A Sermon by Pastor Isaiah Oby.

Everybody, today we usually on Sundays hear either from myself or from Pastor Abbie, who's off in Israel this week. But this week we have a special guest joining us from Northside Assembly. Please give a round of applause for Pastor Isaiah.

Hello, everyone. Yeah, my name is Pastor Isaiah. I'm a pastor here in the city of Madison on a church called Northside Christian Assembly. We are actually on the south side. That was not true. Just trying to see if you're listening. We're on the north side. Yeah, my name is Pastor Isaiah. My wife, Pastor Lena, is in the prayer room with our two kids. We have a four-year-old, his name is Zion, and a five-month-old. Her name is Shiloh. And if you see her, she's adorable. And she does look like me. So if you're wondering, as you can tell, I'm going to be telling some jokes and I'm in a good mood. I hope you guys are in a good mood. If not.

My parents are here. Pastor Joe and Crystal from Northside Christian Assembly. I usually have like a whole thing and I set that up and I'm like, yeah, you know, Pastor Joe and Crystal there. The senior pastors, I serve under them. Yes, they do look like me. They have my last name. They are my parents, but I'm really the one that calls the shots. That's usually what I do. And then I find out that we're live streaming, and then I go, oh, man. So this is the first time that they've heard me say that in person, I think. Are we doing video today? Just podcast? Just audio? Okay, well, everyone, you can have your seats. I don't know how we got 100 people in the room.

That's all I got. Well, we're just going to get right into the Word today. We're going to be coming out of the book of Proverbs, chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. This is, if you've been saved for a while, maybe you've grew up in church, you've probably heard this verse before. Funny thing, as I was praying and asking God about what to preach about, this scripture kind of continued to come up in my heart, and my first thought was, let me read it, and then I'll go.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6, NIV

As I was saying, I was praying. What should I preach about? What should I bring forward? Oh, thank you so much for having me. I didn't say that. Thank you so much. Pastor Abbie, if you're listening, thank you so much. When you're listening. Yeah, thank you. So I was praying, and Lord put this scripture on my heart, and I was like, I've heard this a million times. Everyone else probably has. I know it already.

It's kind of ironic, though, actually thinking about what that verse actually says. Lean not on your own understanding.

Historical and cultural context

Some historical and cultural context of what's going on here in the scripture. The book of Proverbs is a part of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, likely written between the 10th and 6th centuries BC. The wisdom literature was aimed at teaching moral and ethical behavior, giving practical advice for daily living. Proverbs is traditionally attributed to King Solomon, renowned for his wisdom, though some parts might have been written by other authors. During this time period, Israel was a nation that served one God, Yahweh. Amen.

All right, so this is how we do it at my church. I'm just going to give you guys fair warning. So when I say amen, you got to go amen, right? Because there are a hundred people in here. So how it should sound, it's crazy, you guys, it doesn't sound like a hundred people. So it's going to be a little bit of call and response.

During this time period, Israel was a nation surrounded by other nations who served a whole bunch of gods that was not the God of Israel, Yahweh. So trusting in the Lord and acknowledging him was a cultural distinction that set the Israelites apart from their neighbors. It was also an acknowledgement to the sovereignty of God over every aspect of life.

Today, we live in a culture that is infatuated with more and more understanding and knowledge. We have to know more. We have to get the knowledge. Today, we have influencers and thought leaders and technological advances that make it more and more strange not to simply ask Google or ChatGPT when we should be asking God.

Proverbs 3:5-6 encapsulates the biblical concept of faith, emphasizing complete trust in God rather than human understanding or wisdom. It illustrates a key tenet in Jewish and then later Christian theology, that humans should rely on God's wisdom rather than their own.

God, I just thank you so much for being here today. I thank you for the opportunity to be surrounded by a community of like-minded individuals who have dedicated their lives to serving you. God, I ask that the words that I preach today not be mine, but indeed be yours, Father, and I ask that they penetrate the hearts of every ear that is listening. I pray that nobody leaves the same way that they came in. In your precious and wonderful holy name. Amen.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. Total trust in God. In this context, the word trust refers to having confidence, reliance, and faith in the Lord. It involves entrusting one's life's decision and future to God's care and guidance.

Trusting in the Lord means relying on his wisdom, providence, and faithfulness rather than relying solely on one's own understanding or human wisdom. That is the trust in the Lord. And then, with all of your heart. How much of your heart? How much of your heart? Some of it? On Sundays? With all of your heart.

The term heart, when we see it in scripture, is used in a metaphorical sense. It represents the center of a person's entire being, including their emotions, thoughts, desires, and will, the whole and total person. Trusting in the Lord with all of your heart implies a wholehearted commitment, surrender, and devotion to God. It involves aligning your deepest affections, intentions, and beliefs with God's will.

Trusting in the Lord with all of your heart is a command to trust the Lord with who you are. It means to trust in the Lord with all of your identity. It means to trust in the Lord with how people see you. It means to trust in the Lord with how you view and see yourself.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Psalms 139:14

It does not matter what the world tries to tell you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God.

Lean not on your own understanding

The next part of this passage says, lean not on your own understanding. This is referring to the understanding of ourself. We are to trust in the Lord with all of our heart. We are to trust in God. Put our whole heart, identity, self, understanding of who we are into God's hands.

This is referring to understanding yourself. Maybe you've said something like this before. You know, I would tell my coworkers about Jesus. I'd invite them to New Culture Church. But that's not really who I am. That's not, you know, that's not really my personality. Well, did the Holy Spirit tell you that? Or is that your own understanding?

I know, I know, I know. I've been asked to lead a small group, maybe even preach. But, you know, I'm more of a background kind of guy. You know, I'm more of a behind the scenes kind of person. Is that your understanding or is that what Jesus said?

Trusting in the Lord requires us to give up our preconceived notions about our emotional, physical, psychological identity and put it in the hands of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that we can be holy in the will of God, living out the life that God intended for us to live.

The next part of the verse, lean not on your own understanding. A lot of people, I'm going to be using the word understanding, knowledge, skill kind of interchangeably here. Julius Caesar said experience is the teacher of all things. Albert Einstein said the only source of knowledge is experience. That's a lie. It's a secret. It's not a secret, actually. I mean, it's thousands of years old.

For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

Proverbs 2:6

We don't have to learn everything by experience. Thank God. I learned some stuff by experience and I was like, I didn't have to do that.

My definition of understanding, the definition I'm using to help me kind of make sense of it. Our understanding is the sum total of processed experience. Our understanding is the sum total of our processed experience. I put in the word process there because I think that we can experience a whole lot but learn nothing from it. And we do all the time.

We can experience a whole bunch of things. I experienced a whole lot in high school of education. I was in class, I experienced a whole lot of teaching. I don't understand a lot of that now. I took pre-calc, I took calculus. I don't understand calculus. But I was there, I experienced it, but I didn't take the time to wholly process the experience that I was getting through homework, repetition, tests, et cetera.

I'm in therapy. Shout out to therapy. I love therapy. Mental health. My therapist made me mad this week. It was actually this week. She made me mad. So I was talking to her about something and I was like, yeah, I don't know, man, I just got to figure it out. I guess I just got to figure it out. Got to pray about it. Got to figure it out. She was like, you know, why do people always do that? Why do people think that you can solve a problem with the same brain that created it?

So I got mad. I was like, well, I mean, well, I mean, uh, well, I mean, you know, uh. How can you solve a problem with the same brain that created it? Let's take it a step further. If you had the answers, like if you really knew how to get out of it, you wouldn't have gotten in the situation in the first place.

There is, though, a lot of value to natural understanding. There is a lot of value to understanding. In fact, God values knowledge and understanding. We see many examples in the Bible. Two that I wrote down, the book of 1 Samuel, talking about King David, and the book of Daniel, talking about the prophet Daniel. They were both very knowledgeable men. They were both men who the Bible describes as very skillful in the areas of what they did.

And both of these men, because of their skill and their ability and their knowledge and understanding in these particular areas, they were both placed in positions of power and authority. They were both recognized by the kings and the rulers of that time who weren't even after God's own heart. It was their knowledge and understanding that they were able to get put in that position.

For my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

Hosea 4:6

I don't want anybody to walk away thinking, so I'm not supposed to learn stuff? Like Pastor Isaiah, he don't think we're supposed to learn stuff? No, no. Learn. It's great. It's important. It's great to have understanding. It's great to get knowledge and to have it.

And if you allow him, God can and will use your understanding of business, industry, creativity, psychology, relationships, scripture, communication, or whatever you find skill and success in to make his name great and make disciples of all nations. God wants to use your knowledge and understanding for his glory.

But. Everybody say but. But because our understanding is determined by the amount of processed experience, there is a real and imminent danger of self-reliance. Relying on your own understanding is a recipe for disaster. Why? Because you have simply not experienced enough. You have not experienced enough and you haven't processed enough.

Your understanding should influence how you do something. Your understanding should never decide if you do something. Your understanding should influence how you do something, but your understanding should never decide if you do something.

Now, caveat, like I said before, some stuff we learn by experience. I said I'm not doing that again. When I was a kid, I was like, I think I can breathe underwater. I could probably do that. I mean, my parents can't, but why not give it a try? Wasn't a good experience. Not going to do that again. Staying up until 6 a.m. in the morning, just being out, then going to work at 8 a.m.? Nah, not doing that again.

So some stuff we learn, we're like, okay, experience tells me I'm not going to do that. But experience shouldn't just, if we're just being honest, had I, like, asked the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit would have been like, I mean, I was a kid when I tried to breathe underwater, but, you know, like, as an adult, but maybe staying out until 6 a.m., maybe not.

Your understanding should influence how you do something. You should never decide if you do something.

When you walk into a classroom, it doesn't matter how much you know about the subject. In fact, you might actually know more than the teacher. Your understanding on a particular subject is not the syllabus. Your understanding and knowledge on calculus is not the syllabus. In fact, you can know literally more than the teacher and still fail the class. In fact, the syllabus was written before you even walked through the door.

At work, I don't care how good you are at your job, if you don't do what your boss tells you to do, you're getting fired. It doesn't matter. Anybody in here, maybe I didn't think about everything. Anybody in here, does your knowledge and experience at your job write your paycheck? So nobody's skill alone just writes your bank account. No, it is somebody else. It's the manager, boss, or whatever. They are deciding what happens at the job, what needs to happen at the job. But your skill, your knowledge, your understanding, it will make your job a whole lot easier. It can make it quicker. It will determine how the things are done.

So our understanding, perspective, and knowledge are inherently limited and flawed. I beg of you, please do not depend on what you know. Instead, as the scripture instructs us, depend on God, who is omniscient, omnipotent. God is big. God knows a lot. You don't.

I mean, that's really the whole sermon. God's smarter than you.

In all your ways, acknowledge him

The next part of the verse says, in all of your ways, in all of your ways, trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways. Another translation of this says, in all of your ways, submit to him. And this means in every aspect of our lives, the things that we do, in our decisions, actions, plans, and goals, we should acknowledge God's sovereignty.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart refers to who you are in God. And in all your ways refers to what you do. We should be seeking God's will, guidance, and wisdom in everything we do, whether it is big or small. It's about recognizing that God is in control.

When I say the phrase acknowledging or recognizing God's sovereignty, it is really just meaning that you recognize who's really in charge here. We should be aligning ourselves with God's divine plan instead of asking him to come along to what we've already decided we were going to do.

Here are two ways to acknowledge God in everything you do. Have you prayed about it? Very, very simple. Have you prayed about it?

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your heart and your minds in Jesus Christ.

Philippians 4:6-7

From now on, anybody comes to me with a problem, I challenge you to do the same. First thing out of your mouth, you pray about it? No? Let's pray right now. Let's pray. Anybody who's not willing to pray about it, they're not trying to change.

For us, if we're not willing to pray about it, we're not actually willing to change. Like I said before, we do not take a prayer to God just when things are bad. It's with every situation. You can easily tell what you've been acknowledging God about by looking at what you're praying for.

Do not pray just when things are bad, but in every single situation. You can easily tell what you've been acknowledging God about or acknowledging God for by looking at what you have been praying for. What have you been leaning on your own strength about? Whatever decision you made that you didn't pray about first. I know it seems a little extreme, but what if we as Christians, as Christ followers, lived our lives making every single decision, big or small, based on, hey, let me pray about that first. How less burnt out would we be? How many of our relationships would just be great all the time?

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

James 5:16

I'm going to step on some toes. I'm letting you know ahead of time. I'm going to step on some toes. Prayer is the number one thing that we need to do to make sure that we are aligned with God's will. Like to make sure that we are acknowledging him in all that we do. But it is outside the will of God to say, you know what, I'm just going to pray about it. Just me. Me by myself. Just me and God. In the prayer room. Nobody else. I'll tell my church community once I'm through it.

You don't got to raise your hand, but I'm going to raise my hand. Church community is the second best thing that you can do to make sure that you're acknowledging God in all of your ways. It seems a little different. It seems a little weird. I'll explain it a little more.

Back in the book of Genesis, all the way in the beginning of the Bible, in the second and third chapter, we see that God made Adam. God made Adam. And he made Adam with limitations. He made Adam with limitations. He made Adam with limitations on purpose. Pastor Isaiah, how do you know? I'm so glad that you asked. I'm going to tell you.

God saw Adam, God saw mankind and said that this is good. At the same time, God looked at Adam by himself and said, it is not good for man to be alone. So out of that, Adam has limitations. Out of that, God created Eve. If it was God's will for us to not have limitations, God would have just made Adam not have any limitations. He would have just made Adam good to be alone. But it is not good for men to be alone. It is not good for us to be alone. That means that community is in God's design for our lives.

Community is a part of God's distinct will and design for each and every one of our lives. So ignoring it is leaning on our own understanding, even when we're praying about it.

Prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and apostles.

Galatians 5

And what we can learn from that passage is that God gave different people distinctive gifts. Maybe you interpret it for the local church or like the general greater church body. But God gave each and every person a gift and a distinct gift that requires the collaboration with all the other gifts for the advancement of God's kingdom. God made each and every one of us different for a reason.

So when we say the phrase and when we think to ourselves, well, I'll just, yeah, I'm just, yeah, like, like, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Yeah. Just like praying through some stuff, you know, what's going on? You know, that's, we were designed for community.

I'm married, so I can talk about married couples. Same goes for married couples.

Two became one flesh.

Reference

Just even keeping things between your two, we just gonna pray about it. We were designed for community. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.

Another translation says he will direct your path. Like we've talked about, our knowledge, our understanding is limited. It's also measurable. Never put your whole faith in something that you can count. Never put your whole faith in something that you can measure. If you can see the end of it, then it has an end. And if it has an end, it could be taken away.

I choose to serve and to put my whole trust in a God that is limitless, that is not defined by anything that I can see or understand or imagine. If I could understand God, I wouldn't worship him. I promise.

I like words. I like wordplay. So I write music and stuff. So I was curious. I just looked up the word understand, like the root of the word understand. The origin of the word understand means to like literally get under something and like see how it works. So like you can like stand under it and like look around and be like, okay. To understand is to be able to kind of like hold up the truth with like concrete knowledge. I see it. I get it. I understand it. I could probably do it myself.

To understand something is to get down to the root of the issue.

Your ways are not my ways. My ways are higher than your ways.

Reference

Understanding gets to the root of the issue, but godly wisdom is always above it. Godly wisdom goes beyond understanding.

Something that we do, I'm wrapping up. There's this temptation. We know we're not supposed to lean not on our own understanding, trust in the Lord. But when we read scripture or when the Holy Spirit tells us to do something, we take that thing and then go over to our understanding and experience and measure it with our understanding and experience and then say, oh, so this is what God wants me to do.

When Jesus says, you will lay your hands on the sick and they will be healed.

Reference

We look at the verse and then we go, for sure, for sure, absolutely, that's what's up, that's what's up, that's really good, man, one day, hopefully. But you don't actually believe it because you haven't experienced it yourself.

I don't have a solution to this. I wish I did. I wish I had the answer. But even when we are praying and the Holy Spirit tells us to do something, oftentimes we say, huh, I don't understand that. Let me wait to find out.

There are kind of two kinds of people, two extremes. I'm on one end, I'll go first. I'm the kind of person, if I'm not being careful, I'll hear God say something and I'm like that's what God's telling me to do. God's telling me to go over there. God's telling me to go through that door, and then I go. I start running and I basically do everything but close my ears and go la la la until I'm through the door. God might not have been telling me to go through the door. He might have been telling me to go in that direction. But I understood it as go through the door. So I'm kicking that door down. Door be locked. I'm like, why isn't this door open? And I'm going to do everything I can to get through the door. And then after I'm through the door, no matter what damage it caused, then I'm going to say, whew, alright God, what do we do next?

Then there's like the other spectrum of people. They hear God saying like, we go through the door. And then they go, you know, I think I heard God say go through the door. It might be in the direction. I'm not entirely sure. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pray about this for the next six months. And I'm not going to do anything until I know for sure what God is telling me to do.

Both of these situations is literally you trying to understand God. And you saying like, cool God, I hear you, but I need to understand it before I do it. Or I'm not going to ask you anything else until I've already fully and totally understood what you want me to do.

Last point here. I really like the word lean. Do not lean on your own understanding. Because as Christians, we go through life and God's telling us to do stuff. And God's like, move around the table. And we're like, cool, I got you. And this is our understanding. This is our job. It's our bank account. It's our ability to pick things up quickly. It's, oh well, I mean, if this doesn't work, I mean, I got it. I mean, I can always fall back on something.

Lean not on your own understanding. This last weekend on Friday and Saturday we were in the Dells. And my son doesn't know how to swim. And I'm trying to help him. You know, I'm holding him in the water, like trying to get him comfortable with it. And he doesn't like getting water in his ears. So I'm like trying to get him comfortable with it. And I'm like holding him. And I'm thinking to myself like, wow, like he's really trusting today. Like he's like really going at it. And like before when he was at swimming lessons, he was like, you know, absolutely not. And I'm like, man, that's crazy. Like he's really trusting.

I didn't realize until afterward he had a life jacket. Of course he's trusting. He has something to fall back like. He knows like his experience showed him that like, hey, if my dad lets me go, I'm still good. I'm not going under. Some of us spend our entire lives looking for the life jacket, looking for the life raft, looking for the actual physical structures to still hold on to when God is telling you to go. And we're like, okay, cool. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. No, I'm going. I'm going. Yep. Yep. Yep. And then we wonder why we're so stuck.

Conclusion

All right. Proverbs 3:5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight. It says who will make your path straight? He. God. Jesus. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Not trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him. And then he will give me the tools to figure it out myself. He will give me the tools to build my car and go on the journey. He will direct your path.

This verse is a powerful reminder that we should live our lives centered on God, trusting in his love and wisdom, not relying solely on our understanding and acknowledging him in everything. Our identity, who we are, and our actions, what we do, should be dictated by God's word and the Holy Spirit through scripture, prayer, and Christian community. In return, we are promised divine guidance. Divine guidance. Assurance in our life's journey and a heart that is pleasing to the will of God.

I want to end the sermon with a very short time in prayer. And I want to do something a little different. Oftentimes when we get into the prayer room or we're in an experience like this, the very first thing that we think about is all the stuff that's going wrong. What should I give to God?

I want to challenge you. Don't pray about anything that's bothering you. Don't pray about the question that you've been pondering. Don't pray about the situation. Don't pray about how you're going to do something. Only pray about the good stuff. Only pray about the things that are really actually going well.

Maybe your job is going great. Pray about it. Let's give that to God. Let's give the things to God that we normally wouldn't really think to. I mean, I got it. It's right there. Now, if your whole life is just in shambles and you can't think of a single good thing to pray for, I give you my permission. I give you permission. You can pray about whatever is on your heart. But for everybody else, for the next short time, I challenge you only to pray about what's going well. Give those things to God.

I think that there's going to be some freedom in circumstances that are bad by you giving God the things that are good. Some of us are asking God for answers and for prayers that he gave somebody else. The answer. He gave your Christian community the answer. He gave the people that you don't really want to talk to about it the answer. There's freedom in that. Let's spend the next few minutes giving the good things to God.

Jesus, we surrender to you. Lord, teach us to walk with open hands. Lord, we surrender our desires to you, our wants, our thoughts, what we think is best. We surrender to you. Lord, I pray that whatever you've stirred in our hearts here today, that we might walk out of this room with a renewed trust and faith in the God whose ways are above our ways, his thoughts are above our thoughts. Jesus, thank you for a wisdom that comes from you, not from man.

Jesus, we thank you because you do know more than us. Because you are bigger than us, and bigger than we can fathom. And you're so trustworthy. And when we fail to trust you, you still don't change, and you're still faithful to your word. Jesus we thank you and it's in your holy name I pray. Amen.