Sermon Tone Analysis

Today’s Message:            The Ultimate Navigation – How God Guides Us

Today’s speaker:             David Jones

                  

 

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Introduction (4 min)

 

Introduce yourself.

Today’s topic is the Ultimate Navigation -- How God Guides us.

Give credit to Tim Keller.

Talk about getting the call to speak and preparing and what Van said about the topic.

And I thought how true.

We all know God guides us but to be honest it can be very confusing at times.

Just how does God guide us?

 

That’s what I want us to consider today.

We all need guidance.

We all need wisdom.

A definition --

 

*Wisdom is knowing how to respond  in the vast majority of life situations where the moral rules don’t apply.

*

 

 

For some decisions we can apply the moral rules and determine a definitive path forward.

Some things are a simply a matter of obedience.

For example, I know I shouldn’t lie, I know I should love others, I know I shouldn’t gossip or slander others.

However, most of life’s decisions aren’t addressed by the moral laws…should I take the new job or should I remain where I am, should a hire this person, should I marry this person, should I date this person, should I give more money to a certain organization, or take on this new ministry opportunity?

In all of these circumstances, the options are many.

All are allowable, all are legal, many may even be good but only one is wise…so what do I do?

How do I know which is wise?

We need guidance.

Today I want to discuss how God guides us.

We’ll do this together by considering three things:

 

1) The guidance God does

 

2) The guidance God gives

 

3) The guidance God purchases

 

First, the Guidance God Does

 

!

The Guidance God Does.

When looking at the Bible, there are two ways in which God “Does” guidance.

He guides:

 

1) Paradoxically

 

and

 

2) Non- obviously

 

!! 1) Paradoxically (10 min)

 

Paradoxically means seemingly contradictory.

A paradox is something that at first seems contradictory but is actually resolvable if we only had more understanding.

To see this let’s turn to the book of Proverbs chapter 21 verse 5.

 

* *

*/Proverbs 21:5 (NIV)/*

*     5 The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.*

The word diligent can be translated -- thoughtful, strategic, reflective.

The word haste may be better understood as impulsive

 

Okay…this doesn’t seem to say anything profound

 

We look at this verse and see that it say, instead of letting life happen, if you think before you act things will generally work out better.

Makes sense… no big deal, right?

If you’ve been around Christ Fellowship any amount of time you’ve probably heard Greg say.

“You either do life or life does you.”

That’s basically what this verse is saying – If I act thoughtfully, if I do something wise, life is going to go better.

But now let’s look at chapter 16 of Proverbs

 

Proverbs 16:33

 

*/Proverbs 16:33 (ESV)/*

     *33     The lot is cast into the lap, *

*but its every decision is from the Lord.

*

 

Explain lot casting.

Basically “rolling the dice or flipping a coin.”

It was way to decide.

So this verse is saying that nothing happens by chance.

Everything happens according to God’s will or plan.

Even the smallest details of life are fixed by God.

Now we begin to see the paradox…

 

On the one hand we’re told to think or reflect on things before we act and things will work out better for us.

On the other hand we’re taught that everything comes down exactly the way God wills it.

How does that work?

As we try to reason this out we have trouble.

Human categories of thought can’t hold these two together.

We say it must be on or the other or some mixture of the two.

Maybe it’s 50~/50 or 60~/40 BUT the biblical teaching says it’s both~/and.

We tend to see things as either fixed or open.

Either my choices determine my future AND God is just along for the ride to see how things work out OR God has everything fixed and my choices don’t matter.

But in the Bible we are told it’s both~/and.

We are absolutely free and yet absolutely determined at the same time.

There are many places in the Bible where this is narratively spelled out.

/Gen 50:19-20 Joseph’s understanding of God’s work and his actions/

/2 Samuel 24  God incites David to number the people, a sin, then David is held responsible/

/Isaiah 10:9-15 God uses the Assyrians to punish Israel but the Assyrians are still responsible for their evil deeds/

/Acts 27 Paul in the boat in the storm/

/ /

But today let’s look again at Proverbs 16 to see this.

 

*/Proverbs 16:1 (ESV)/*

*The plans of the heart belong to man, *

*but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

*

* *

* *

*/Proverbs 16:9 (ESV)/*

*The heart of man plans his way, *

*but the Lord establishes his steps.

*

 

 

Verse 1

 

We see in vs 1 that we are responsible for our plans.

Our plans “belong” to us.

God is not forcing us in any direction.

If we make unwise and destructive plans they are ours.

Our choices belong to us.

If we do dumb things, immoral things, wicked things other people and God will hold us accountable and they should.

BUT the results of our plans belong to God.

God alone establishes the end result.

Nothing happens that isn’t part of God’s plan.

So again we see…

 

*We are 100% free yet we are 100% determined.*

Again human categories can’t hold these two together.

It’s impossible to fully understand this BUT

 

*The awesome thing is that this teaching which is seemingly impossible to grasp is UTTERLY PRACTICAL.*

You see if you believe that you are either totally free or totally determined, you are SUNK!