Don't Lean On Your Own Understanding

The teacher’s advice in Prov. 3 is countercultural. “Lean not on your own understanding” is not what you hear at graduation ceremonies. Usually, a high school or college grad speech is all about seizing the opportunity: the world is your oyster, you can do anything you set you mind to, you can be whoever you want to be!

There’s both freedom: do whatever you want

and pressure: go make it up on your own.

Individualism is a treasured quality in our culture, maybe even an idol in our context. Frank Sinatra was only partly joking when he introduced his song, “I Did it My Way” as the American National anthem. Most of us are rather fond of doing things our own way.

We like stories of self-made millionaires or billionaires. Movies are made about people who march to the beat of their own drum! In our culture of fierce independence, being told do not lean on your understanding is almost unthinkable.

Yet the value of the teacher’s advice can’t be denied: “Don’t lean on your own understanding”. Let me put it this way: I worked a summer for my uncle’s drywall business. I went to jobs with a cousin with 5+ years experience. L8on taught me how to hang drywall. Even after the summer, I wasn’t allowed to help 3rd coat mudding or sanding. They were afraid I’d do it “my way” instead of properly!

The new guy isn’t asked how to build stuff. You can’t frame a house your own way; you have to follow the engineered drawings. You need experience before taking your own shortcuts.

The scholar who collected these proverbs wasn’t trying to kill innovation. He wasn’t trying to stamp out initiative. The teacher was inspired by God the HS to collect wise sayings to instruct and shape the next generation of leaders. The OT book of Proverbs is required reading for students preparing to serve as prophets, priests, and kings among God’s covenant people. The intended audience was studying to take their place as leaders under God. “Under God”

We mentioned briefly, when studying the 10 Commandments, how God organized the nation of Israel at Mt. Sinai to live as his dearly loved people. He was their King and they were his people. Moses and the prophets, priests, and kings who served after Moses were servants of the Lord. Many generations later, in the days of King Solomon, the schools were started for collecting wisdom and passing it along to the next generation, mindful, as King David was, that they served under God as their Overlord and King.

The teacher of Proverbs lived at a very different time and different place, the fierce independence of current NA culture might not have been as strong then and there. But there is evidence in the Bible that there has always been a temptation to lean on your own understand. Humankind has always struggled to trust the Lord with all our heart.

It’s their independent streak that got our first parents in trouble. Adam & Eve faced the Q:

Will we trust in the Lord or take the forbidden fruit?

God said we shouldn’t . . . but if you ask me, it sure looks good for food. And the serpent said it’ll make us wise like God!

Ever since A&E made their fatal choice, humankind has lived with the consequences: guilt and shame and death. As a just God, the Lord holds each person accountable for their own disobedience. It happens too often: our own understanding, our own wishes and feelings, our appetites and desires will often lead us wrong.

We’re often tempted to take the off-ramps, the paths that lead away from God. By following crooked paths, we cut ourselves off from the source of all life, the fountain of all joy. By following the wrong roads, we break relationships and wind up far from God and far from others we love. Ultimately, we’re left lost and alone.

As our first parents discovered, failing to trust the Lord leads to guilt and shame before God. Sin leads to death and damnation – being cut off from God forever. Nobody wants to take that road!

The trouble is, we can’t rescue ourselves from sin and judgment by trying harder. It’s not possible to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. We’ve fallen and we can’t get up; not w/o a rescuer.

That’s where the love and compassion of God shines brightly in the Bible. God does not stay remote and unmoved high above everything on his throne in heaven. B/c of his love for the world, his mercy for lost and hurting people, God the Son put aside his glory and became human – it’s what we celebrate each year at Christmas.

As God, Jesus can bear the full punishment for all human sin.

As obedient human, Jesus can be whipping boy for humankind

Throughout his life, Jesus trusted his Father’s plan. He took the road

that led to Jerusalem,

led to rejection by the Jewish leaders,

led to being declared guiltless by the Roman governor but was executed on the cross anyway.

It’s on the cross that Jesus suffered, not just physical torment, he endured the horror of being forsaken by his heavenly Father. Jesus took the punishment, the guilt, the shame that we deserve and died on the cross in our place.

But his resurrection from the grave 3 days later demonstrates that the penalty for sin has been paid. Our enemies – sin and death – have been defeated. All who trust in the Lord Jesus for salvation receive life in his name – you’re invited to trust God for forgiveness.

Do you think you can do that? Are you able to trust that Jesus’ death and resurrection covers over your misdeeds and wrongdoing, leaving you without shame and guilt?

If you say “Yes” to God’s invitation, if you trust God’s promises, you are forgiven for your sins. You do not need to feel guilty or ashamed of the past. B/c of Jesus, you’ve been accepted by God the Father as his dearly loved child.

With a clean slate, God draws up a new plan for you. It’s the same, priceless assurances that the teacher offered centuries ago in the temple courts and study halls of Jerusalem:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight.

First and foremost, the OT scholars collected and taught God’s instructions for living as his dearly loved children.

There are times when we wonder what to do and which way to turn. In many situations, God points us in the right direction with his commands and instructions in the Bible. It’s one of the reasons we spent time ponder the 10 Commandments and the implications of God’s instructions: no other gods, no images, don’t misuse God’s name, and all 7 other commandments. You’re invited to trust God’s word in the OT & NT. W/ the HS’s help submit to God’s instructions.

If you’re not sure how God’s commandments or other parts of the Bible applies in your specific situation, bounce your ideas off others. Some of the dilemmas we face with pandemics or politics or business were unimaginable in the days of Moses, King Solomon, or the NT Apostle Paul. Mature Christians can help you untangle your thoughts and help you understand the Bible.

Sometimes we face two good choices:

· university or trade school?

· retire now so I can volunteer more or work another 5 years?

Robin & I faced that kind of choice in 2021: stay in one place or move to another property?

What do you think: Does God guide people for those kinds of choices these days?

How?

Glean wisdom from wise people.

And pray. God the HS who inspired the words recorded in the Bible continues to guide us. Jesus promised we wouldn’t be left orphans. God, by his Word and Spirit continues to lead and guide you. After rescuing you from death and sin and hell, he’s not about to abandon you now!

· If the Bible speaks about something: you have God’s word on it.

· If the Bible doesn’t address something, ask for God’s guidance for your thoughts, in guidance from wise, mature people.

You’re invited to imitate Jesus; to follow your leader down the straight paths. Jesus has picked you up from where you were bogged down and up to your axels in sin and disobedience. He’s cleaned you up and put your feet on the right path.

I like the picture the OT prophet Isaiah paints of what that looks like. He was envisioning a day when God’s people would be freed from captivity and would return to the Promised Land. But it points beyond the day the exiles returned to Jerusalem. The HS gave Isaiah – and us – a glimpse of the straight path Jesus has blazed for God’s dearly loved people:

And a highway will be there;

it will be called the Way of Holiness;

it will be for those who walk on that Way.

The unclean will not journey on it;

wicked fools will not go about on it.

No lion will be there,

nor any ravenous beast;

they will not be found there.

But only the redeemed will walk there,

and those the Lord has rescued will return.

They will enter Zion with singing;

everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Isaiah 35: 8-10 (NIV)