GPS: God's Positioning System

Introduction

Have you ever been driving a familiar route and your GPS directs you to take an exit that you aren’t familiar with? Instead of listening to your GPS you decide to continue going straight because you know your way is better. As you pass the exit and crest the hill you see brake lights and as far as the eye can see it is bumper to bumper traffic.

The GPS was trying to help you avoid the wreck that’s two miles ahead, but rather than listen to its instructions you chose to “LEAN ON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING.”

Isn’t that the way it is in life sometimes? God tells us to avoid certain things and follow certain paths, but our flesh tells us we know a better way. Our path seems to make more sense than His path. In today’s Proverb, which is probably one I’ve turned to more than any other throughout my life, tell us this...

Proverbs 3:5–6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”

God is Worthy of Your Trust

You cannot act upon Proverbs 3:5-6 without trust and it is important to understand what trust is. There are various levels of trust one may have, but the Hebrew word translated “TRUST” in our Bibles means:

to put your entire weight on something (Tony Evans). Complete reliance. Tony Evans gives the example of lying down on our bed at night to sleep. We lie down on our bed because we believe it is strong enough to hold us.

Derek Kidner says the word means: lying helplessly face downwards...similar to the baby seen in Psalm 22:9 “But You are He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts.”

Who can we trust this way? There is only ONE!

I can’t even trust myself this way! But I can have...

Confident Trust: Trust in the Lord

The reason we can have this confident trust is because we are not trusting in a scheme, we are not trusting in a plan, we are not trusting in a roadmap...we are trusting in YAHWEH! He is the GREAT I AM...the one who always WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE!

He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!

He is the only SURE foundation we can rest on.

Hubbard and Ogilvie illustrate this type of trust by saying:

“Trust” steps onto the bridge of God’s loving power and leaves the shorelines of our own abilities and ambitions behind.

How do we learn to trust God this way? I think Adrian Rogers hit the nail on the head when he said in his sermon on this passage:

You can’t trust somebody that you don’t know and you don’t love...For example, sometimes my precious wife Joyce will say to me, “...close your eyes and open your mouth.” And I do. And, what happens is wonderful, because she’s got something that she had created that is marvelous and delicious—If a perfect stranger told me, “Shut your eyes and open your mouth,” no because I don’t know them...

Dr. Rogers knew and loved his wife, and he knew she loved him, and would never put something in his mouth to hurt him in any way. He knew her character.

The more we get to know God and the more we love God and relish His love for us, the more we will learn about HIs character and the more we will TRUST Him!

When we taste something bitter in life, and we will, we can still say: I MAY NOT UNDERSTAND THIS INGREDIENT THAT GOD HAS ALLOWED TO COME MY WAY, BUT I KNOW HIM, I KNOW HIS CHARACTER, I KNOW HE IS FOR ME AND NOT AGAINST ME and I know if He is allowing this into my life I CAN TRUST HIM TO WORK IT OUT FOR MY GOOD!

Confident trust is about the OJECT of your faith (YAHWEH) whereas COMPLETE trust is about the EXTENT of our trust (WITH ALL OF OUR HEART)

A Complete Trust: With All Your Heart

GOD IS NOT INTERESTED IN BEING OUR PART TIME CONSULTANT!

Someone said that trusting God with all of our heart means:

You are “betting” your life on God’s wisdom. It requires stripping away any backup plans, safety nets, or makeshift substitutes so that your reliance is absolute—either God comes through or I fall flat on my face.

That is how we are called to trust God and THAT IS THE TYPE OF TRUST THAT GOD IS WORTHY OF!

GOD IS NOT INTERESTED IN BEING OUR PART TIME CONSULTANT! He’s not GOOGLE or AI that we run to when we are out of ideas. He’s not a backup generator.

HE IS GOD AND GOD ALONE AND HE IS WORTHY OF OUR CONFIDENT AND COMPLETE TRUST!

We need to ask ourselves the hard question: WHAT are we trusting?

Is it our:

savings account

career

retirement plan

political figure

The truth is anything we trust MORE than God has become our “god.”

Sometimes our trust is in our OWN INTELLIGENCE, our OWN EXPERIENCE, our OWN UNDERSTANDING...

A Contrasting Trust: Lean Not on Your Own Understanding

I was speaking with a friend of mine a few days ago and he was talking about his struggle with trusting God. He mentioned part of that struggle involved “giving up control.” I asked him, “Who is really in control?” He acknowledged God was...so I reminded him that whether we willingly acknowledge His control and give up what we are trying to control or not, ultimately God is in control anyway.

We have to learn this important but hard truth! We have to walk away from our INTELLECT and INGENUITY if we are going to truly rely on God the way He has called us to. Remember he has called us to TRUST in Him with all of our hearts...to strip away our backup plans...because our understanding does not have the capacity to hold us up and get us to where we need to be. WE ARE FLAWED, OUR UNDERSTANDING IS INCOMPLETE AND BROKEN! God’s understanding is perfect and ALL SUFFICIENT!

We have to lay down our pride and humbly LEAN INTO God instead of leaning on our own faulty logic!

Our trust in God is not demonstrated by sitting on the sidelines of life. While there is an aspect of “waiting on the Lord” there is also an aspect of active obedience and progression.

In this passage we see that GOD is WORTHY OF ALL OF OUR TRUST, but we also see that we must...

Pursue God in Every Path

“in all your ways acknowledge Him”

First, let’s talk about the word ACKNOWLEDGE. The Hebrew word for acknowledge is YADA (Yadah).

Sometimes when we think about “acknowledging” someone we think of giving someone a polite nod or noticing they are in the room. But that is not the idea of the Hebrew word.

It literally means to have INTIMATE, RELATIONAL KNOWLEDGE. Interestingly enough it is the same Hebrew word used in Genesis 4:1 “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.””

Adam and Eve enjoyed the bonding sacred union of husband and wife, not just intellectual knowledge of one another. As believers who understand that God is worthy of our trust, we are to have a deeply personal and spiritual connection with our Creator.

As a result we are to have RECOGNIZE God’s presence and HIS interest in our DAILY EXISTENCE. In all that we do and in every decision we make we turn TO God.

I believe true intimacy is built on trust. We we learn to TRUST in the Lord with all of our heart we can ACKNOWLEDGE Him in all of our ways!

When we think about “all of our ways” it is important to understand that acknowledging God is not a ONE TIME event, but a LIFE LONG process! It is a continuous walk. It involves acknowledging God day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade.

Adrian Rogers put it this way:

How are you going to know God’s will for your life? Listen. God’s will is not a roadmap; it is a relationship. Get that big and plain: “In all of your ways acknowledge Him. Trust in the Lord” (Proverbs 3:5–6)...The way to find God’s will for the rest of your life is to do God’s will for the next 15 minutes.

As I said earlier, God is not interested in being a PART-TIME CONSULTANT! God wants a deep relationship with you that affects your budget, that affects your decisions, that affects your attitudes...

ACKNOWLEDGE HIM IN ALL YOUR WAYS!

Do you acknowledge Him...

before dating?

before accepting the promotion?

before buying the vehicle?

before spending money?

before responding to criticism?

before posting online?

before choosing entertainment?

before making vacation plans?

before disciplining your children?

before changing jobs?

before retirement?

before saying "yes"?

before saying "no"?

"If God only gets consulted after we've already made up our minds...

we aren't acknowledging Him.

When we understand that GOD IS WORTHY OF OUR TRUST and that we are to ACKNOWLEDGE HIM IN ALL OF OUR WAYS we will find that...

Straight Paths are His Promise

...He shall direct your paths...

In reading this verse in the past I always thought it just meant that God would give me “direction.” Certainly that is part of this promise, but the promise goes beyond that!

The Hebrew word translated “DIRECT” means: “TO CLEAR THE WAY.” In other words, not only is God going to DIRECT YOU at you trust Him and acknowledge Him in all your ways, but God is also going to GO BEFORE YOU AND CLEAR THE WAY as you trust and acknowledge Him!

It is similar to the picture we find in Isaiah 40:3–5 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.””

Adrian Rogers said that :

God will be your downfield blocker, clearing the way as you run toward the END ZONE.

God will be like a “divine bulldozer” filling the valleys, leveling the obstacles, straightening the curves, to create a smooth highway for you to travel!

Who wouldn’t want God running interference for us?! If we want to experience and enjoy that then we must learn to TRUST HIM WITH ALL OUR HEART, LEAN NOT ON OUR OWN UNDERSTANDING, ACKNOWLEDGE HIM in ALL OUR WAYS...and when we do we can also trust God to ENSURE OUR ROAD REACHES THE RIGHT DESTINATION!

Today, I need to ask a pointed question.

Have you trusted Him with YOUR soul and your salvation? The trust is we have ALL come short of the glory of God. We have all SINNED and the wages of our sin is DEATH: separation from God now and separation from God forever.

But God loved YOU so much that He willingly sent His only Son to be sacrificed on YOUR behalf and paid the wages that YOU owed, so you could have His perfected credited to YOUR account. He’s asking YOU to trust Him today!

Christian IF you have trusted Him with your most valuable possession, your never ending, never dying soul, ISN’T HE WORTHY OF YOU TRUSTING HIM WITH EVERYTHING ELSE?

Your finances

Your marriage

Your sobriety

Your children

Your health

Your future

GOD IS WILLING TO LEAD YOU. GOD IS WILLING TO CLEAR THE PATH FOR YOU. GOD IS WILLING TO BLOCK FOR YOU. GOD IS WILLING TO WORK ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR GOOD FOR YOU...THE QUESTION IS ARE YOU WILLING TO TRUST?!

Today God is asking you to give Him YOUR WEIGHT (Trust in Him with all your heart)

Today God is asking you to give Him YOUR WILL (stop leaning on your own understaning)

Today God is asking you to give Him YOUR WALK (acknowledge Him in all your ways)

In return He will GIVE YOU HIS WAY! HIS WAY IS BETTER!