Sermon Tone Analysis

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?

Proverbs 3:1-12 contains precious promises to Christians who want to know and do God’s will in every area of life:

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)

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.

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:

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:

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:

We add to this scripture our knowledge that Genesis defines the marriage partnership as a man and a woman in

and add to that

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)

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.

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:

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:

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)

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: