The thing about God’s promises is that they are often conditional on us obeying His instructions. Whenever our good Lord makes a promise to us, watch and always know that it is often predicated on condition and that condition must be met for the promise to be fulfilled. But more often than not people just jump on God’s promises without being watchful of the conditions and because those conditions were not met/kept, the promises are not fulfilled and people begins to doubt God without realizing that the fault is theirs in not keeping the condition! Today’s promise is an example in kind. In order to know God’s guidance we need to learn to submit to His ways no matter how difficult we feel it is. At times submitting to the Lord demands we put rational thought aside for a moment. As verse 5 tells us –we have to learn to “Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.” Today the great problem is that people like and want to follow God their own way, not the way God wants Himself to be followed. In other words people wants to follow God the way it is easy for them, especially when the way God wants to be followed seem a little difficult for man! Then man designs his own way to follow God. Over the last weeks I have had to put all my natural inclinations aside, I have cleared unnecessary possessions out of my house in order to simplify my life. Everything in my rational mind said I should hold to the items and spend every Sunday morning over the coming summer at car boot sales to see if I could make a bit of money to help make ends meet. Often in this type of situations, the Lord had different ideas. He gave me the strong impression that I was not to spend every Sunday at car boot sales –He wanted me in Church to be with Him in heart. So I decided to engage the services of an agent who sells items for customers on the internet. She calmly but clearly told me the items would not sell! The Lord then told me to give all of the items away. Now that was not an easy thing to hear or to understand or to do, especially when some of the items held memories from my childhood, or had been collected over time, sometimes at considerable expense or sacrifice. But the Lord does not call us to understand before we obey, but to be obedient (but note He does not call us to be reckless either!) but to be explicit/implicit with His words/commands. Unburdened/relieved of all those items I recognize that I am now free to move on to the tasks to which He is calling me. Being unnecessarily burdened with life needs/necessities is the reason we are often not able to yield in obedience to all what our Lord God wants us to do for Him, we then device our own way, that ruins! Let us always learn to follow and obey God in all our ways for it to be well with us!

Now let us read Proverbs 3:1-12; My son, forget not my law or teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; 2 For length of days and years of a life [worth living] and tranquility [inward and outward and continuing through old age till death], these shall they add to you. 3 Let not mercy and kindness [shutting out all hatred and selfishness] and truth [shutting out all deliberate hypocrisy or falsehood] forsake you; bind them about your neck, write them upon the tablet of your heart. 4 So shall you find favor, good understanding, and high esteem in the sight [or judgment] of God and man. 5 Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. 6 In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. 7 Be not wise in your own eyes; reverently fear and worship the Lord and turn [entirely] away from evil. 8 It shall be health to your nerves and sinews, and marrow and moistening to your bones. 9 Honor the Lord with your capital and sufficiency [from righteous labors] and with the first fruits of all your income; 10 So shall your storage places be filled with plenty, and your vats shall be overflowing with new wine. 11 My son, do not despise or shrink from the chastening of the Lord [His correction by punishment or by subjection to suffering or trial]; neither be weary of or impatient about or loathe or abhor His reproof, 12 For whom the Lord loves He corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.

I remember one of the things I worried about a lot when I was a high school graduate was my future. What was I supposed to do? What should I get a degree in? What did God want me to do? And those of us who are future-oriented people probably worry about similar things like this. What job does God want me to do? Where does He want our family to live? Or maybe how will I pay the bills or where will I go to school? This is for those who are truly God oriented/centered but hypocritically, virtually everybody does this type of speculations, is it not? Today in Proverbs God doesn’t tell us what is going to happen in detail we might like but He does say that if we trust and obey Him with today He will take care of the rest. A wise future is not a worried future but something completely different. I want to give you my big idea up front. Here it is. Submit your whole life to God and He will take care of the rest. As we walk through this life God gives us the gift of confidence in Him—that if we seek Him and His ways He will make it worth it. The first verse of Proverbs 3 introduces us to this future-hope: My son, forget not my law or teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; 2 For length of days and years of a life [worth living] and tranquility [inward and outward and continuing through old age till death], these shall they add to you. If we seek to understand and obey God’s teachings and commands found in the Bible one of the benefits God may grant us is a long, peaceful, and prosperous life. But this is different than the prosperity gospel, which promises that you will get what you want if you just have enough faith. This is saying that as we treat others well and live the way God intends natural blessings will result. But Proverbs are not so much promises for this life as they are principles for this life and promises for the life to come. A life lived in God’s way will generally result in long-life, peace, and prosperity in this life and will most certainly result in long-life, peace, and prosperity in the life to come with Christ Jesus. While the short-term benefits of Proverbs aren’t guarantees the long-term benefits are. Submit your whole life to God and He will take care of the rest. Verses 1-2 act as an introduction to verses 3-12, which includes five-admonitions (speaking with authority) that all fall under this umbrella concept of “How to submit your whole life to God:” First, if you want God to take care of your future… SUBMIT YOUR HEART. (V3-4): 3 Let not mercy and kindness [shutting out all hatred and selfishness] and truth [shutting out all deliberate hypocrisy or falsehood] forsake you; bind them about your neck, write them upon the tablet of your heart. 4 So shall you find favor, good understanding, and high esteem in the sight [or judgment] of God and man. What type of love and faithfulness are we to have? As these verses come right after verses 1-2, I think it’s first talking about a love for God and His Word. We find this same thing in a famous passage our verses in Proverbs are echoing, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, the Shema (which is Hebrew for “hear”), which goes like this: Deuteronomy 6:4-9 4 Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord [the only Lord]. 5 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being and with all your might. 6 And these words which I am commanding you this day shall be [first] in your [own] minds and hearts; [then] 7 You shall whet and sharpen them so as to make them penetrate, and teach and impress them diligently upon the [minds and] hearts of your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. 8 And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets (forehead bands) between your eyes. 9 And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and on your gates. The Shema ties loving God with loving and knowing God’s words. You can’t love someone without listening to them. We talked about ways we can receive God’s Word last week—by believing it, memorizing it, accepting it. So submit your heart to God by loving His word. Simple, right? When I talk to most people I find we want to love God’s Word but find it kind of boring. The Bible is super long and can be hard to read. And if that’s what it means, at least partially, to submit your heart to God, then that can be frustratingly difficult. Most of us don’t immediately love the Bible when we pick it up because of this boring tendency. I want to share a personal story with you that you might immediately judge me for but I think some parents will be able to relate to. When Elijah was born and I picked him up and I held him for the first time… I did not feel an overwhelming sense of love for a son said a narrator. I know some people’s story is that the moment they picked up their newborn baby child for the first time they felt their hearts melt in love for the child, but that wasn’t my story. I was grateful he was here and that he was healthy and I loved him in theory, but I wasn’t crying or overwhelmed by emotions. Truly it took me about 3-4 months to really warm up and begin to develop that feeling of love for him. And now I’m just a mess for him. I love him so much. My point is that for many of us it takes time to develop love, it is a gradual process. Mark recently told me “love” is spelled “t-i-m-e… time.” If you want to love God, if you want to submit your heart to Him, spend time with Him. Spend time in the Word. If you have trouble doing it alone, then study God’s Word with a friend or in a group. Maybe you won’t love it at first but the longer you spend with God’s words the more you will begin to develop that feeling of love over time. What’s the reward? The benefit? God will be pleased and others will (Lord willing) see a life well-lived and give you their favor. They’ll respect you and treat you fairly as you treat them with respect and fairness. How do we submit our whole-lives to God? It starts with submitting our hearts. Second… SUBMIT YOUR WILL. (V5-6): 5 Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. 6 In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. Having submitted your Heart to God; submitting your Will to God is our next foundation verse because so many people have found it to be an encouragement. What does it mean to not lean on your own understanding? We’re not to separate our will from God’s desired will as expressed in the Scriptures. So if God says to live a certain way (even if we find it hard to understand or difficult to do) we must submit our will to His will. This all comes down to trust. Do we trust God, who made us and created us and knows how we work, or do we trust ourselves? Remember in my second sermon in Proverbs how I talked about the two paths? God gives each of us the opportunity to walk down path #1 “the way of the foolish” or path #2 “the way of the wise.” Sometimes we think this means God is going to tell us our exact path, like He’s going to map out our lives for us. That doesn’t seem to be how God works or what the Bible says. God rarely tells us what to do but He always tells us how to do it. Let me repeat that. God rarely tells us what to do but He always tells us how to do it—that’s what it means to walk in the way of wisdom. God rarely tells us what job we are supposed to take but He always tells us to do a good job that is ethical, fair, and just. In other words, God has given the pointers or the guide! Then He says act accordingly. Again in other words, the instructions have been given by God, then He says follow instructions! If you digress, well you are to be blamed, and know it that in this situation, digressing has its consequences, you must know. That is the life we live with God and many people fails to know it like this or to know it this way! You better know it oh if you want life to be meaningful for you as God designed it for you but ‘I bikasia ya’, don’t blame God or man! Blame yourself. Proverbs 22:29, Do you see someone skilled in their work? “29 Do you see a man diligent and skillful in his business? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.” • God rarely tells us where to live but He always tells us to treat our neighbors well. Proverbs 3:29, 29 Do not contrive or dig up or cultivate evil against your neighbor, who dwells trustingly and confidently beside you. • God rarely tells us who we are supposed to marry but the kind of person we should marry. Proverbs 12:4, 4 A virtuous and worthy wife [earnest and strong in character] is a crowning joy to her husband, but she who makes him ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. It’s as we do these things that God will take care of our futures. It’s as we walk down the path of wisdom that we can be confident that it will end well. First, submit your heart and second, submit your will. Once your heart and your will are submitted to God, He then guides you by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit in you to Do Things Right by applying Wisdom, which is walking down the path of wisdom! Submit your whole life to God and He will take care of the rest. First, submit your heart, second, submit your will. Third…

7 Be not wise in your own eyes; reverently fear and worship the Lord and turn [entirely] away from evil. 8 It shall be health to your nerves and sinews, and marrow and moistening to your bones. Proverbs isn’t like our modern-day self-help books that tell us how great we are and how we can do it. It does just the opposite. It tells us not to think of ourselves too highly but to think of God highly. There’s a parallel here between being “wise in your own eyes” and “shun[ing] evil.” To be wise in your own eyes—to think you have it all figured out—is evil. To be wise in your own eyes is really bad in the book of Proverbs. It’s worse than being a fool. Remember that a fool is one who does not know but does not know that he does not know, perhaps if you are able to let him know that he does not know, he might want to know! But one who is wise in his own eyes, thinks that he knows it all or that he has it all figured out. You cannot change this kind of person or mindset; can you now see why this kind of person is worse than being a fool? Proverbs 26:12, 12 Do you see a man wise in his own eyes and conceit? There is more hope for a [self-confident] fool than for him. I was sitting outside the library in within the week and I looked over at a tree that had red leaves and it was one of the most beautiful trees I’d ever seen. Its leaves were a vivid red, it was full, it was lush. But then I wondered if I was seeing it right because I was wearing sunglasses. I took the sunglasses off and the tree became a dull dry red. My lenses were distorting reality—making it look better than it actually was. I put my sunglasses back on and it became vivid-red again. Have you ever heard the expression “rose-colored glasses”? this is exactly what Proverbs is pointing out to us to be mindful of; telling us that sometimes we see things for better than what they actually are, and in such situation you just have to be guided by a superior wisdom. Proverbs warns us that this is nowhere more true than when we are looking in the mirror. We don’t see ourselves for who we are but for who we want to be. We all think our reasons and motivations and decisions and actions are better than they actually are, we pride ourselves, and all of these becomes our perspective, the way we feel and see things to be. But there is a way we can change our perspective. We need brothers and sisters in Christ who love us enough to tell us what we really look like. It’s as God uses them (these godly people) to change our point of view (POV) so that we can walk down the path of wisdom. It’s actually as God is changing our perspective that we can see how He has taken care of our past and have faith He will take care of our future. Submit your whole life to God and He will take care of the rest. First, submit your heart, second, submit your will, third, submit your perspective. Fourth… SUBMIT YOUR MONEY. (V9-10): 9 Honor the Lord with your capital and sufficiency [from righteous labors] and with the first fruits of all your income; 10 So shall your storage places be filled with plenty, and your vats shall be overflowing with new wine. Proverbs is brilliant. Maybe you think it’s going off on a tangent but the author King Solomon knows exactly what he’s doing/saying. When we start to worry about the future what’s one of the first things we do, we close up our wallets and our generosity dries up. We cling to our money. We no longer give as we ought to, we are no longer as generous as we ought! Proverbs 11:24, 24 There are those who [generously] scatter abroad, and yet increase more; there are those who withhold more than is fitting or what is justly due, but it results only in want.. If we trust God will provide for all our needs, even in want we can still find ways to be generous and give to the Lord and others. We can give confidently and joyfully that He will take care of us. Submit your whole life to God and He will take care of the rest. First, submit your heart, second, submit your will, third, submit your perspective, fourth, submit your money. Fifth…

11 My son, do not despise or shrink from the chastening of the Lord [His correction by punishment or by subjection to suffering or trial]; neither be weary of or impatient about or loathe or abhor His reproof, 12 For whom the Lord loves He corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights. Come to God’s Word and receive your Heavenly Father’s loving correction. We have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much He is willing to correct us. Here’s the Gospel connection. He loves us so much He was willing to discipline His one and only Son in whom He delighted so that you and I can be forgiven. The Father allowed His perfect Son, a Son who had done no wrong, a Son who always submitted to His Father’s will, to be punished as a guilty sinner so that you and I can be counted as righteous. It’s like the Father sees us through rose-colored glasses because of the Blood of Lord Jesus. His life was cut short so that you and I can experience an eternally long, completely peaceful, and unimaginably prosperous life to come. At the end of the day it’s impossible to perfectly submit your heart and will and perspective and money and sin to the Lord. If you walk out of here and try to do it in your own strength you’ll become disenfranchised that Christianity doesn’t work; are you laughing? It’s impossible to perfectly submit to God on our own strength, that is the bitter truth! But Lord Jesus did. And by doing so He won us eternal life. And now, empowered and lead by the Holy Spirit, you and I can begin to submit our hearts and wills and perspectives and money and sin to the Lord and one day when we’re welcomed into eternity God will finish the job He started—making us perfect like Christ. This is the Hope! Let us look and work towards it the best we can in truth and in sincerity. SUBMIT YOUR WHOLE LIFE TO GOD AND HE WILL TAKE CARE OF THE REST. Don’t worry about the future. God will take care of it. Focus today on walking down that path of wisdom and God will lead you where He wants you. Submit your heart, your will, your perspective, your money, and your sin. Submit your whole life to God and He will take care of the rest.