Proverbs 3:5,6

BIG IDEA

Wisdom brings everything into focus.

INTRODUCTION

“Don’t catch the catcher”

“Author and theologian Henri Nouwen became fascinated, in the last years of his life, with a group of trapeze artists called the Flying Rodleighs. There was something about their courage, soaring, trusting, and their dependence on one another that inspired him—like a parable of our relationship to God.

He got to know some of them, including the leader.  He wrote about what he learned from them.

He learned from them that the flyers must completely trust the catchers. The leader said to him on one occasion, ‘As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher. The public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump. The secret is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catchbar.’

Nouwen remembers saying, ‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing,’ Rodleigh would repeat. ‘The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. I am not supposed to catch Joe. It’s Joe’s task to catch me. If I grabbed Joe’s wrists, I might break them, or he might break mine, and that would be the end for both of us. A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.’” (https://www.fbclaf.org/sermon/the-pinnacle-promise-of-proverbs/)

Wisdom brings everything into focus.

EXPLANATION

Let God be God.

The news in recent weeks has been filled with frightful news. A shooting at a church in Texas, terroristic threats from Iran, and rumors of World War III. What we need for these perilous times is a proper perspective of Who God is and What God does. Last week I quoted Oswald Chambers, who wrote, “The remarkable thing about fearing God is that, when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas, if you do not fear God, you fear everything.”

And I said last week that the “fear of the LORD is the recognition that God is God and you are not. God is God, and you are not.” I could summarize these thoughts by simply saying, “let God be God.” Let God be God. When you let God be God, you are freed from the responsibility of handling your everyday situations because you have surrendered your situations to the Sovereignty of God. This is the nature of trust.

The word trust means “to cling to, to confide in, or to set your confidence in” someone else. When you trust God, you cling to God, you confide in God, and you set your confidence in God to handle your circumstances.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (ESV)

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.

Wisdom brings everything into focus.

1. What – “Trust in the Lord”
   • When you trust God, you let God be God. To trust in God means that you avoid self-dependency and actively depend upon God. To repeat the words of Rodleigh, “don’t catch the catcher.” Depend upon God. Let Him do the catching.
   • Trusting in God means that you move to the steady and stable conviction that God will do the right thing, the right way, at the right time.
   • Trusting God means putting your entire confidence in God. When you trust in God, you do not focus on your circumstances, but rather focus on His Sovereignty and Sufficiency.
   • Trusting in God means that you are at peace with whatever God does and whatever God decides. In essence, trusting God is simply letting God be God in your life.
   • Trusting God, according to Ray Ortlund is, “…to throw oneself down on one’s face, to lie down spread-eagle in complete reliance—to make it as graphic as I can, to do a belly-flop on God with all our sin and all our failure and all our fears. We stake everything on the gospel promises of God. If God fails us, we are damned. If God comes through, we are saved forever. Real trust is that blunt and daring and simple.” (https://dashhouse.com/a-simple-new-years-goal-proverbs-3/)
   • Please notice the manner of this trust. It is “with all your heart.” What is the measure of your trust in God? When you encounter a problem, when you engage in a struggle, who do you trust to bring a solution?
     1. Is it “all-me and no-God?” Then you have an untrusting heart.
     2. Is it “a little-me and a little-God.” Then you have a half-hearted trust.
     3. Is it “no-me and all-God?” Then you have a trusting heart.
   • I love that the Scripture uses the word “heart” here and not “head.” Trusting God is not just an “intellectual agreement.” It is a loving respect that flows from a loving relationship from God.
   • In the Ancient Hebrew world, the heart was the center of the person. It was the core of the human. It is where you thought, decided, felt, and acted. 
   • Trust in the Lord…with all your heart. In the core of your being, trust in the Lord. In your thoughts, decisions, feelings, and actions, trust in the LORD.
     1. Whatever you think you know, God knows more
     2. Whatever you think you can do, God can do more
     3. Whatever you think about your ability, God can do more
     4. However high you think your thoughts are, God’s thoughts are higher
     5. However high you think your way is, God’s way is higher
   • What are you to do? Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
2. How? – “lean not unto thine own understanding.”
   • Next the Psalmist tells us how to do this. “Lean not unto thine own understanding.” This means that you are to sacrifice your own self-confidence and settle your confidence solely on God.
   • Look down at verse 7. “Be not wise in your own eyes.” This means don’t place confidence in your own ability to understand things.
   • Don’t think that you have got it all figured out, instead, figure out what God has already figured out! When you lean on your own understanding you are prideful, but listen, when you lean on God’s understanding you are powerful.
   • Life is going to have its fair share of difficulties, but those difficulties are an invitation for you to open your life to the presence of God.
3. When? – “In all your ways acknowledge Him”
   • When are we to trust in God? In all our ways. This phrase, “in all your ways,” does not mean just in the comprehensive, overarching trajectory of your life. It’s not just the big picture.
   • Rather, it refers to the individual steps of your life. “Put God in the middle of every step you take. Put God in charge of every decision you make.” In every minute, of over hour, of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year…let God be God.
     1. Acknowledge Him as your Leader
     2. Acknowledge Him as your Life
     3. Acknowledge Him as your Lord
   • Put God first and everything else second, for whatever you put first in your life IS your God. The list of our little gods is long…
     1. Your intellect can be a little god
     2. Your wisdom can be a little god
     3. The internet can be a little god
     4. Alexa can be a little god
     5. Friends can be a little god
   • Put all these things into the proper perspective and bring God into the picture in every trial and tribulation, every opportunity, every decision, every need, every worry, and every relationship.
   • God wants to be the God of the everyday details of your life and not just your eternal destiny. And believe me, if God can handle your passage to heaven, He can handle your problems here!
   • When are we to trust God? “In all your ways…”
4. Why? “He will make your paths straight.”
   • Why should you trust in God? When you trust in God, He will go before you and straighten out the crooked paths. If you will “trust in the Lord with all your heart,” if you will “lean not unto your own understanding,” if you will “acknowledge him in all your ways,” (That’s all your part), “He will straighten out the crooked roads before you!”
   • Now listen, this is not a promise that everything will be easy, or that everything will be pain-free. There will be hurt, there will be hardships, there will be heartbreak. But God will work it all out!
   • God will take the mess and remake it into His message. There is a Portugese proverb that says, “God writes straight with crooked lines.” I love that. God is the master of rewriting your mess into His message.
     1. Your part: let go and let God
     2. His part: to be God!
     3. Your part: keep walking.
     4. His part: keep working.
     5. Your part: being surrendered
     6. His part: bringing solution
   • His part is much harder than your part, so start doing your part by letting Him do His part.
   • Contained in this little promise are some very big things. 
     1. There is the promise of God’s Presence. When you trust Him, He will be there. 
     2. There is the Promise of God’s Guidance. When you trust Him, He will show you where to go, even more, He will prepare the way before you get there. He will not only be with you, He will go before you!
   • Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do and He will establish your plans.” This word “commit” literally means to roll. Roll all your plans over to God. This does not mean, “make a plan and ask God to bless it.”
   • What this verse says is “roll everything you have over to God, giving everything you have, and holding nothing back, and then, God will establish your plans.”
   • So listen, if life has you down, if the weight of burdens seems too much, if there is a heaviness in your heart as you look down the corridor of time, roll it all over to God. And watch Him work!

APPLICATION

Let me give a few applications  before we wrap up our study today. 

• Free yourself from handling the everyday problems of your life and hand them over to the Only One who has no problems.

• Fall in total dependence upon the Only One you upon whom you can totally depend.

 • Fly into the arms of the Only One who will catch you, and hold you, and keep you. 

“These are the words that haunted Henri Nouwen. “The flyer does nothing, the catcher does everything, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”

“‘When Rodleigh said this with so much conviction, the words of Jesus on the Cross flashed through my mind: ‘Father into your hands I commend my Spirit.’ For us it means trusting in the catcher. Don’t be afraid. Remember that you are the beloved child of God. He will be there when you make your long jump. Don’t try to grab him; he will grab you. Just stretch out your arms and hands and trust, trust, trust.’” (https://www.fbclaf.org/sermon/the-pinnacle-promise-of-proverbs/)