Trusting God not Self

Introduction

In Mt. 5:6, Jesus spoke of those of hunger and thirst after righteousness, does that describe you and me?

Does God exist to serve our purpose or we his?

Why are we willing to listen to the Bible?

Do we like the Bible because it agrees with us? (Then we see ourselves as god)

Do we like the Bible because it is the Word of God?

These questions take us back to the Garden of Eden to face what went wrong there, and what went wrong with us there.

What did Satan’s lie promise?

Who rules your life?

Our society has become sickened with hyper-individualism.

It holds out the promise that everyone can make something true just for themselves.

It holds out the promise that everyone is bound to live according to “my truth.”

Is anyone happy with a “peaceful life” or must we constantly live life on the edge?

That is a characteristic of bored people in search of true meaning to fill the emptiness of their lives.

What is the best way to live life? (This question highlights the need for fearing God, first.)

Trusting God?

Trusting yourself?

Peaceful Life vs. Chaotic Life

The writer of Proverbs, thus far, has given two examples of dangerous situations:

Gang activity motivated by greed.

Adultery

Both involve deception, and both place the person who listens to them in potential danger.

Proverbs 3:1 offers another father-son appeal.

My son do not forget my instruction and let your heart guard my teachings.

Notice the permanency being called for.

Notice also the value that must be present.

Pr. 3:2 establishes the reason for the fatherly appeal.

A longer life and one filled with peace as opposed to a life on the edge filled with danger and chaos.

What does the Word of God teach us that God’s people want?

1 Tim. 2:1-2 “Παρακαλῶ οὖν πρῶτον πάντων ποιεῖσθαι δεήσεις προσευχὰς ἐντεύξεις εὐχαριστίας ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων, ὑπὲρ βασιλέων καὶ πάντων τῶν ἐν ὑπεροχῇ ὄντων, ἵνα ἤρεμον καὶ ἡσύχιον βίον διάγωμεν ἐν πάσῃ εὐσεβείᾳ καὶ σεμνότητι.”

A life lived “on the edge” is one lived trying to fill the void of an empty life.

Life is empty when we are its central authority instead of God.

God’s Word Informs about and Produces Godly Characteristics

We were made as “imagers” of God.

His characteristics, not merely physical ones, were to fill the earth.

What circumstances can you think of that would merit acting unkindly or in an untrustworthy manner?

The two terms used in Prov. 3:3 should be taken together (hendiadys).

They are characteristics that describe Jehovah (see Ex. 34:1-7).

Solomon appeals to his son to make demonstrating the character and nature of God, not the self, permanent features of his life.

Note the connection in terminology to Dt. 6:4-10.

The writing on the tablet of the heart seems to be a metaphor for something permanent.

The mind is under consideration.

Good success refers to understanding, namely, how people and God look up the individual.

You will find grace (or graciousness) from God and man, and both will see you as someone of good understanding.

1 Peter 3:13.

Notice how these appeals places the burden of trust over on the son?

Are these rejoinders correct?

Can we live our lives in this way, or does the reality of life demand we behave situationally where we dictate, in those situations, how we ought to act?

Who Rules Our Lives?

At the beginning, we thought about our relationship with God and His word?

Does he agree with us, or do we hunger and thirst for knowledge that can only come from Him?

The God of the Bible wants to control all of our lives, not just change our eternities.

If you want a god who guarantees you escape from his eternal wrath, but who otherwise leaves you alone to live life now as you well-please, you do not want the God revealed in the Scriptures.

How should life be lived? Who is better situated to answer that question, us or God?

Have confidence in Jehovah in all your heart and in your insight do not lean.

In the context of the section, batah would make sense as the word of choice. “Batah expresses that sense of well-being and security which results from having something or someone in whom to place confidence” (TWOT 1:101).

The point would seem to be, therefore, that a greater sense of confidence in secure living comes from reliance upon the Lord than from one’s own “insight.”

Even the structure of the sentence points us to this way of thinking.

At stake in the context is the warning or the appeal. Trust God’s ways as the better protection of your well-being, trust that He knows best to inform you how to position yourself to have the best possible chance to live the longest possible life.

This point is reinforced by Prov. 3:6 where, again, the permanency and totality of submission to God (Know Him in all your ways) brings with it the opposite of crooked life of deceit (see examples in earlier chapters) but paths that are straight.

Jer. 17:1-10.

This seems to be an apposite verse of scripture which warns about the untrustworthy nature of the human heart.

Notice the permanency stated in Jer. 17:1.

Notice how trusting man versus trusting the Lord is placed in parallel to one another. “Blessed is the male who will have confidence in Jehovah, and Jehovah comes to be his confidence (safety).

Jer. 17:9: “The heart is more deceitful than all and incurably sick.”