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Trust in the Lord!
Proverbs 3 1-8; Acts 16:6-10
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - July 24, 2013
*Who do you trust?
I trust my wife.
And I know many good, Godly Christians I would trust with my life.
But standing over and above all, we can trust God!
The cross of Jesus Christ proves that forever.
I trusted Jesus as my Lord and Savior almost 38 years ago.
And though I have failed Him many times in those years, He has never failed me once.
And He has blessed me beyond measure.
*We can trust in the Lord!
And this is always important.
But it seems more crucial in times like this, when Emily is launching a brand new chapter in her life.
She needs to trust in the Lord.
We all need to trust in the Lord as we move forward in life.
*The great news is that we can trust in the Lord! -- And in these verses we can see three milestones or goals for our trust.
1. First: We should trust God enough to focus on His Word.
*The Lord wants us to focus our lives on His Word.
This is God's message to us in vs. 1-4, where He says:
1.
My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands;
2. for length of days and long life and peace they will add to you.
3. let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart,
4. and so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.
*Here God speaks as a loving Father to His children.
And He uses a repeated pattern.
First God makes a wise request.
Then He promises a wonderful reward.
Listen for this pattern in vs. 1&2:
1.
My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands;
2. for length of days and long life and peace they will add to you.
*"Let your heart keep my commands."
Our "heart" is our whole inner-man: our mind, our emotions and our will.
And when God talks about us "keeping" His commands, it's the word picture of guarding them, keeping a close watch over them so we can properly care for them.
*In effect, God is saying: "Don't forget my Word.
Keep focused on it.
Keep it close so that it can touch your heart and transform your habits."
So these verses remind us that God's Word is not just designed to get us to Heaven.
It's designed to give us the best possible life down here.
*The Bible will help us in every area of life:
-It will help us with our family and with our finances.
-It will help us grow up and help us grow old.
-It will help us win right and help us lose right.
-It will bless our children and build our character.
*Since God's Word is so important, we ought to focus on it every day.
Robert Summer wrote the amazing story of a man from Kansas who was severely injured in an explosion.
His face was badly disfigured, and he lost his eyesight as well as both hands.
*This man was a new Christian, and one of his greatest sorrows was that he could no longer read the Bible.
Then he heard about a lady in England who read Braille with her lips.
Hoping to do the same, he sent for some books of the Bible in Braille.
He sadly discovered that the nerve endings in his lips had been destroyed by the explosion.
*But one day, as he brought a Braille page to his lips, his tongue happened to touch a few of the raised letters and he could feel them with his tongue.
He thought, "I can read the Bible using my tongue."
And by the time his story was written, that man had read the whole Bible four times with his tongue!
(1)
*His lost his eyes.
But he never lost sight of the importance of God's Word.
-We must trust God enough to focus on His Word.
2. And trust Him enough to follow His guidance.
*God is telling us to follow His guidance in vs. 5&6, where He says:
5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;
6. in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
*Do you ever feel like you don't have a clue about what to do? -- Or even where to take the next step?
Sometimes we do feel that way.
But God has promised to guide us, and He will.
*How does God guide us? -- One of the best places to see is over in Acts 16.
There Paul and Silas were on an extremely important mission trip, and they needed guidance from God. Please look at it over in Acts 16:6-10:
6.
Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.
7.
After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them.
8.
So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.
9.
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night.
A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us.''
10.
Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.
[1] So how does God guide us? -- Sometimes He closes doors.
*That's what happened in vs. 6&7: "God: I want to go to Asia.
I want to go to Bithynia."
But God says, "No."
And we can't understand why.
But one thing is sure: Our Heavenly Father knows best.
And He will do what's best for us.
*Sometimes we are like a dog C.S. Lewis told about.
That dog had his leash wrapped around a sign post.
And he was pulling, pulling at his leash, struggling to go forward.
But the master knew that the only way to go forward was to back-up and get untangled.
(2)
*Sometimes we don't understand why the Lord leads us in a certain direction, but we need to keep trusting in our Master.
Sometimes He closes doors.
[2] And sometimes He creates divine appointments.
*We can see this method too when we look carefully at vs. 6-10.
In vs. 6-8, Luke later reported:
6.
Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.
7.
After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them.
8.
So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.
*Five times Luke said, "They, they, they, they, they."
-- But then in vs. 10, all of a sudden, it's "we."
God sent Paul to Troas for a divine appointment with Dr. Luke, the man God used to write this book of the Bible.
*And the Lord does the same kind of thing in our lives.
He arranges our circumstances.
The light turns red.
We get held up in traffic.
And our lives are changed forever.
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