Chasing Direction | Pastor Brandon Beals | Venture Church

Hey, everybody, this is Pastor Brandon. I want to thank

you for watching our YouTube channel. Please in the comments

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a blast for us to see from where people are

watching from around the world.

Thank you for watching. Enjoy the service.

Can you pop Alan back up again? Or in the

words of David Diaz, his name is Wally Harry something

now his name is Alan. I think it's sad that

we don't have his face showing yet. It's up to

you to get a space showing. Honestly, our hope is

that every single person in our church would participate in this.

And I know churches.

Talk a lot about giving, and we have here a lot,

We've had a lot of projects over and above tithe,

but one of the values.

Of our church is generosity.

And this is us seeding into the future of our church, because, uh,

the Kids Ministry is the next generation and they are

the future of our church. And our goal is that

we create a kid's environment that is so incredible that

your kids are dragging you to church. And that's our hope.

And we thank you for your involvement, and we do

unapologetically challenge every single one of you to be involved

because we will eventually hit this goal and you'll see

the finished project product. And what you'll want to be

able to do is know that you were a part

of making that happen. So again, I thank you for

your giving. Let's dive into the message. Sound good, Grab

your bibles. Turn to Proverbs chapter three. I am continuing

the series that will take us to the end of

the month and then we're closing the book on Solomon

for a while, but we are looking at the Book

of Proverbs today. I want to unwrap the promises in

Proverbs three. Would you do me a favor? I want

to ask everybody by your heads, close your eyes.

I want to take a moment.

I want to pray for you, Dear Jesus, in the

next several moments as I share your word, looking at

all these different people that are here. They have different stories,

different challenges. They've come into this place this morning with

different worries, different heaviness, different things that they're processing. And Lord,

today as we unwrap your word, which really talks to

us about putting our faith and trust in You, Lord,

I pray that we might have come in with this weight,

but we would leave holding on to this trust in

you God. I asked that you would help me as

I communicate your word, Please speak through me, Please anoint me.

I asked that you would use me in your precious name.

I pray Amen. I really like my job. A lot

of times. I love my job. I feel very privileged

to lead this church, Dian. I say often that venture

has become one of the joys of our life to

be the pastors of this church. But it's not an

easy job. We met with a new family in our

church last week and they asked, and we get asked

this fairly often. It's just typical question that non pastors

ask pastors, and it's the famous question, So what do

you do during the week? A lot like, we don't

have a forty hour a week job, we don't have

a fifty hour week job. We don't have a sixty

hour week job. You refer to ministry as a lifestyle

job that you can't ever turn it off, that there's.

Always needs somewhere.

It doesn't matter. You can be on vacation in Hawaii.

You could be standing in a line to go to

a ride at Disneyland and someone finds you and needs.

You and gets a hold of you.

So ministry is a calling, and when you accept this calling,

you accept that this is a lifestyle and that some

years are better than others. Sometimes the job is super fun,

sometimes the job is.

Super not fun.

I like to think some years are awesome, some years

are not awesome.

I've been the pastor of the church, Dian.

I started it twenty two years ago, and I was

trying to think back so I was accurate when I

made this statement. I'd say, out of the twenty two years,

we've had fifteen awesome years, which means we've had seven

not quite awesome years.

For those of you that are good at math.

That means that usually one out of every three years

is a tough year. Now here's the hardest part about

my job is that tough years are usually due to

circumstances fully out of my control. Like I like it

when I create my own problems because I can fix me.

Like I love being able to conclude that things are

going bad because of you, Brandon, because then I can

change myself, fix me. But in my profession, things go

bad usually fully out of your control. Like I have

no control over who gets elected in any election, but

no matter who is in the White House. Someone's ticked

off about it, and for whatever reason, they take it

out on me. I have no control over the economy,

none at all. I have no control over people leaving, moving,

transitioning for a wide variety of reasons. And dian I

in particular, like our staff. We meet with people all

the time and they come to Venture and they're like, Wow,

the church is really big, but people still know my name,

and that is because our staff loves people. Our pastoral

staff is highly relational. And when you love people and

you're relational, you get attached to people. We like you,

we love you, we love spending time with you. It

is fun for us to be your pastor. And every

time you move, we are crushed every time. And people

move for a variety of reasons. They move because they

can't afford to live here anymore.

They can't.

They have to move because they're in the tech industry,

and every few years they switch tech.

Companies they work for.

People move and transition, and people move and transition that

we deep love. My job is amazing, and it's also

very difficult. I was remembering COVID. We're allowed to say

COVID now right. It used to be if you said

COVID it caused like this PTSD reaction. But I think

we're all like growing past it now. I remember once

churches opened again, and our church opened earlier than some

other churches, and every time I would preach, the world

got very black and white. There was no gray, There

was nothing in the middle. So every time I preached,

I ticked someone off. Now, every time I preached, there

were people that were shouting me down, pumped at what

I was saying, but there was always somebody that I

ticked off. This is not an exaggeration. Ask my wife

if you don't believe me. In that season, it got

so intense that after I preached on Sunday, Dian I

would get home, and I lived in Mill Creek in

spring Tree, about five minutes away, and I would just

stand in my front yard as people from our church

would drive by to give me feedback on.

What I said.

On average, it was three people every Sunday, and I

would just stand. Some of you wonder why I live

in muckel Teo. Now have that happen a few times.

There's like times where my job is awesome and times

where it's not. The ironic thing is you relate to

that too. I talked about me, but the reality is

this is you too. There's times you love your job,

there's times you don't. There's times that years are going amazing,

and then there's times they're not. And we all experiencing

these challenging moments that oftentimes are fully out of our control.

And those moments that are out of our control bring

us back to what I talk to you about last week,

that the Book of Proverbs, Solomon refers to two different

women that are vying for your attention. And I reminded

you that it was a metaphor. And one of those

women that he refers to is wisdom, and the other

one is folly. And I broke it down and one

is God's plan for our life versus our plan for

our life, God's way of thinking, our way of thinking,

listening to God, listening to all the outside voices. Wisdom, foolishness.

Life is this constant struggle, this constant pull between the two.

It is this tug a war between my plan versus

His plan.

And I'll tell you it is super easy to trust

God the two out of three years.

When everything's going great.

I think you'd agree if your finances are great, it's

easy to have an extra giving opportunity and help fill

up Alan and make him full. But when finances are tough,

whenever there's opportunities to give over and above your tithe

that becomes a real tension point with us. It's that

one year when the finances are tight, when people are challenging,

when work is stressful, that it's harder to choose God's plan. Today,

I want to talk to you about what is arguably

the most famous of all the proverbs. And I'm actually

going to break down all of Proverbs three, but I

want to share the famous verses. And these are verses

that I challenge you to memorize. These are verses that

you want to have woven into the fabric of your life.

And it's Proverbs chapter three, Verse five. Trust in the

Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on

your own understanding. But in all your ways submit to Him,

and He will make your paths straight. It is a

constant reminder that God will never fail you, that if

you live according to the conditions that are lined out

in that chapter, chapter three, this is a promise that

you can take to the bank for your life, for

your family, and for your future. Now, I've told you

many times that the Bible is full of if then promises.

In other words, the.

Bible will say, if you do this, then God will

do this. We hate conditional promises because we think we

should just get, we just deserve. But the Bible's full

of these conditional promises. The one thing that I can

assure you is that God will always fulfill his end

of the bargain. The question is will you do our part?

Proverbs three is an if then promise that if we

do this.

This will be the result.

And he actually tells us that if you put all

your trust in God, if you choose to not lean

on your own understanding. Goes on in verse seven, it says,

do not be wise in your own eyes.

I mean, that's the way most people are. We think

we got it.

The problem is you think you got it, and I

deal with you when you don't got it, and I

find out really quickly that you are your own worst enemy.

It says, do not be wise in your own eyes,

but fear the Lord and shun evil. And we talked

about fearing the Lord what that really means last week.

If you missed it, go back and listen to that message.

But he goes on and he says, here's what happens

if you actually trust in the Lord, if you don't

put your weight on yourself, but you're really trusting God.

And I've been very honest about my challenges in my

past with anxiety, and in that time, when my anxiety

was at its worse, I came up with this metaphor

kind of illustration for myself. And I would have a

closed fist and an open hand, and these two things

symbolize the way that I was to live my life.

And if I didn't live my life this way, my

anxiety would increase. And here's what it means to me.

When my fist is closed. This is to illustrate that

I hold on to Jesus with everything, with all my might,

all my strength, and I hold on to everything else

open handed. And as soon as I do what is

human nature, which is hold on to what I got

my finances, my health, my family, my job, my church,

and I get tighter and tighter on these things, I

loosen my grip on Jesus, and my anxiety shoots through

the roof. Every time my anxiety increases, I step back

and I'm like, oh, I'm loosening my grip on Jesus.

This is this understanding that if you hold tight to

Jesus and hold everything else loosely, trust in the Lord

with all your heart. Do not lean on your own

understanding and all your ways. Submit to him. He'll make

your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes.

And I know you're smart. I know you have a

bunch of degrees hanging on a wall. I know you

got a great title for your job. But don't be

wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and shun evil.

If you do those things. This is what the Bible says.

Here's the benefit. If you do this, then God will

do this.

It says.

This will bring health to your body and nourishment to

your bones. Like literally, trusting in God makes you healthy.

Trusting in God feeds your insides. I think it's safe

to say that trusting in God extends your life expectancy.

Trusting in God increases your quality of life. Trusting in

God makes you feel better about yourself when you look

yourself in the mirror. How do I know all of

those things are an issue today because of the crazy

links people go to to have health in their body

and nourishment in their bones. Think of the crazy things

people do to make their life expectancy longer, to look younger.

I mean, there's a long list of things that you

will shoot into your body, body, things that you will

do to your body because someone somewhere said they're healthy

and good for you. Here's just a couple of them.

All you gotta do is google.

Don't do it, now, do it after I'm done.

Weird things people do because it has health benefits. It's crazy,

these lists. But here's a few that I find amusing.

I do one of them. I have a hot tub

and I have a cold plunge. Now, people will tell

you that a cold plunch is refreshing. No, it's terrible.

It's just absolutely terrible. But I do it because it's

supposed to be good for my blood circulation. And the

first thing I do every single morning is I get

up and I force myself to sit in that cold

plunch for five minutes. I will tell you it does

one thing. It sure wakes me up. And then I

jump in the hot tub and scald myself. And then

I go back to the cold plunge. And I'm like,

if I find out some this has no health benefit.

I'm literally torturing myself. But people do that. Here's something

that people do. They put onions in their socks at

night while they sleep. Supposedly this is to help you

fight off an illness.

I have them.

I don't have anything bionic other than I have bionic smell,

like I get triggered by anybody else, triggered by smells.

Those of you that are putting onions in your socks.

I will never share a room with you. I don't

care if it's a missions trip. We're trying to change

another country. For Jesus, you stink. I won't even sit

by you on a bus. But people do that because

it helps in fight illness. Here's another thing is people

will eat raw hot peppers supposed to help with migrains,

supposed to help with pain. I think it's strictly a

diversion technique. So you're eating these things that are burning

your mouth, and you're forgetting that you had a headache afterwards.

There's more, but you can ask me in the lobby

and I'll share them with you if you're trust in God.

Provides health to your body, nourishment to your bones. But

there's four conditions you have to meet to have this

be a reality in your life, and they're spelled out

in Proverbs three.

I'm gonna hit them quickly.

Number one is you must learn God's truth. In other words,

this book verse one, my son, don't forget my teaching,

but keep my commands in your heart. They will prolong

your life many years and will bring peace and prosperity,

love and faithfulness never leave you. Bind them around your neck,

write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you

will win favor and a good name in the sight

of God and man. So Solomon is saying, if you

want to be somebody who trusts in the Lord with

all your heart, you have to know his word. And

he's actually doing a callback to what every Jewish boy

is taught at a young age. They're taught what is

called the Shemah, and the Shema says this. It says,

the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. Love the

Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul,

with all your mind, and with all your strength. They

were to recite that multiple times the day they are

told that this needs to be written on the tablet

of your heart.

What does it mean.

It means that you have memorized this and studied it

so much that it's a reflex response that when everything

falls apart, you're not supposed to step back and say,

I think the Bible has something to say about this.

I don't know where it is.

Maybe I can call pastor Sean and he'll help me

find it. No, you have studied God's words so much

that when a challenge comes, you're like, the Lord warned

me this would happen. I'm gonna trust in him with

all my heart and not lean on my own understanding.

I'm gonna choose his way, not my own way. But

only happens when it's written on the tablet of your heart.

Say tie it around your neck. That's what they would do.

Meant that this is something that you know, something that

you meditate on, that you memorize. I give you verses

to memorize every time I preach you.

Should do that. It's simple.

I give you verses that I call them verses that

will give you staying power that when difficulties come, and

challenges come, and big decisions come, you have God's word

on your heart, wrapped around your neck inside of you.

You know God's words. Why church is vital, It's why

small groups are vital. I love the fact that we

have with these Wednesday night classes that our church does.

They're three weeks long and they're usually pretty in depth teaching.

Sometimes they're for new believers. Sometimes they're like advanced level teaching.

And right now they're doing a class on maps, like

studying the Old Testament and where things happened and geography.

And this maps class, by the.

Way, just the way I described it doesn't seem interesting

at all, does it No, But the people that go

to it will not miss it.

My wife told me this.

We're supposed to go to the Mariners game on Wednesday

for a date night, and she said, I don't want

to miss my maps class, Like what you would rather

go to a class, a class don biblical.

Geography then go watch the Mariners.

Well, I'm gonna trade in those tickets because I have

to watch the seventh game of the Stanley Cup playoffs

that night. But still it's weird. I'm small groups of vital.

Bible reading plans are vital. I was catching up on

the two different Bible reading plans I have even as

I was driving to church and just like God's Word

is just nourishing me from the inside out, and I'm

just like churning through it one after another, listening to

it as I drive and I'm coming up. I got

to preach a sermon on that. Oh that is so good,

that is for me, over and over and over again.

You gotta have God's word inside of you. I was

thinking about this. People will spend hours training their bodies

for sports. Moms and dads, you don't seem to bat

an eyelash spending thousands of dollars so your kid can

get private training on sports.

But giving an offering over and.

Above for the kids ministry is like, I can't believe

the church is even asking. We sometimes model to our

children the opposite of what we're doing, Like we don't

have any problem spending lots of time and money and

study hours on a new hobby, But the one thing

that will nourish, that will provide health to our body

and nourishment to our bones is God's word. We neglect

the one thing that grounds us in a healthy way

when it comes to viewing our life and our circumstances.

If being grounded in.

Your faith is what will allow you to navigate this crazy,

bizarre world we live in. Why do we spend so

little time investing in it? Why do we model, oftentimes

the opposite to our kids. Invest in God's word. Number two,

Obey God's will says, trust in the Lord with all

your heart. Don't lean on your own understanding. Do not

be wise in your own eyes. Proverbs fourteen twelve said

that there is a way that appears right to a man,

but in the end leads to death. Are you to

the point where you realize, in the pressure of the moment,

In the heat of the moment, your gut response is

usually wrong, like your emotional response. Your fallback on fight

or flight isn't always the correct response. Oftentimes we can't

trust ourselves in the heat of the moment, and that's

why the proverbs say, don't be wise in your own eyes.

Have you ever have you heard this phrase? If they

could only get out of their own way. The amount

of times my staff and I've met with people, we

just think, if they could only get out of their

own way, everything they decide to do in the heat

of the moment las wisdom. Oftentimes you have to trust

in God and not yourself. It provides health to your body,

nourishment to your bones. Number three, When you are blessed,

these are conditions you need to share in God's blessings.

Proverbs three, verse nine.

Honor the Lord.

With your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops.

Then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your

vats will brim over with new wine. One of the

core values at Venture is generosity, and it still amazes

me how many people in our church struggle with generosity

like that. The opposite of generosity is being stingy. We

are to be very generous as followers of Jesus. We

are to share in the blessings that God has given us.

You know, we.

Tithe because not tithing is a sin. We tithe and

then we give over and above our tithe. That puts

us in the place of generosity, and we serve. Why

do we serve because it's selfless? Why do we serve

because it's us giving of what is our most priceless commodity,

our time. I always think it's amazing when people get

frustrated when past give opportunities to give. Every church in

western Washington that has any influence is doing some swords

of a capital campaign right now. If you want to

go to a cool church in this area, they're gonna

be doing things like the light Bearers Project, every single

one of them. Why does it bother you when these

things happen? It is supposed to be a joy to give.

You're supposed to allow the Holy Spirit to work in

your life.

If the Holy Spirit is.

Not leading you to give to light Bearers by all means,

ignore it.

Every time we talk about it.

But have you actually invited the Holy Spirit to speak

to you about it? Odds are that if you ask

the Lord, should I serve more? He's gonna say yes.

Odds are if you say, Lord, should I I participate?

Should I help financially in this area? I don't know

when he said no. If he ever literally tells you no,

come up and tell me. I'd love to know, because

all I know is that is a prayer that I'm

oftentimes afraid to pray because if I'm like, all right,

do I pray? My wife has already decided it's God's will,

but let's do I don't know if I agree. If

I pray and I ask God, he's gonna say yes.

Do that. There's a saying I don't know who said it.

Since I don't know who said it, you can give

me credit for it. It's good to have the things

money can buy, provided that you don't lose the things

money can't buy. Well, good is it to have an

expensive home if there's no joy inside that home? What

good is all your stuff if there's no one to

enjoy it with. I've seen lots and lots of people

over the last twenty two years that have more money

and more stuff, drive nicer cars, bigger houses than I'll

ever have, And I would never want their family. I

would never want their life.

Share in God's blessing. Finally, number four, these are conditions.

God says, if you do this, health to your body,

nourishment to your bones. And really, what he's doing is

he's breaking down what it means to trust him. Trusting

in him means you know his word. Trusting in him

means you share in his blessings. Trusting in him means

you obey his will. Trusting in him Finally, number four,

And you're gonna hate this from the moment I say it.

You submit to God's correction.

Verse eleven, My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline,

and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines

those he loves as a father, the son he delights in.

I use the word submit on purpose because I knew

it would light you on fire. As soon as I

said submit, some of you are outraged. I mean the

word submit is triggering. Submit has so many negative connotations today.

Submitting means weakness, Submitting means abuse.

Submit is a word we hate.

But as a follower of Jesus, we have to submit

to God's will. We have to submit to God's plan,

and we have to submit to God's discipline in our lives.

In other words, when you do the opposite of what

you should.

Do, a man or woman reap what they sew.

If you screw up, God loves you, He forgives you,

he restores you, but you still reap the consequences of

your actions.

If you choose.

To live in sin, you're not going to have a

home that is blessed. Don't be offended when your home

isn't blessed but you're living in sin. Now, there's sometimes

that God will bless you in spite of yourself, but

he has no responsibility, or there should be zero expectation.

That he does so.

If if you rob God of tithe, literally that's what

we're told we're we're told to tithe. That we're told

not tithing is literally robbing from God. If you rob

from God by not tithing, whatever reason you have, whether

it is some obscure theological reason or some I don't

trust the way the Church handles money, whatever lame reason

you have, God views it as robbing him. If you

rob God of his tithe, he's probably not gonna bless

you financially. Now, some of you he has been in

spite of yourself. But if you are not tithing, don't

be irritated that your friend is getting blessed and you're not.

Don't be jealous of them. If you read put your so.

If you spend more money than you have, don't be

surprised when you are a slave to deat. If you

spend more time with your buddies golfing than you do

with your children, don't be surprised when you lose the

heart of your kids. If you're investing more time with

people at work than you are with people in your home,

don't be surprised when your wife is frustrated with you.

Reap what you sew.

Part of this is Lord, I submit to your discipline

in my life.

It's literally saying, all right.

God, if I screw up, will you realign me by

correcting me? Because the Lord disciplines those he loves as

a father delights in his children. Have you ever I

dare you to pray that prayer. Pray the prayer that says, Lord,

if I am following my will, not your will, I

invite your rebuke.

And discipline in my life. Get ready.

But know that God is not disciplining you because he

he's punishing you. He's disciplining you because your eyes are

this way and he wants your eyes to shift back

on him. He's rebuking you and correcting you to realign

you in his path. We live in this world today

where you and I are given many, many, many opportunities

to trust God when it isn't easy. It's easy to

serve God when everything's going well. It's easy to worship

and be generous when the economy is cranking. It's easy

to trust God when you're feeling safe and secure.

But it's moments like now.

Where your faith gets real. It's times like now where

we got to choose hold on to Jesus with everything we've.

Got, Trust God, trust God's play, hold on to wisdom.

And hold everything else like this. I want to ask

everybody to buy their heads, close their eyes. I'm just

gonna close by praying for you this morning.

Lord.

I know that that is a message that is very

real for most of us. The world is so crazy

right now. One minute we're in a war with Iran.

Then the next minute they're talking peace, and then it's

back to war, then it's back to peace. And one

day the stock market is up and then it's down,

and then it's up again. And we don't know what

to put our faith in, what to put our trust in.

We hear about layoffs, we hear about the economy, the

job market. Everything seems to be tenuous right now. The

ground that we walk on seems so turbulent and shaky.

But Lord, we choose in this moment to hold on

to you with everything we've got.

Lord.

We choose to trust in You with all of our heart,

to not lean on our own understanding. Lord, we choose

to do the things we need to do that exemplify

what trust is. Hoping for health in our body and nourishment,

in our bones and peace that passes all understanding. Got

to pray for everyone that's here today. Ask you to

bless them, be with them in Jesus' name.

Amen.

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