on high ground.
- Speed isn’t everything. It took over 100 years to build the Ark.
- When you’re stressed, float awhile.
- Remember the Ark was built by amateurs, the Titanic by professionals.
- No matter what the storm, when you are on God’s side, and in the Ark of His Son, you’re always safe and secure.
Noah was a man of faith. Hebrews 11:7 says, “By FAITH Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house…became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”
From Noah example’s, we find a man building a huge boat, an ark, not near any water to save animals and people alive. We hear him proclaiming that a worldwide flood was coming as he built it to judge the earth, because that’s what God had told him.
And we can only imagine how people mocked him for 100 years. Nobody understood what he was doing. It seemed ludicrous.
But Noah simply trusted in God and did what God had told him to do. And because of his trust in in the Lord, he and his family were saved from the flood.
This is what King Solomon, under the inspiration and wisdom of God the Holy Spirit, is telling us to do here in Proverbs:
To trust in God, to not lean on what we think is best, but to trust the Lord with all our heart, trusting Him even when things are unclear or don’t make sense or seem impossible, trusting His Word, His wisdom, His direction, and His plan for our lives.
During this current dispensation of grace, the Church, the Body of Christ is called to live by faith, to walk by faith and not by sight, to trust the Lord in our daily lives and for His direction.
The first step of the Christian journey is to trust Christ as our personal Savior, trusting His full provision of salvation that He died for our sins and rose again.
After making that decision to trust Christ as our Savior, the Christian walk is about steps of faith, one after another, trusting the One who saved us, day by day, allowing Him to lead us and following Him by faith throughout life’s journey, until at the last our faith becomes sight and we enter His presence and we will be with Him for eternity.
Each year presents new opportunities to trust Him, and to take steps of faith, and to grow in our faith in the Lord. And we need to courageously and boldly take those steps.
It is essential to prioritize our relationship with the Lord above all others. For the believer the priority is always God first! Putting and faithfully keeping God first in our lives and trusting Him is vitally important.
Doing so, this affects our decision-making, our schedules, our relationship with others, and our whole outlook on life.
Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
“Trust in the Lord” is not a suggestion here. This is a command. It’s a command for Israel under the law to obey. And it’s a principle for us, the Body of Christ, to adhere to because it is in line with God’s will under grace and throughout all God’s dispensations.
The mission of the Berean Bible Society is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ by proclaiming the whole counsel of God according to the revelation of the Mystery.
Proverbs 3:5-6 is a case in point of what we mean by “proclaiming the whole counsel of God according to the revelation of the Mystery.”
It means that we can go to all of God’s Word and read, study, learn from it, and apply it as it agrees and does not contradict the message of grace that Christ revealed to Paul for the Body of Christ in this age.
Because in God’s Word, there are commands, instruction, and promises for Israel under the law that only applies to Israel under the law, and not us the Church under grace.
We often point out the contrasts and things that don’t apply to the Body of Christ, but here in Proverbs 3:5-6, and with many things taught in Proverbs, we find principles that are in line with what Paul teaches the Church under grace, and we can apply them. This is what we mean by rightly dividing the Word of truth.
The word “Trust” in the Hebrew means “to rest one’s full weight, to lean with the whole body.” It has the idea of laying and stretching out on a bed or resting on a hard surface. To trust in the Lord is to rest your full weight on Him for deliverance and for direction.
As trust means to “lean with the whole body,” we lean on something when we are not strong enough to stand alone. And in life, each of us are not strong enough to stand alone. We need the Lord. Trusting Him, leaning on Him, we find true strength in life.
And this word “trust” carries the idea of confidence and security. When we trust in something, we place our confidence and security in that entity.
Putting our trust in the Lord, we put our confidence and security in the surest thing in the universe, the surest thing in existence.
The title “Lord” here for God is the name “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.” This name focuses on God’s promise-keeping character. When God’s Word says to “trust in the Lord,” we’re called to trust the unchanging, faithful God who can be counted on completely.
Proverbs 29:25 says, “whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.” Psalm 9:10 says, “And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.”
Knowing God we know that He is worthy of our trust. We know He will never leave us or forsake us. We know He cannot break a promise. Knowing God we can and we should be confident in our trust. There is true security in Him.
And the more we know Him by His Word, the more we trust Him. This is what God wants, for our trust in Him to grow and to be with “all your heart.”
God doesn’t want us to be half-hearted in our trust in the Lord. Rather, we are to be whole-hearted in our trust in Him. To command this, God is telling us that that’s how far we can safely and confidently trust Him.
We can trust Him, rely on Him, depend on Him, lean on Him, with ALL our heart because He is infinitely trustworthy. Because He will never let us down.
The word “heart” refers to more than just the place where feelings come from. In Scripture, the heart is considered the center of one’s inner nature, which includes our feelings and emotions, our thoughts, beliefs, and concerns, our decisions and choices.
And with all our heart, with our mind, our soul, our future, our life, God wants us to cast our full weight on Him. We can trust Him without doubt, fear, or distrust. We surrender and trust Him with all that we are. We lay our heart at the Lord’s feet.
We trust our whole being to God’s sovereignty. We commit the whole weight of all we are and all we need to His care.
With confidence, we place the eternal destiny of our soul completely in His hands, that “salvation is of the Lord” and that He has the power to save, that He has done everything necessary to save us by His death, burial, and resurrection and we trust Him.
And as we place the salvation of our souls completely in His faithful hands, we’re taught by God to place our daily lives completely in His hands.
In January 2006, I took a short term missions trip to the Philippines. For 3 weeks, we traveled all over the Philippines visiting Bible schools and churches.
At one of the Bible schools, I was approached by one of the students. He was very troubled by how he was going to pay for his books for the upcoming semester.
I saw poverty like I’ve never seen it before in the Philippines, and so I sympathized with the young man who was nearly overcome by his concern.
One of the other students noticed the emotional plea of this young man as he was talking to me and came over to listen and see what was the matter.
As he heard this young man pouring his heart out about his need for money to pay for books, he stopped him, put his hand on his shoulder, and said, “Just trust the Lord man.”
For myself and my roommate for the missions trip, this became our motto for the rest of our time in the Philippines. And I’ve never forgotten it. It should be our motto for life to “just trust the Lord” and to live it out.
We’re given a positive command: to trust the Lord with all your heart. Then we come to the negative correction: don’t trust your own understanding.
We’re taught to LEAN on the Lord completely with all your weight, but then to LEAN NOT and not put any weight on your own understanding.
For us to trust in the Lord with ALL our heart, there needs to be distrust of self. Leaning on our own thinking is to lean against something very weak. If we lean on our own insight and understanding and make our thinking the authority, we will fall.
Proverbs teaches us about wisdom and where we find it, and we see in verse 5 that we find wisdom by trusting in the Lord. For this to be so, reliance on our own understanding must not be leaned on and must be relinquished and replaced by trust in Him and His wisdom.
Tony Evans tells this story: “When my oldest son was small, I bought him a bicycle for Christmas. It came with a manual that explained how to put it together. I did not intend on using the manual. After all, I was finishing my doctorate degree.
After studying for 12 years post high school, I considered myself to be pretty smart. The bike that I had bought for my son had all these nuts and bolts and various parts, but I had decided that I didn’t need this manual. I had too much education.
I decided to depend on my own human intelligence. Eight hours later and with just the handlebars on, my wife, came to the door and said, “Why don’t you read the manual?”
Tony Evans says, “Could it be, just maybe, that the bicycle maker knew more about the bicycle assembly than I did? And could it be that the Creator, the Life Maker, knows more about life living than you do?”
Most think they can figure things out on their own, that they can do just fine by themselves. But, to be truly wise and make wise decisions in life, we must fight against that internal inclination to trust that what we think is always best, and to trust the Lord and to read and trust the Life Manual of God’s Word instead.
“Understanding” refers to the mental processes by which you analyze a problem, break it down into its smaller parts, and then make a decision about what you are going to do.
If we try to figure out life leaning on our own understanding, and if we put what we think ahead of what God thinks, and then make decisions, we’re headed for trouble.
Proverbs 14:12: “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 28:26 states: “He that trusted in his own heart is a fool, but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.”
We are cautioned here to not depend solely on our own wisdom and experience. Verse 7 states for us to “Be not wise in thine own eyes.” Romans 12:16 takes it even further by instructing us to “Be not wise in your own conceits.” And it is profound conceit when we place our thoughts above God’s perfect wisdom.
For there to be true wisdom in our lives, there must be a healthy distrust of self and our own thinking, and an acknowledgment that we do not know all there is to know.
We should humbly concede that we’re not fully capable of guiding ourselves into what’s truly best for us in our own wisdom. We need the Lord to guide us.
Jeremiah 10:23 teaches, “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.” It’s not in us to direct our life properly and to know the way to go and to make the best decisions.
We need the Lord to direct our steps in life. He does this by His Word. Thus, we need to pray as the Psalmist prayed to God “Order my steps in Thy Word” (Psa. 119:133). We need to look to our Creator for wisdom to direct our steps in life.
Self-sufficiency, self-dependence and pride have been the ruin of mankind ever since the fall of Adam. Mankind has continually endeavored to live independently of God, thinking that they don’t need God, and that they know better.
This self-sufficiency and pride has led man also to reject God’s way of salvation. Most want to do it their way, rather than yielding to God’s truth and trusting in God’s way.
God’s salvation is completely in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, by faith alone in His death for our sins and resurrection. It is not by anything we do.
And in life, after we trust Christ for salvation, we still must do it God’s way, and not our way and lean not on our own understanding.
A Wycliff Bible Translator named Bernie May shared the following experience, “As an airplane pilot, from the first time I sat in the beginner’s seat beside my instructor I was taught to trust my instruments.
“‘Your instincts will fool you,’ my instructor rightly told me. ‘You must learn that even though you may feel you are flying south, if your compass says you are flying east, you believe it.’
“Often when a plane is surrounded by swirling mist or fog and being buffeted by strong winds, you may feel you are in a dive and be tempted to pull back on the controls.
“But if your instruments say you are flying level, or even climbing, you’d better believe them. To pull back on the controls might put you into a steep climb, which would cause the plane to stall, drop off in a spin, and leave you out of control.”
This illustrates what this passage is teaching as well. Sometimes in life we can’t see clearly and we don’t understand what’s going on or why. The circumstances or our emotions or thoughts tell us we must do this or that.
But those are the times to lean not on your own understanding or to trust our instincts which often fool us, but instead, just as a pilot trusts his instruments, we must trust in the Lord with all our heart.
The Lord’s will and purposes are always right and good even if it doesn’t look that way from our perspective. We can’t always understand why He allows sickness, troubles, death, or heartache, but we trust that He is a loving and faithful God.
If we don’t believe this, we’ll question Him and His will when situations don’t match our expectations. That’s why we’re told not to lean on our own understanding. When we don’t comprehend what’s happening in life, we just need to trust in the Lord with all our heart.
We’re not to trust in our own ability to try and figure out life. We will never figure everything out. We’re just to trust the Lord. And as one Christian author said, “Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”
Proverbs 3:6: “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”
The double attitude of trust and distrust, leaning and not leaning, in verse 5 is to lead to acknowledging God in all our ways; that is, ordering our conduct under a constant consciousness of His presence, living in dependence on His help and direction.
Verse 6 teaches to live with an awareness of God’s involvement in our life. The Hebrew word for “acknowledge” speaks of seeing and knowing deeply and intimately.
It’s the kind of knowing that comes with personal experience. It means to know something through and through.
In “all our ways” means “in everything we do, in every detail of our life.” To acknowledge God in all our ways implies and teaches that God is already present in all areas of our lives. We are just taught to acknowledge Him, remember Him, and to look for and see Him.
A passage like this reminds us that we need to relate all of our lives, every last part, to God. We are to acknowledge God, not just on Sundays, but every single day, in all our ways, in everything we do, and everywhere we go.
When we acknowledge the Lord in all our ways, we agree that He is our Lord who has authority over us and the right to give us His direction in every area of our lives.
The life of faith is about relating every moment of our life to the Lord.
Whether it’s shopping for groceries at the supermarket, or cooking in the kitchen, or paying the bills, sitting at the kids’ band concert, reading a book, playing a board game, driving to work, or taking a walk, it’s acknowledging that He’s there, and He cares.
Acknowledging the Lord is about putting Him at the center of our homes, marriages, and our families. It’s acknowledging Him as we observe His creation. It’s acknowledging and thanking Him for providing us with our employment.
It’s to look at our finances and acknowledge Him, knowing He has a purpose for our finances. It’s to look at our local church and acknowledging that He is there at work and wants us to serve Him.
The bottom line is that it’s about always keeping God on our minds. From the time you get out of bed, all through the day, till you go to bed, it’s including Him in all parts of our lives, it’s remembering Him, praying to Him, acknowledging Him in all our ways.
God wants us to do this, because He cares about every single moment of our lives.
A man named Frank Lauback decided to live with a distinct awareness of God every day.
He wrote down some thoughts in his diary. Here’s part of what he wrote: “Can we have contact with God all the time? Can we attain that? Can we do His will all the time? Can we think His thoughts all the time?
“Can I bring the Lord back into my mind-flow every few seconds so that God shall always be on my mind? I choose to make the rest of my life an experiment in answering that question.” Are we willing to conduct that kind of experiment?
This passage gives us 2 key responsibilities: (1) to trust the Lord with all our heart and (2) to acknowledge Him in all our ways. When we do, the Lord promises to lead and to direct our paths.
The Hebrew word for “direct” found here speaks of cutting a road or clearing a path. It denotes intensity. God is saying that He will clear all obstacles, and make the way clear for us to go.
It reminds me of a fullback creating a path for the tailback following just behind. God promises not only to lead but to clear the way for us that we are to journey on in life. God will give us the guidance to clearly see the pathway that we should walk.
God’s direction for our lives will never be contrary to His instruction found in His word. He directs the paths of our lives by His Word. God’s Word is “a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psa. 119:105).
When we trust the Lord and allow Him to be part of all parts of our lives, God’s promise isn’t to make us wealthy, healthy, popular, or comfortable.
He promises something much deeper: He will direct our paths; He will make it clear what direction we should go in life. He will be our Guide. He is our Roadmaker, and He will reveal the path He wants us to walk.
God’s path for each of us is a journey of faith, taking each step in dependence and trust and putting all our weight on Him. Under grace, “we walk by faith, and not by sight.”
God’s path for us is always a path of righteousness, doing what is right by His Word. It’s a path that always leads us to being more like our Savior, Jesus Christ.
And often along God’s path, we don’t fully understand what God is doing, but we are called to trust Him, and know that His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
As this poem puts it: “God does not lead me year by year, Nor even day by DAY; But step-by-step my path unfolds, My Lord directs my WAY.
“Tomorrow’s plans I do not know; I only know this MINUTE. But He will say, This is the way, By faith now walk IN IT.
“And I am glad that it is so, Today’s enough to BEAR; And when tomorrow comes, His grace shall far exceed its CARE.
“What need to worry then, or fret? The God who gave His SON, Holds all my moments in His hand, And gives them one-by-ONE.”