SSMS - Pastor Josiah Shipley (Date December 27th 2020)

Proverbs 3 and the Goal of Christian Obedience

Chapter 3, this will be an abbreviated devotion and we have a lot of business to get to, which is why Rebecca asked me to preach, because she knew getting out of here would take probably 10 minutes. So, here we are in Proverbs chapter 3, and I want to read verses 1 -12.

Proverbs 3, 1 -12. My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments. For a length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you.

Bind them around your neck and write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. Don't be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. He will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

Honor the Lord with your wealth and the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof.

For the Lord reproves of those he loves. As a father and a son, you can eat delights. Verse 1 is the goal of Christian obedience. Not that we simply obey with our hands or our feet, but we obey with our hearts.

That's the goal. That we love to obey God. That's where we want to end up, right? That we can obey with our heart. Because then our heart is what we want to be. Not that we're fighting against our flesh any longer, but that we long to please Father.

Which is what God is pleased with most, is the obedience of his children. So how do we get there? How do we get to where we love to obey God? It starts with trusting in God. Trust is believing and thus acting that something outside of your control is true, in spite of how you feel.

Again, trust is believing, and if you really believe it, thus acting that something outside of your control is true, regardless of how you feel. That you believe, and thus by believing it's true, you act as if it's true, and if you're feeling it, say it's not.

Ava, my daughter, who's two and a half, has developed a fear of power toys. Of which Pastor Jeff, her pops, has many. I don't know how she got to be afraid of that. Someone said Jeliah was revving up a drill behind her and scared her.

I don't know how, at any rate, she's afraid of power toys. When we go to my parents' house, she doesn't even want to go in the garage. Well, that is unacceptable. So, what we do is every time we go over there, we will go in there together, and we will turn on one power toy.

And we will be done, and we'll leave. When she approaches the garage, obviously she's quite anxious and scared. She sometimes starts to whimper, and she's afraid. And then she says, trust death. And then she holds up her hands for me to pick her up.

Now, the moment she trusts me is actually not when she said that. She can say that all day long. The moment that she actually trusts me is when she lifts her hands in submission and obedience for me to pick her up.

That's the moment she actually trusts me. If it came out of her mouth that whole time and led to no action, it's not her trust. Because trust is believing, and thus acting, that something outside your control is true, regardless of how you feel about it.

When we say we are to trust in the Lord, it's not in the absence of fear. It's when you are afraid of obeying anyone. We'll go in there and turn on, I think last one was the bench pram. We'll turn it on, she'll be afraid at first, and then she'll like clutch on to me.

And then she'll just start talking to herself. She'll say, relax. It's just Bob's tools. It's just Bob. Relax. We'll go back inside, and next week we have to repeat lesson number two. And then eventually lesson number three, and then she'll go all the way back, and I start over.

Until we'll build ourselves up to where she's no longer afraid of it. But if I wait until the day she is not afraid of it, to make her face it, we'll be waiting until she's twelve, or seventeen, or thirty, or fifty.

Trust is obeying, especially when you're afraid. And God rewards that obedience. Verse four. So that you'll find favor and good success inside of God and man. It's the same phrase used when Jesus was in the temple.

You remember when he was twelve and his parents left him, and they came back and found him after three days of rebuke to him. The Bible says that Jesus submitted, is the word used, to his parents. And the next verse says, after that obedience, the next verse says, God rewards obedience.

Verse seven. That's just a sentence to describe repentance. And then verse eight happens. Then you will have healing to your flesh, and refreshments to your bones. It helps to know who you are trusting in.

Verse five. It's all capital letters in that name to let you know this is Yahweh. This is not just any other human being. This is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Trust in Him, with Him alone.

With all your heart. And the antithesis of that is to lean on your own understanding. Ladies and gentlemen, understand that to not trust in God is to trust in yourself. Leaning on your understanding is not trusting in God.

It is not trusting in God. See, in verse seven, The first evil you have to turn away from is not from Satan. It's not from the Antichrist. The Antichrist is not from demons, it's from yourself. You are the evil.

You must turn away from it. Which is what makes obedience so hard. It's because it does not come naturally to us. But the goal of Christian sanctification, the goal of obedience, is that it being the process of being made more like Christ.

That the more and more that you obey, you will come to love the things of God. You will love what He loves and hate what He hates. And you'll no longer love the things that you did before. That's the goal of Christian obedience.

But if you await the day before you might praise the God, if you wait for the day when you feel like obeying Him, you'll be waiting until you're brave. You will. True trust and true obedience comes especially when you are afraid and don't feel like it.

That's why it's called obedience. It would not be a sacrifice if it was a joy to do it all the time. That's called a sacrifice if you can give something else for it. In this case, control. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart.

Leave not a care in your state. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. Acknowledge Him as what? As Lord. As Master. Do you have a different you? For at work or at school than you do here? I challenge you that in all your ways, acknowledge that He is Lord over that situation too.

And then, He will direct your paths. I've been repeating to myself for weeks now. All my heart and all my ways. Trust the Lord with all your heart and all your ways, acknowledge Him. All my heart and all my ways.

That's my challenge for you today. With all your heart and all your ways. All your heart and all your ways. Trust Him as Lord. And trusting in Him is one more time, believing and acting that what He says is true and right.

Regardless, especially in spite of how you feel about it. The one we are trusting in is the God of the universe. We have to trust that He is trustworthy. And He is worthy of that trust. And He is the only one that is.

If you really believe that His ways are higher than yours, you can trust that they are right, even when your feelings say they're wrong. Because that's what trust is. He's the only one that is worthy of that trust.

Not even you are worthy of that. Only Him. Only Him. Lean not on your understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. And then you'll make the path straight. If you want to know what the will of God is for your life, it's to obey Him.

It's to obey Him. And then all these things will be added to you. Trust comes first. If you consistently obey Him, in spite of how you feel about it, you'll learn to love the things that He loves. Here's what I'm going to tell you.

Don't do this. Don't say, Well, I was going to pray, but then I just felt like I was going to be praying for the wrong reasons, so I just decided to not pray at all. That's not the answer. God is not more pleased that you chose not to pray at all.

Instead, do it anyway. And pray the Holy Spirit changes your heart while you do it. When you don't feel like praising Him, praise Him anyway, and then pray the Holy Spirit changes your heart as He does.

Because that's the beautiful thing about sanctification. You're not doing it on your own. You're not even prioritizing it. It's the Holy Spirit working in you to change your heart, to change your mind.

Jesus, Rest, and the Call to Decrease

Brother Hunter, this is my last point. There you go. He's trustworthy. His words are harder than ours. Jesus said, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and learn from me, and I will give you rest, yes, rest for your souls.

Do you want rest? Do you want peace? I am here to tell you, it can only come in the arms of Jesus. Come and learn from Him, and He will give you true rest for your soul. But that learning will come at a price of you relinquishing control to the sovereign of sovereigns, to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Recognizing Him as such, and acknowledging Him as that, in all of your ways. All your heart, in all your ways. Christian sanctification can be summed up in one sentence of the Bible, and that's that He must increase, and you must decrease.

Let that happen in all of your ways. My challenge for you, find the areas that you least feel like a man, and do it anyway. And just see what God can do with you. Just see what He can do with you. When you don't feel like praying, pray anyway.

When you don't feel like praising, praise anyway. And trust that God can make good work.