Wisdom For A Flourishing Life | Proverbs 16:9

Good morning, everybody.

How are you guys doing today?

Uh it's hot out there, so stay in here as long as you want.

Um my name is Bradley.

I uh my family and I have been attending here for about four years.

I think right after Pastor Andrew started here.

Um and we love it here.

We love this church.

We love our pastors, we're good friends with them, and um that's been a blessing to us.

I work with about 170 churches throughout the state of Nevada, so this church is one of them that I get to both attend and work.

So this is the one I attend, we choose to attend it.

But I get to work with a lot of churches, get to know a lot of pastors.

We're a part of a network of churches that are committed to a shared mission in our state, and even beyond that in the world, and we're just grateful that we uh get to be a part of that.

Our pastor um is he took his daughter to to college uh this weekend, I believe.

And I was telling him uh this morning, I didn't really want to make his day bad, but that was the hardest day of our lives when we took our oldest kid to college two years ago.

And um so I told him I was, I meant to tell him, I just wanted him to know I was praying for him.

I hope I didn't make it harder for him.

Um but we're about to do that again, our second one is going to school in a few weeks, and um, it's really difficult, but it's exciting too because we get to see our kids go and and we get to see them blossom.

We get to see them thrive, and that's our heart's desire is that our kids um would have a bright future.

Um our kids are one of the reasons that we love this church.

Our kids have been um invested in through this church, they have been treated uh like they belong to the body of Christ, and they've been uh their gifts have been um encouraged and they have they have really grown here.

I've seen our kids flourish spiritually because of the ministry of the church.

That's a testimony to our youth ministry, but it's a testimony to the culture that is being established here.

And the fact is, we want our kids to flourish in every part of their lives.

And uh so I speak into every part of their lives, right?

Like they don't like that necessarily.

And uh kids are always our easiest illustrations.

They're out there saying, okay, what's he gonna say?

Uh I just say this like I speak into my kids' lives, maybe more than they want to, me too.

They consider that to be nagging, I consider it to be imparting wisdom, right?

And if you're a parent, you understand that.

And one day they're gonna understand that the reason I do that, the reason my wife and I do that, is because we want them to flourish in every part of their lives.

We want them to grow, we want them to experience the best life they can.

We want them to make good choices, we want them to have things better than we have it necessarily.

We want them to avoid our mistakes.

This summer's uh sermon series is called Walking in Wisdom, and the book of Proverbs is written from the perspective of a father speaking words of wisdom into his son's life so that he may approach every part of life wisely and experience the best possible outcome.

This is a book about human flourishing.

And one of the concepts that continues to come up in the book of Proverbs is this idea of the fear of the Lord.

The phrase, the fear of the Lord, is used 15 times in the book of Proverbs.

Five of these times, the phrase reads, the fear of the Lord is, and then it defines it somehow.

Alright, so for example, the first one, we're gonna list all five of them.

The first one is chapter one, verse seven, says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

The fear of the Lord speaks of having awe, recognizing who God is, who he is as he is, right?

We fully understand that he is worthy of our worship.

He deserves our fear, he deserves our awe, he deserves to be recognized for who he is, and that found is foundational to us understanding truth, to us understanding, us having knowledge.

So true knowledge is based on the fact that we understand who God is, we fear him.

If we don't have that concept is foundational to our truth, we will have a different truth.

That's kind of one of the problems we see in this world.

They don't start from a place of fearing God.

The second one is in chapter 8, verse 13: the fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil.

And so if I if I fear the Lord and I recognize him for who he is, and I love him, I will love the things he loves and I will hate the things he hates.

He defines what evil is, and so I should hate it.

The fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil.

The third one is found in chapter 9, verse 10.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

So chapter 1, 7 says he is the beginning of knowledge.

The fear of the Lord is in chapter 9 the beginning of wisdom.

Wisdom is knowledge applied.

So there's a sort of a development here, right?

If he's foundational to knowledge, he's foundational to what I do with that knowledge.

And so the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.

Then 1427 says the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.

If he's the basis of true knowledge and he is um, he defines what evil is and what good is, and if he's the foundation for wisdom, I can find life in him.

The opposite of that would be destruction, would be death.

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.

It's where I it's where I understand and accumulate knowledge, it's where I develop a hatred toward evil, it's what it's where I determine what I do with my knowledge I have, is where true life comes from.

The abundant life comes from the fear of the Lord.

The last one is in chapter 15, verse 33, and it says, the fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom.

So I think there's more development here.

He's the beginning of knowledge, he's the beginning of wisdom, and then the fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, meaning as I grow in wisdom and I accumulate wisdom, at the center of that is the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord is foundational to everything in my life, in your life.

Each of these statements is an example of a poetic parallel structure that is common in Hebrew literature, where one statement is accompanied by another one that either emphasizes the opposite or the downside or the alternative, or it expands the idea that is conveyed.

Okay, so if you've seen that, and when you read the book of Proverbs and Psalms sometimes especially, you'll see this parallelism.

So it might describe, if it's talking about somebody walking in wisdom, it might describe, the second blind might describe how the fool acts.

Or it might expand what wise living looks like.

It might expand what wisdom looks like.

And so in Proverbs chapter 15, verse 33, the writer expands his statement, where the second part of the Proverb expands, clarifies, or builds on the first.

Proverbs 15:33

We call this synthetic parallelism.

Okay, you should learn something new with it.

Synthetic parallelism.

And so I want to read that full passage, the full statement there in 1533.

The fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom.

Here's the expansion, and humility comes before honor.

The fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom, and humility comes before honor.

Now, my passage this morning is Proverbs 16, verses 1 through 9.

Proverbs 16:1–9

It's probably my favorite proverb.

And commentators agree because of the similar content between chapter 15 and 16, they probably go together.

And so 1533 sort of functions like a hinge verse.

Meaning it's got application to both what comes before it and what comes after it.

So 1533, this concept of the fear of the Lord being instruction and wisdom, and humility comes before otter, governs what's coming after it.

In chapter 1, in verses uh chapter 16, verses 1 through 9.

Okay?

So we start here.

I think it's worth looking into this a little bit.

The fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom, which means that a key ingredient to living a life of human flourishing is the fear of the Lord.

That's the key ingredient.

All right?

Seeing God in his proper place and then responding accordingly, seeing him for who he is, and responding from a place of awe and respect.

To fear the Lord is to stand in awe of him.

The second part of the proverb then expands on the first, okay, to emphasize what a proper posture of the creature is.

So God is one to be feared.

The posture of the creature, then, is awe and specifically humility.

That's the posture that we should have before God.

He says, humility comes before honor.

So we're talking about flourishing life.

Honor is a part of that.

What comes first is humility.

Now that word translated honor there is a Hebrew word, it's an important Hebrew word.

It's the word kovod, which can be translated weightiness or heaviness, sometimes translated glory.

It carries the idea of significance, or maybe a good word would be influence.

That's what this word covod means.

We can think about it as success in life, influence on others.

And maybe you've been in a room where somebody who's got some influence walks in.

Is anybody famous when you're like, whoa, the room just got a little heavier?

So I uh was at the Southern Baptist Convention back in Orlando a few months ago, and there's a guy named uh Al Moller.

Anyone heard of Al Moller?

He's the less than probably um if we were on the other side of the country.

He's like the president of the biggest seminary that the Southern Baptist uh churches have.

We have about six of them, and he's the president of them, and he has been for a long time.

When Al Moller speaks, he carries the room.

Like everybody shuts up.

Al's talking.

And I you know, I don't know if I agree with everything he says or anything.

I just know that when he walks in, you can feel it.

And I he he seems like a humble person.

I briefly got to meet him.

I I don't sh like sweat a whole lot when I meet people meet up meet a lot of people.

I don't get too intimidated, but some people do because they have weight.

There, there's uh influence because of the things they've done in their lives.

Or um they've been successful, they've maybe produced something, they've impacted a lot of people.

He's produced a lot of, through his ministry, produced a lot of other preachers and pastors and key leaders in the churches.

Now there's nothing wrong with wanting to be successful or seeking influence or even seeking honor.

There's nothing wrong with that.

When my kids do something well in school, like I show up for the award ceremonies.

I don't tell them, no, you can't go because that you don't need to be seeking honor.

No, you get to go to that.

I want them to be recognized.

I think that honor is a good thing.

It's okay to take pride in our accomplishments.

I want my kids to have goals.

I want my kids to make more money than I do because they need to take care of me.

I want them to make, I want them, it's a preacher's life.

You hope your kids do something different, you know.

It's like uh I want them to have influence in this world, I want them to make a difference in this world.

I want them to influence people, whether they choose to be a minister or they choose to do whatever it is, I want them to impact people with the gospel, I want them to impact people through their relationship with God.

It's not a sin.

I want them to have influence.

It's not a sin to seek these things, except if that pursuit of honor or influence comes from a place of pride, comes from a place of wanting to lift myself up.

When we seek in our hearts to be maybe elevated to the place that only God deserves, we want to be feared, then it becomes sin.

We need to remember our proper place.

We need to see God in his proper place, and we need to remember who we need to see ourselves in our proper place.

We need to have a posture of humility.

Because when we have a posture of humility before God, our honor becomes an avenue for God's glory.

What I do, what I accomplish, who I influence, I'm directing the glory to him rather than to myself.

That's what it's proper.

When I see God in his place, I see myself in my proper place.

So for the Christian, for the father, for the follower of Jesus, the one who knows God, the path to honor or the path to influence is humility.

And the writer of Proverbs wants his readers to see God and to see themselves, for us to see ourselves in the proper place.

And so it's significant then, as we get into chapter 16, that these first six, these first nine verses of chapter 16, the Lord, the the name of the Lord, Yahweh, is included eight times.

Eight of the nine verses.

And it's not like that, I mean, the Lord is mentioned a number of times before and after, but it like increases, it like speeds up.

It's like one of those speed tracks you hit when you're playing like uh those old barrio games, you know?

It speeds up.

It's like the Lord, the Lord, the Lord.

Why?

Because he's as he's talking about what it looks like to have a life changed by God, an influential life, a flourishing life, he wants us to remember that the Lord has to be in the forefront.

He wants us to keep the Lord in the proper in his proper place.

Okay?

So with that in mind, let's read it.

Let's read chapter 16, verses 1 through 9.

It says, the plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the Spirit.

Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord.

Be assured he will not go unpunished.

By steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil.

When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.

The heart of a man plans his ways, but the Lord establishes his steps.

Amen?

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray briefly.

God, we're grateful.

We're grateful for your word.

We're grateful for your truth.

And I pray that we, as we look at your word, we would be accurate.

We would see it rightly, we would see you rightly, and we would respond accordingly.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Our big idea this morning, and I know it was a little bit of a long introduction to our passage, but it's actually important for us to see 16 in its context.

Okay?

So the big idea is a flourishing life begins with seeing God rightly and humbly committing every part of life to him.

A flourishing life begins with seeing God rightly and humbly committing every part of life to him.

There's two main two main points in my outline today.

I want to start with the first one, which is focused on the first three verses of this passage.

And in true life Baptist form, we'll start it this way, okay?

When we see God rightly, we, first of all, we remember that he controls all outcomes.

When we see God rightly, we remember that he controls all outcomes.

He is omnipotent.

Now, people who know me well know I'm a planner.

In fact, I have a paper, like an actual spiral planner that I carry with me almost everywhere I go.

It's actually in the uh other room with me right now.

I always have it.

Because I have to plan.

It's uh I'm more productive when I plan.

If I wing it, which is kind of my natural tendency, like I used to wing it.

Then then life just got super busy.

And I'm like, I can't do this winging it.

Right?

So I plan.

Planning is good.

I'm more productive when I want to do that, I'm more effective, I don't forget as many things, I see the bigger picture.

But most people around me will know, they know that when my plans change, when things get off track, when someone messes up my schedule, I don't always do well.

I'm intentionally not looking at my family right now.

So the other day, a friend of mine stops by my office, close friend of mine, one of my best friends, and uh he I didn't really know he was coming, and so he comes to my office, he says, Yeah, I won't take too long.

I know you're I know you're regimented.

But he actually said that.

And I responded, and yet you're still here.

I didn't actually say that, it just kind of came to my mind, but um when my plans get messed up, I kind of spiral sometimes.

Uh like the situation changes, surprises come up, things don't turn out the way I want them to, my world becomes unstable because I'm not in control anymore, I lose it.

And this passage tells me here that God has designed us to plan, but he has not designed us to be in complete control, in ultimate control.

That's his job.

And so when I see rightly, I don't have to be in control of everything.

My world doesn't have to become unstable when things don't go as as planned or if answers elude me.

Because God is in control.

Because God is in control, we can experience rest in our lives instead of anxiety.

I'm not saying that every person's anxiety is because of a proper theology, but the fact is, many of for many of us it is.

The fact is, much of our anxiety comes because we want to be in control.

We want to do God's job.

And when I remember that he's in control, I can rest.

It's like in Jesus says in Matthew chapter 6, he says, Do not be anxious about your life.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

What you will eat or what you will drink, what you will put on.

Your heavenly father knows you need them, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

And all these things will be added to you.

Like those things he says, don't be anxious about are pretty important.

I'm actually supposed to plan for those.

Like we plan to feed our kids.

We plan to eat, I plan to buy clothing.

But he says, don't let those things be a source of our anxiety, because remember that God is in control.

He knows you need those things.

And also because God is in control, uh, we can respond in surrender instead of resistance.

So when things aren't going my way, I don't have to fight him on it.

I can go with it.

I can be obedient.

I can let him show me his plan.

I can rest.

I don't have to resist.

I don't have to go into a place of rebellion.

Things I don't like in my life, I can say, I can say, okay.

The second thing that happens when we see God rightly is we remember that he knows all the details.

I know that he's in control, but I also know that he knows all the details.

He's omniscient.

As we make our plans, we need to have in mind that God knows all the intricate details involved in what's gonna happen.

Specifically, he knows it's what's in my heart when I'm planning.

See, he knows all the ways that I plan sometimes from a place of ignorance.

Because as a human, I can never, as a human, I can never know all the information, even though I want to.

Like, how many of you are like, I need to know all that information before I make a decision?

Some of us are just wired that way.

The fact is, we don't have to know all that because he does.

And so if I make a mistake because I didn't know something, or maybe that was missing something, it's okay.

I can actually give myself some forgiveness of there.

And I can actually forgive others when they make mistakes because they're not perfect, because in spite of all that, in spite of the ways we mess it up, he's still in control.

And he also knows all the details.

He also knows the ways that I plan with impure or insel or impure or selfish motives.

I don't, I do not know how much my planning is tainted by my own sinful disposition.

Has that ever occurred to you?

Have you ever realized as you're planning things, like, I don't even know the ways I'm messing this up?

Because I'm a sinner.

But God does, he knows all things, and when I surrender even my impure motives to him, he can redeem them.

He can use me in spite of them, and he can redeem them when I don't fully understand him.

Proverbs 24, 12 says, if you say, Behold, we did not know this, does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

Does not he keep watch over your soul, know it?

Will he not repay man according to his work?

We can trust God and all the outcomes.

He's just, and he can even make up for the things that we don't know are happening.

This should give us peace that when I might miss something, or even subconsciously corrupt it, I can trust God for the outcomes.

Now that is not a pass on selfish motives.

There's lots of times when I'm fully aware of my selfish motives.

Okay?

But there's times when I don't.

And so the passage that comes to my mind as I'm thinking through that is Psalm chapter 1.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

39 verse 23 and 24 where the writer says, Search me, O God, and know my heart and see if there be any grievous way in me.

Knowing that I have imperi motives, I can trust God to work in spite of those, but I can also regularly be coming to Him and saying, Search me.

Please show me where my motives are wrong here.

And then we sit down to make our plans.

We need to remember that we are not God.

And so I don't have to be in control of all these things.

I don't have to be indecisive.

I can make decisions.

I don't have to get stuck.

Do you ever feel stuck sometimes because you just don't think you know everything, or you've like, you're like, oh, I'm gonna mess it up, I'm gonna make a mistake.

I get frozen sometimes.

This passage tells us we don't have to.

We sit down and make our plans.

We hold those plans loosely, we become can be we become uh be consistent in prayer, we surrender our plans and our motives to the Lord, and we can let him have it.

And then when we see God rightly, it's the third thing here, when we see God rightly and we see ourselves rightly, we respond by committing every part of life to him.

We respond by committing every part of life to him.

This statement in verse 3 is the crescendo of this passage, just like the main point.

It's the only imperative in this section here.

It's the only thing we're told, do this.

This is our wise instruction.

When we see God in his rightful place and we understand our rightful place, we respond to him by committing all our works, all our deeds to him.

This word commit is a Hebrew word that means to roll.

It literally means to roll.

Right?

So think about like if you ever rolled a like a big rock down a mountain.

I guess you're not supposed to do that, probably it's not safe.

But if you've ever done something like that, you understand once that thing goes, it's gone.

Right?

You can't control it.

That's why you're not supposed to do that.

If you try to stop it, you'll probably hurt yourself.

So when I commit my deeds to the Lord, I'm literally throwing them, say, okay, you take these things.

They're yours.

Take it.

When we commit to the Lord our work, we do two things.

We surrender it to God, meaning we're open to whatever he wants to do in our lives, and then we entrust it to God.

We entrust those plans, we entrust the outcomes of him.

Knowing that in carrying out his will, he has our best interests in mind.

That's what this kind of commitment looks like.

But this commitment should be a response to seeing him in his proper place.

Meaning it is an act of worship, it is a response to God's revelation of himself to us.

We commit our ways to him.

Now, as an act of worship, I realize that as a creature, I don't have any reason to expect anything in return.

And yet, he does offer something in return.

He offers, he says here, to establish our plans, to make them firm, to bring stability to our lives that only he is able to give.

When we walk through this life, seeing God for who he is and responding accordingly, he establishes our plans.

And then verses four through eight show us the evidences of that in our lives.

There are evidences of what an established, a life established by God, plans established by God, steps established by God look like.

Okay, so here's the second main point here.

When we commit everything to the Lord, our lives become marked by confidence instead of uncertainty.

When we commit everything to the Lord, this is our act of worship, this is our response to Him.

When we commit everything to the Lord, our lives become marked by confidence instead of uncertainty.

Verse 4 says that God has made everything for its purpose.

Everything.

That includes us.

One of the reasons many of us struggle with indecision in life, we may seem unstable, we might feel lost, directionless, per uh, you know, like without a purpose, without an aim in life, is we don't have a sense of purpose.

This is a problem for a lot of young people.

Um but it's not exclusive to them.

Like, there's times in my life when I'm like, what is my purpose?

What am I what am I really good at?

We wonder if we belong, we wonder why other people seem to have things figured out when we don't.

You ever feel that way?

You look around and you think, man, this person's really successful.

They're my age.

Like, wow, that this like I'm I sometimes look at other people and I think, what's what have I done wrong?

Where's my purpose?

And I'm not gonna give you five steps to finding your purpose in life today.

But I can give you the first one.

The first step of finding your purpose in life is knowing that you have one.

Like, God has made you for a purpose.

Everything has its purpose.

And your purpose, your primary purpose, is to glorify God.

That's the first thing.

1 Corinthians 8, 6 says, Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.

And one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

We're made by him and we're made for him.

And so if Matthew 6 is correct, and we are called to seek the kingdom of God first, so that all these other things can be added, I think one of the other things that can be added is a sense of purpose in life.

It starts with the purpose of glorifying God, and he will show you what exactly he wants you, wants from you in your life.

One thing I've noticed, I was a small group, I was a community groups, discipleship pastor for a long time.

One of the things I noticed is when people have a have no sense of purpose, they tend to isolate themselves.

They tend to pull away from community rather than lean into it.

Oftentimes because you look around and you think, I can't measure up to these, the people around me, even though most people around you are not thinking of you like that.

I have this good friend, um, he's a fighter pilot.

Like, I he's my age too.

Like, he did all this cool stuff.

I talk about like I met him later in life, and he'd done all he'd done most of his cool stuff, right?

And I'm like, dude, I why are you hanging out with me?

I felt that a lot of times.

And I there's it's it would have been easy to walk around him and be like, dude, I I I have nothing to say here.

Um but the fact is I leaned into that, and this became one of my best friends.

I mean, this is a guy who, when he walked in the room, he had literally weight, you know, like the the awards and stuff, the weighty.

Like that was that kind of person, and and I remember just leaning into that friendship, and this has become one of the most influential friends in my life.

Continually speaking life into me and giving me a sense of purpose, like confirming purpose in me, showing, telling me what he sees in me, believing in me.

Because like I leaned into that community, we leaned into it.

So I encourage you, if you are feeling that, lean into community, join a group, meet somebody, come to the breakfast.

Like it is a place where you can be affirmed and confirmed in your purposes, your purpose in life.

There's great comfort in knowing that all that God made, including you, is made with a purpose.

But what is comfort for the godly should be cause of fear for the wicked.

Because the text says the wicked is made for the day of trouble.

And that is not to say that God makes people wicked or is the cause of their sin.

It just means that the wicked do not fall out of the realm of God's sovereignty.

The passage is a reminder that if we do not submit to the plans of God, we will be subjected to the plans of God.

I'd rather submit to God's will than be subjected to it.

Because even the wicked serve their purposes in God's plan.

The second thing is when we commit everything to the Lord, our lives become marked by humility instead of pride.

This word translated arrogant here.

In verse 5, it means lofty.

It's the point here is that when we try to lift ourselves up in pride and arrogance, we become of an abomination.

Something that is detestable before God.

Because unlike the humble, the arrogant person sees God not in his proper place and sees self not in his proper place.

We want to reverse the roles.

That's what the arrogant person does, and that's why God hates that.

There's no stability for the person who's always reaching for greater exaltation.

Have you ever met somebody like that?

Like, it's just never enough.

They just want more because they keep looking to be exalted further and further.

There's no rest there.

And pride is one of those sins that sneaks up on us.

It shows up in the weird places, like when we're criticizing somebody for their sins or for their weaknesses.

It's not always about like, look at me, look what I'm done.

I might be like, look at that guy.

That's how arrogance sometimes shows up.

It shows up when we gossip, it shows up in certain prayer requests we make.

Pray for him.

That's arrogance.

It's one of those sins we tend to tolerate sometimes, even in church.

But this word abomination is a big word.

The arrogant person is in bad company.

If you look to chapter, uh Proverbs chapter 6, verse 16, it says there are six things the Lord hates, seven that are abomination to him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among the brothers.

Proverbs 6:16

So the person who is arrogant, the person who is proud, has some pretty bad company.

You're listed with the liars, the murderers, really bad people, people who like sow, like who want to cause trouble all the time.

The arrogant person is just in the same position.

But the person whose ways are established, who's committed his ways to the Lord, is not characterized by pride.

Which leads to our third point here is when we commit everything to the Lord, our lives become marked by loving, kindness, and truth instead of selfishness and deceit.

This phrase, steadfast love and faithfulness, these are Hebrew words hesed and amet.

And it's interesting, they're used a lot together throughout the Old Testament.

Like the words, they're like a phrase, they're like married.

And they mean, like they can be used like uh 2 Samuel chapter 6, chapter 2, verse 6, it's used as a blessing, like God's blessing.

2 Samuel 6 · chapter mention

This is, I want God's favor on you.

And so these two words are put together for that.

This is the character of God, but it's also throughout the scriptures, like shown to be like character we're supposed to emulate as followers of God, as God's people.

This is the character of God that we're supposed to emulate.

We're supposed to be like him in these areas.

Hesed speaks of his loving kindness admit to his truth and faithfulness.

The characteristics of God that should characterize his people.

And there are characteristics of God that cause him to provide atonement for the sin by Christ.

Now it's linked with the word atonement here.

By steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for.

These are the characteristics of God that have caused him to provide atonement for us.

If you don't know Jesus, this may seem a little strange to you, but all humans, all this human weakness we're talking about that's exposed in this chapter of Proverbs, is a result of human sin.

It's our sin before God, and it caused us to be separated from him relationally.

The punishment of that sin is death, but in his Hesed and His Emmet, His loving kindness and his truth, he has provided, He sent His Son Jesus to the world to live and die as a human, to pay for sin, to offer a way of reconciliation to God.

Jesus rose again, returned to heaven to advocate for those who believe in him, on their behalf, before God, and he removes our iniquity and restores our relationship with God.

Right?

That's who God is.

This is the character that allows him to do that.

But that is not the atonement we're talking about here.

When we have this character, like the steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for, I'm not making atonement before God for my sins.

I'm just having this character that looks like him, that looks like the core of who he is.

And when I when I am characterized by that, I can make atonement or I can cover for the sins of my past.

Meaning, if I've hurt you, and you because you know that my life was characterized by sinfulness, selfishness, and deceit, and I've hurt you along the way, if my life is changed and I become a person who's characterized by steadfast love, loving kindness, and truth, I can actually make up for the things I've done to you.

It can actually rewrite the story.

There's restorative power in these characteristics.

They can, they don't atone for my sin before God, but they might fix the relationship I have with you.

Proverbs 10, 12 says, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

These characteristics can bring healing to broken relationships.

Which leads to our next when we commit everything to the Lord, our lives become marked forth by peace with others instead of conflict.

When we are not fighting for position, power, prestige, honor, when we sit in a place of humility, many of our conflicts go away.

And he talks about conflicts, you can have peace with your enemy.

I think maybe he's using the extreme to demonstrate that all of your conflicts at the bait at the core of it probably have something to do with your lack of humility.

Your pride.

Get out of the way.

Whether that's a conflict you have at home, in your marriage, in your uh something going on at work, maybe a hard relationship with a neighbor, I guarantee every conflict in your life, one or both of you, is wanting to lift yourself up higher than the other.

What if we entered each conflict from a place of humility?

How many conflicts would be erased?

When we commit our ways to the Lord, we're actually able to see him bring peace where peace is not explainable.

Lastly, when we commit everything to the Lord, our lives become marked by doing right instead of getting ahead.

He says it's better to have little with righteousness than a lot with injustice.

Or that word could be translated with that lawlessness.

Now uh, I'm gonna give you guys the benefit of the doubt, I'm gonna assume most of us would never skim money from places of business or something like that.

Most of us in this room, I hope, aren't doing anything that could get us put sent to prison.

You know.

But the fact is, if you've ever put somebody, have you ever put anybody down in order to get ahead?

Have you ever manipulated somebody to make an extra buck on a sale?

Have you ever sold a car and didn't know that car had a defect?

Got a little money more money from it than you should have.

Have you ever slandered or gossiped someone to make yourself look better?

Have you ever taken unethical shortcuts to get ahead?

I um I've getted to the point where I kind of like to play around with AI.

It's kind of a fun little game.

Um sometimes it's fun to see where it goes wrong.

But oh uh, I find it's helpful when I'm trying to write things, it helps me with language, it helps me tweaking some things, it helps me to edit.

Sometimes it just helps me process thoughts in my mind, kind of get them out.

I'm currently pursuing uh a doctoral degree, and I if and if I let one of those programs write my papers for me, my life would be a lot easier.

I'd have a lot more time on my hands.

However, it's wrong.

You probably will get caught, but even if you don't get caught, it's still not right.

Uh AI can help me clean up my sermon notes.

But I promise you, I did not ask AI to write my sermon today.

That would not be right.

It would have been made my life a lot easier.

I'd have had a few more, uh, a little more time to do some things at home, do some things with my kids, but that's not right.

When your way is committed to the Lord, you can always choose to do what's right because getting ahead is not the ultimate goal for the person who sees God and self rightly.

Getting ahead is not the ultimate goal.

Glorifying Him is the ultimate goal.

And so, what happens if we choose to do right no matter what the cost?

Like it's gonna cost us something sometimes to do what's right, to treat people well, to get ahead the right way, to take the slow road, maybe.

It's gonna cost us something, but what if we always just choose that?

Now we're wrapping up with this.

When you get to verse 9, it says, better is a little, I'm sorry, the heart of man plans his ways, but the Lord establishes his steps.

That probably sounds a little familiar.

It sounds a lot like what we saw in verse one.

Um, we call this an inclusio.

It's uh like when these the first and last lines of a section kind of sound alike.

Sometimes they're identical, sometimes they're just close.

It tells you that they're the this is a package.

You need to read all this together.

So you actually see in verse 9 elements of verse 1, and you see elements of verse 3.

Okay, can you see that?

So you see that that's called an inclusio.

It means you need to read this section and take it as a whole.

That's why I'm spending so much time working through all these little pieces.

You don't want to miss part of it.

He says, the heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes step.

What does the life of a man whose steps are established by the Lord look like?

It looks like what we just read from verses four to eight.

Okay, so let's throw this whole list up there.

What does the life of a man whose steps are established by the Lord look like?

It looks like confidence instead of uncertainty.

It looks like humility instead of pride.

It looks like loving, kindness, and truth instead of selfishness and deceit.

It looks like peace with others instead of conflict.

It looks like doing right instead of getting ahead.

That is the evidence that your life is flourishing.

How do we arrive at this life?

Well, verse 3 tells us that we arrived at that life by committing our work, our deeds to the Lord.

Why do I commit my work to the Lord?

Because I see God rightly.

Because I recognize that he is omnipotent and he is uh omniscient.

Why do I commit my work to the Lord?

Because I see him rightly.

I see him as one who is deserving of fear and awe and worship.

And I see myself as the creature who should stand before my Maker with humility.

And that also gives me the freedom to stand before you with humility.

This is the posture we should have before him, before the Lord, and before one another.

He is to be feared, we are to be humble, and when I see that, I can stop trying to be the God of my own life.

And I can submit and entrust everything to him.

Then he says, our way, our steps will be established and our lives will flourish.

A flourishing life begins with seeing God rightly and humbly committing every part of life to him.

Guys, this is a daily challenge.

It is for me, I'm sure it is for you.

I look through this list and I see a lot of things I'm not quite there, I'm not quite lined up.

But I'll say this.

My job then is not to look at each of those things from verses four through eight and actively like strive for those.

Those are the evidence, those are the result, those are the product.

When I'm finding weakness or uh if I'm lacking in any of these areas, what I need to realize is that I'm not seeing God and myself rightly.

That's where I've got to go.

If any of these are missing in your life, the answer is to look to the Lord.

To return to this place of fearing him.

Amen?

Good.

So here's some uh our truth to life, two truth to life questions.

The first one is, do you fear the Lord?

And that's a loaded one.

Do you fear the Lord?

Do you even recognize him for who he is?

Have you come to a place where you don't need to be or want to be Lord in your life?

You're willing to let him, you actually recognize him as the creator of all, who loves you and wants to know you.

If you're not given your life to the Lord, it starts with this from this place of fear or awe or recognition.

The second question is do you see the Lord and yourself rightly?

So maybe your fear of the Lord.

Have you really thought about who he is?

Thought about his character, thought about his truths, thought about his power, his control, seeing him in his place of all knowing, knowing everything.

Have you seen who he is?

Do you see him and yourself and rightly?

Are you coming in a place of from a place of humility?

Is that your posture before him?

And that's something we all we can all get mixed up.

We constantly need to be asking ourselves, do I see myself rightly?

Do I see him rightly?

And the thirdly, is your life flourishing?

Do you see in the lot in your life the evidences that you're seeing God Himself rightly?

Some questions to think about.

I hope that as you read Proverbs 16, you'll see it in a different way.

Maybe look a little more deeply between the lines, understand what he's calling us to do ultimately is to see him and to respond with a life of worship.

Amen?

Okay?

Let's pray.

God, we thank you so much for this passage.

We thank you for your word.

We're thankful, we're thankful so much that we get to read it.

It's been preserved for us.

We're thankful for your servants who have written these words, written them from their hearts, moved by your Holy Spirit, to give us the words you want us to see, but they're words from their lives.

They represent their truth, their struggles.

They represent the way you've treated them, the way you've encouraged them, the way you've taught them.

And they write these things down so we can learn from them and we can apply them in our own lives, so we can be obedient in these areas as well.

And so I pray you'd help us to read the book of Proverbs and to internalize it and to be obedient by giving everything in our lives to you.

So if there's an area in our lives where we're not giving to you, we're not committing to you, I pray you'd show us.

If there's an area where we're holding back and holding ourselves up above you, I pray that you'd show us.

Thank you for this time in Jesus' name, amen.