Path of Success
A Guide for Christians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 33:52
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· 641 viewsWhen God thinks of success, He is thinking of faithfulness. True success is doing the will of God. Are you succeeding?
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Proverbs 3:1–12 (ESV)
Trust in the Lord with All Your Heart
3 My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments,
2 for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you.
3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
What is God’s Will?
What is God’s Will?
Proverbs 3:1-12 contains precious promises to Christians who want to know and do God’s will in every area of life:
1 My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments,
2 for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you.
3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
One of the frequently asked questions I hear from other Christians is “How do I know what God’s will is?”
It is a common struggle for modern Christians, we all want to do God’s will, but we often have no idea how to determine it, or even recognize it.
The answer lies simply in this, the more you know about God’s will in general, the more you will be able to recognize God’s will in your life.
I realize this is not an easy answer. It requires dedication and soul searching.
It is not a secret, His will is laid out in the the book we treasure so much, the Bible. God wants us to know His will; He is eager to reveal His will to Us.
However there are certain conditions that we must meet before God can direct our paths.
Listen to the Word (vv. 1-4)
Listen to the Word (vv. 1-4)
We must follow the clear commandments of Scripture.
We must strive to have a solid knowledge for scripture as a whole in order to learn God’s teaching in matters not clearly commanded.
Abortion: Exodus 20:13, Exodus 21:22-24, and Leviticus 24:17-20.
Gay Marriage: Romans 1:26-28, Genesis 2:24, and Hebrews 13:4.
We must be willing to not only search for the answers, but to listen to them and apply them to our lives.
First, in verses 1 through 4, we learn that we must be willing to Listen to the Word because God’s will is found in God’s Word.
1 My son, do not forget my teaching,
but let your heart keep my commandments,
2 for length of days and years of life
and peace they will add to you.
3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
4 So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.
This section mentions two distinct things, the first is teaching and the second is commandments.
Commandments is the easy part.
If scripture clearly states that you should or should not do something, then it is wise to act accordingly.
I think we can all agree on that.
Therefore, I want to focus on the first part, teaching.
This is the difficult part for most Christians, yet it is the most essential for us to understand, because it is where we find the answers to the “grey area” questions.
There are many challenges to modern Christians in finding God’s will for situations that are not specifically addressed in scripture.
I would like to talk you through a few examples:
First, there is no clear commandment in the Bible against abortion.
However, we can garner from God’s commandment against murder in Exodus 20:13, which clearly says:
13 “You shall not murder.
That God despises murder.
I want to side note here that many translations render “murder” as “kill”. But the Hebrew word used defines as “to kill intentionally and with premeditation”, (Exodus 21:12-14) so murder would be the most accurate term in modern English.
Additionally, we can understand, by comparing Exodus 21:22-24 and Leviticus 24:17-20, that God considers an unborn child as valued as a grown adult:
22 “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. 18 Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life. 19 If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.
God uses the same punishment for the harm of both and unborn child and born human: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
Therefore we can understand that God’s will regarding abortion is that the premeditated, intentional killing of an unborn child, “abortion”, is to be treated and punished as murder.
Another statement I read recently is that Christians should not be against gay marriage as there is no commandment specifically against two men or two women getting married.
Again, we can come to the opposite conclusion by understanding the teaching of scripture:
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
We add to this scripture our knowledge that Genesis defines the marriage partnership as a man and a woman in
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
and add to that
4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
and we understand that not only is homosexuality sinful, but that marriage is sacred and those who defile it will be judged accordingly.
These examples demonstrate to us that understanding the whole of scripture and using God’s general teachings of His will is as important, if not more important, to the Christian as following clear and specific commandments.
We must be willing to not only search for the answers in the Word but also to listen to the answers provided and apply them to today’s lifestyle and society in order to ensure we are truthfully seeking God’s Will.
Verses 3 - 4 go on to explain that seeking God’s Will is not only a search for our mind, but it is our hearts also that should remember and consider the Word.
The scripture wants us to understand that the better you know the Bible, the better you will know God’s will for your life.
Obey the Word (vv. 5-10)
Obey the Word (vv. 5-10)
Trust God:
Entirely - “with all your heart”
Exclusively - “lean not on your own understanding”
Extensively - “in all your ways”
We must acknowledge and worship God exactly as He is.
God will reveal His will to the heart that is sincerely seek Him and willing to obey.
John 7:17
James 1:5
Next, in verses 5 through 10, we are told that, if we really trust God, we will obey the Word.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
There are two key words I want to focus on here and their implications to our relation to God.
The first is Trust.
The scripture says we should trust God with all our heart, in other words we should trust Him entirely.
We also see that we are not to lean on our own understanding, our trust should be in God exclusively.
Lastly, we see that this trust should be exercised in all our ways, our trust for God should be an extensive trust that is a part of everything in our lives.
The second word I want to key on is “acknowledge”.
The Hebrew word here means “to accept someone to be what is claimed”.
As we talked about last time (The Rights of Life) God is who He is, and we must accept and worship Him as such in order to be true disciples.
We often think that our own wisdom and human logic is sufficient, but scripture says it is not; we need the wisdom of God.
I don’t want to you construe this passage as saying that Christians should not think and consider facts when making decisions, it would be an error to believe God does not expect us to use our brains.
Rather, as I’ve stated before, a major failing of modern Christians is that we form our own ideas of right and wrong and of what we think should be good and then go to the Bible to impose our ideas upon the scripture.
This is not seeking God’s will, it is seeking affirmation of your own.
Instead, we should read the Bible in search of truth and allow the Bible to shape our ideas and re-shape our preconceived notions.
We also learned a few weeks ago through Paul’s journey in Acts 15:36-16:15 (The Rights of Life) that what we conceive as good or bad in the moment often has a greater purpose in God’s plan and we must trust in Him in order to realize the fruits of His will for our lives.
In fact, John tells us in John 7:17 that it is only when our will is truthfully seeking to do God’s that we will be able to recognize His will:
17 If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.
In addition to this, James tells us that we should all realize that we lack the full wisdom of God and, therefore, we should always seek to add His wisdom to our thoughts:
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
It is a sincere willingness to know God’s will, form our lives around it, and to obey Him that leads to the blessings we seek from Him.
Submit to the Word (vv. 11-12)
Submit to the Word (vv. 11-12)
Just as parents discipline their children; the Lord disciplines us because He loves us.
Hebrews 12:5-11
The third lesson we are to understand is that we are to submit ourselves to God’s will, even when He is disciplining us:
11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
Hebrews actually gives us a thorough explanation of these verses in:
5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
The Lord discipline’s and corrects us not only by His divine actions in our life’s but also through His Word.
We are to submit ourselves to the correction of our thoughts and actions that the Word requires.
When we do this and allow ourselves to be trained by the Word, God will turn the discipline into blessing and His will becomes more clear to us.
When we Listen to, Obey, and Submit to the Word of God; we put our lives on the path to true success: Doing the Will of God.
When we Listen to, Obey, and Submit to the Word of God; we put our lives on the path to true success: Doing the Will of God.
How does the world define success? How do you define it? What does it even mean to be successful? It does not matter whether you are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, saved or lost - everyone desires to be successful. There are many definitions of success. For some it means:
making a lot of money
getting a promotion at work
making a lot of friends
being needed by people
becoming a community leader
having degrees from the finest schools
wearing the best clothes
driving the fanciest car
owning the biggest house
And on and on the list goes. But the important question that demands our attention is this: How does God define success? God’s definition of success does not depend on the external things of this world that impress humans. When God thinks of success, He is thinking of faithfulness. True success is doing the will of God. Are you succeeding?