Proverbs 16 1-4
The author writes:
1 To humans belong the plans of the heart,
but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue.
2 All a person’s ways seem pure to them,
but motives are weighed by the Lord.
3 Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
and he will establish your plans.
4 The Lord works out everything to its proper end—
even the wicked for a day of disaster.
New Year, New Plans
OK it is a new year. And as we get going this morning you may be expecting a sermon on new year’s resolutions. I’m not going to give you one of those. Hopefully that comes as a relief to you! But the truth is you probably do come into this year with a few new plans. Do you not? Maybe some of you. Some new goals? Maybe some of you have ventured into the actual realm of new year’s resolutions. Week one, week two… how’s that working out for you? So far so good Wilco? You just had a smile on your face so…
I heard about someone who decided to make only resolutions this year that he could keep. He resolved to gain weight. To stop exercising. To read less and to watch more TV. To procrastinate more. To quit giving money and time to charity. To not date any Hollywood actresses, and to never make new year’s resolutions again.
Looking Into The Future…
OK well – this isn’t a sermon about new year’s resolutions, as a said. But I did think, however, it would be an appropriate time to think about, I suppose, that thing where new year’s resolutions come from – that desire for a better future maybe. Which kind of leads you into that whole realm of the future and God’s will and thinking and planning. And how do we do that as Christians?
You’re standing at the counter and McDonalds and being asked if you’re going to supersize your meal. Quite a big decision for some of you. At the very same time it’s quite possible that running through your mind is one of possibly a whole range of other questions. Much more serious ones.
Some Serious Questions…
Is this the right career for me? Is this the right time to have a child? Is this the person I’m supposed to marry? I could go on and on. Life is full of these critical, important, weighty decisions.
the average person makes about 70 real decisions every day.
Colombia researcher Sheena Iyengar has found out that the average person makes about 70 real decisions every day. Apparently. If you take that do be true and you take it further, that’s about 25,500 decisions a year. And over 70 years you’ve made close to 1.8 million decisions. So there’s a lot of decision making! A whole range of significance and seriousness – obviously – within that.
Why Is Decision-Making So Taxing?
Most decisions are probably pretty inconsequential (aren’t such a big deal). But even for the bigger, more important ones, for most of them, the options in front of you for the most part are probably a) moral, b) legal, c) allowable. So why is it so difficult? Why is it so emotionally taxing a lot of the time?
All those decisions affect the rest of your life. You can’t just go back and push the reset button
It’s for the simple reason that those decisions affect the rest of your life – do they not? In ways that you can’t just automatically come back to and push the reset button on, start again, always.
Looking For Input
So whether you are a Christian or not here this morning we all realise that we need guidance. We all – I think feel the need of something outside of ourselves – some kind of input, that helps us navigate that well. And we all look for it in different ways.
We realise that we need God’s guidance. But that in itself can be a frustrating process.
But for the Christian, however, we look to God. We realise that we need God’s guidance. But that in itself can be a frustrating process. Because it’s not always apparent to us how is God guiding? How does he guide? What is he saying? And often that answer feels like it’s not coming anytime soon.
Exploring God’s Guidance
And so this morning I want us to think about this topic of God’s guidance in our lives from the angle of the verses in Proverbs that we’ve just read. I want to say as a bit of a disclaimer, I’m obviously not going to say everything there is to say about this topic. But I think what we have in these four verses is really helpful, solid kind of anchor stuff, that is true for us – and should be true for us, will be true for us in God’s grace – in every conscious decision making process we find ourselves in.
There’s a lot here for us this morning.
A Bit About Proverbs
The book of Proverbs has as it’s central subject this idea of wisdom. Wisdom is essentially depicted as living life from God’s perspective. So seeing things from God’s perspective. Seeing what is wise, seeing what is not wise, according to God. And wisdom then is basically the ability to make wise decisions – right choices – in that context of knowing what the good decision is. Based on who God is and who we are in relation to God.
Wisdom is essentially depicted as living life from God’s perspective.
And so throughout the book of Proverbs, Solomon encourages us to get wisdom. We see that in Proverbs 4:5. He says “those who get wisdom love life” in Proverbs 19. That it’s better to get wisdom than gold. And that those who get wisdom find life and they receive favour from the Lord.
How Do We Make Good Choices?
So the question for us is how do we make good choices? How do we get God’s wisdom? How do we get God’s guidance as Christians?
The Bible doesn’t really give us step by step instructions.
The Bible doesn’t really give us step by step instructions. It doesn’t really give us a little list that when you follow all four steps that at the end you get God’s guidance delivered to you in the package the format, that you were hoping or requested that you might receive it in.
No Special Secret Technique
There is no, in the Bible as far as I’m aware, special technique, a special prayer you pray, a special posture you maintain in the way that you stand or sit as you pray that prayer, that unlocks our access to God’s revealed will for our lives. I don’t see that. And so I’m apologising without much remorse that I can’t give that to you this morning.
But what I can give you – I think – is much more valuable. Because I can give you what Proverbs gives us here. And that is the principles of how we become wise. How we become wise decision makers. What the things are that we need to build into our lives, that over the course of our lives, helps us grow in discerning God’s will and making wise decisions that are consistent with who he is, and who we are in relation to him.
Principles that help us come to know and to see and to experience the very real guidance of God in our lives.
3 Principles To Help You Grow in Wisdom
And so this morning from these four verses I want you to see three things with me. Because I think these three things are in there – and they’ll be the three points of the sermon today. And that is simply this. If you are going to be growing in wisdom and discerning the will of God in you life you need three things.
Number 1. You need a healthy trust in the sovereignty of God. Number 2. You need a healthy distrust of your own heart. Number 3. You need to actively commit your works to the Lord. We’ll go through those in the next few minutes together.
But let’s start with that first one: you need a healthy trust in the sovereignty of God.
1. A Healthy Trust In God’s Sovereignty
Take a look at Proverbs 16:1 with me again. “To humans belong the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue.” You need a healthy trust in the sovereignty of God. What do I mean by that?
What This Is Not About
Well, when we talk about the guidance of God in our lives, it’s not with this idea that kind of God is out there, and I’m down here needing to make a decision that’s going to actually affect the rest of my life – in possibly a very significant way – and God has the vantage point to see what I can’t see. In other words which path I should take. And I just need him to tell me what that is – because he can see it and I can’t – so that I can make the right choice.
So that’s not what this is talking about. It’s not saying that he has the line of sight to see what’s needed, but he is essentially uninvolved.
The Biblical concept of God’s guidance, and what we see in Proverbs 16:1, is very different. It’s not just that God gives us light on our path to show us the way, but the idea that God has been, and is actively at work, to bring about his good, pleasing and perfect will in your life and in his world.
It’s not saying that he has the line of sight to see what’s needed, but he is essentially uninvolved.
God’s guidance we see, is not just something he gives from a distance. It’s something he does. Something he is actively doing right now – in this very moment – in your life.
Getting The Right Framework
And it’s important for you, I believe, to have a framework for understanding the dynamics of how God is working, and how you are working, and how those two things come together. For us to be thinking about how we make decisions and for us to be able to think about how we are experiencing and how we are responding to the situations where we are making decisions about life.
So what is this dynamic? How does this thing work?
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.
Our verse tells us that to us belong the plans of our heart, but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue.
Now you might paraphrase it like this: A man can have, or a woman can have, his or her own ideas, but the Lord inspires the word he or she utters.
Proverbs 16:9 says something very similar: “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
What does this mean?
The Sovereignty of God
Well very simply it means that in all things God is in control. In the words of the Westminster confession of faith God ordains whatever comes to pass. We make our plans, but God brings about his ends. He is sovereign.
The sovereignty of God is the exercise of his supremacy as he imminently and personally rules over all the affairs of the universe, including our personal lives.
I know you are taking a little step back because you are thinking “well… that sounds nice but that doesn’t sound too nice from a whole bunch of other angles too.” What does this mean? How on earth does this work together? And if it’s true, how does it actually help me in my decision making?
How does it actually help me with my decision making?
Well let me first establish what he’s not saying in this verse. Sometimes that’s a helpful think to do. Here’s what he’s not saying. He’s not saying “make your plans, but who cares because your plans are meaningless.” Because whatever God wants to happen will happen anyway. OK? That’s what he is not saying. He is not ridiculing people for making plans in their hearts that are never going to come to pass because God’s will is going to overrule that anyway.
So it’s very important to understand as you look at this verse…
[This sermon continues at timestamp 11:40]
