Proverbs 3:1-10 - Trust in the Lord and have a good new year

It feels good to start over, to begin a new year all over again. We were here last year, looking ahead to 2007 with eagerness and curiosity, wondering what this year would bring. Well, it brought some good things, and it brought some bad things. 2007 came and went and we’ve laughed our heads off and we’ve cried our eyes out. We’ve worried. We’ve breathed sighs of relief. We’ve struggled and we’ve rested. Most of the fears that we worried about never happened, and some things that we never saw coming hit us like a truck.

And now, we’re here at the beginning of 2008. And we have some of the same thoughts about this year. What’s going to happen? Will I laugh more than I cry? What’s the economy going to do? Will I be healthy through this year? Will I see the Lord by the end of the year? Will everyone see the Lord by the end of the year?

There’s too many questions. When all these questions are flying around, we become unsettled as a new year looms ahead. And when we become unsettled, well, then we take things into our own hands. We rely on our strength and our savings, our hard work and our know how to get us through. We are self made people and we will make sure we get through this year.

Well, that’s wrong. We can work as hard as we want and we can think as hard as we can and we can prepare and worry and do everything possible. But the only way we come through this next year, and the guaranteed way we come through this next year is not by trusting in ourselves. It’s by trusting in the Lord. Trusting in the Lord with all of our hearts. Trusting in the Lord and NOT leaning on our own understanding. If we do this, when we do this, 2008 will be a great year. If we trust.

And if we don’t forget what we’ve learned in 2007. Verse 1:

What did you learn this year? What did you learn about God this year that you never knew before? What about Jesus has become more real to you in the last 12 months? How has He pointed you in new directions in your walk with Him? How are your devotions deeper? How has your faith grown? What have you learned?

Now, coming into this new year, hold on to them, because God will be building on what you’ve learned last year. Your new depth of faith will be the foundation that God uses to build even higher and stronger in the coming months. The new gift or skill that you’ve discovered you can use for God, that will be put to even more use this year. Don’t forget the teaching. Don’t have to go back and learn it all over again. The writer of Hebrews was a little frustrated with the people he was preaching to. He wrote, in Hebrews 5:12:

We’re not going to stay where we’ve been, we’re going to move forward, and we’re going to keep those commands, those teachings in our hearts.

There are a few ways to do that. One way is journaling, writing down some of the things you’re learning about God, so that you can go back and look to see where you’re coming from. Sometimes, seeing where you’ve come from helps to see where God is taking you, and a journal can help. Another way is to plan regular times, once a month, once a quarter, to take some time and just look back over the past month or so. Schedule some time to take a drive somewhere, go out into the woods, lock yourself in your room, and think about what you’ve been reading in the Bible, how your prayer life has been going, what kinds of things you’re doing for the Lord. Keeping the teaching, the Lord’s commands, close to our heart.

We want to do this, because, verse 2:

Life is better if we don’t have to keep learning the same lessons again and again. Being stuck in a rut is a nasty way to live. We will live better, and we might even live longer, and we might even enjoy more prosperity if we hang on to what we’ve learned, and let the Lord build on those.

Now, I want to make sure we understand something about Proverbs before we go too far. Proverbs describes how things SHOULD work. If we’re hanging on to God’s teaching, if we’re moving forward at His command, then life is supposed to work out pretty good.

But sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes it doesn’t work out good even though we’re remembering the commands and we’re obeying. Living in a broken world means things don’t work right. Sometimes, people who remember and people who keep God’s commands still suffer. God is doing something about that. He’s moving this world to the time when things do work the right way, when we do prosper as we follow God’s commands, and I hope that by 2009, God will have finished that work and heaven will be on earth.

In the meantime, though, God’s love and His faithfulness keep us going, keep us safe, keep us strong, even when life is tough and tears are flowing way too much. It’s His love and faithfulness that surround us and make us secure, so then, verse 3:

I’ve heard people say that we talk to much about God’s love and God’s grace. I don’t understand that. I don’t know how we can talk about them enough.

They are constantly with us, constantly in our thoughts, constantly coming out of our mouths, constantly warming our hearts. He’s there, and that’s not changing. He loves you, and that can’t stop. He’s been faithful, and that’s going to stay the same, forever.

And again, we keep coming back to them. We bind them around our neck and write them on the tablet of our hearts. How we do that takes different shapes. For some of us, it’s listening to Christ-like music a lot, letting God’s truths soak in our hearts. For all of us, hopefully, it’s eating up His word, devouring the sweet words of redemption. We talk about them in our Bible studies. We listen for them in the sermons. We sing about them in worship. We read novels that have God’s redemption woven through them.

And when His love and faithfulness never leave us, when they are bound around our neck and written on the tablet of our hearts, then His love and faithfulness will turn into our love and faithfulness. That’s how we become Christ-like. Our words becoming loving and our actions are faithful. We are caring and trustworthy. We encourage and we support. We help, and people see this. And then, verse 4:

Not that we’re doing this to impress people and make everyone think that we’re such big stuff. That would be proud. But when you have a good reputation, when people like to be around you, when they can trust you, because you are worthy of that trust, then you know that something is going right. If 2008 is a year where you win favor and a good name in the sight of God and of man, then 2008 is going to be a good year.

Now, if this seems a little daunting, that you’ve got to remember everything you’ve learned this past year, you have to let love and faithfulness never leave you, you have to somehow figure out how to bind them around your neck, whatever that means, listen. Don’t worry. It’s not up to you. Verse 5:

It’s very easy for us to lean on our own understanding. We like our own understanding. We trust our own understanding. We’ve worked hard to figure things out in our own understanding. We’ve listened to sermons and we’ve read books and we’ve done a lot of reasoning and we’ve come to our conclusions, positions on issues that we will defend fiercely.

But 2008 is going to be a good year only if we don’t trust our own understanding and instead trust in the Lord. If the success of this next trusts on our ability to learn and figure things out and get all the right answers, and then REMEMBER all the right answers, we are going to be very tired and very afraid and very confused by the end of the year.

But we don’t need to lean on our faulty understanding. We don’t have to trust our defective reasoning. We trust in the Lord. Did you hear this promise? If, in all your ways, you acknowledge Him, then He will make your paths straight. I don’t know what paths we have in front of us this year, where those paths are going to lead. Are they going to lead to check books that need stretching between paychecks? Are they going to lead to the hospital? Will they lead to the funeral home? Will they lead to a new job? I don’t know. None of us do. But if, in all our ways we acknowledge Him, He will make our paths straight, wherever they lead. He will walk, step for step, with us along those paths. He will uphold us with His righteous right hand. He will not let our foot falter.

Now, again, the requirement for this might seem daunting. Acknowledging Him in all our ways. That seems impossible. And it is. We, quite honestly, won’t do that. But, thankfully, Someone already has. Jesus acknowledged the Lord in all His ways, and we get the credit. Jesus acknowledged the Lord all the way to the cross, and we get the benefits. And if that fact, that miracle, that beautiful gift is the foundation of our lives, if we live and breathe Jesus’ death and resurrection, then yes, our paths will be made straight. We won’t get lost, we won’t stumble, no matter where those paths lead.

We’ll steer clear of sinful habits and traps. If we’re not trusting in our own understanding, and if we’re trusting in the Lord, we’ll avoid our own sinful selves. Verse 7:

Again, that fear of the Lord is the awe of His gift. It’s the amazement at His amazing grace. It’s the jaw-dropping wonder of His sacrifice and His love and His faithfulness. And if our jaws can be dropped by that wonder for most of this year, then we won’t want to sin. Evil will be repulsive compared to the beauty of the blood of Jesus.

And that revulsion of sin will lead to a good year. It will probably lead to a healthier year. Verse 8:

The awe of the Lord is more satisfying than our appetites for junk food. The wonder of Jesus is more addictive than cigarettes or too much alcohol or any kind of drug. The amazement of His grace keeps us from being couch potatoes and gets us out there in the world, doing things that are helpful to others and healthy for us. We’ll feel better, if we’re trusting the Lord.

And, usually, we’ll live better. Again, remember, this is the way things are supposed to work, and, honestly, this is the way things usually work. Verse 9:

Honoring the Lord, trusting in Him keeps our spending habits on the right path, the straight path. We don’t buy in order to fill some hole inside of us. That hole was already filled with Jesus. We buy things to use them for God’s purposes, for His work or for play that is holy, but it’s all guided and directed by the Lord. We’re trusting Him to get us to spend wisely, and we’re trusting Him when there doesn’t seem to be enough. Whatever the case, we’re trusting in Him and we’re not leaning on our own understanding.

As we begin 2008, we are trusting. That’s all we can do. We don’t know what’s coming this year. But we know we can trust. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we know His love. We don’t know what we’ll face, but we know His faithfulness. We don’t trust in our own understanding. We don’t need to worry about this year. We trust in the Lord, and He makes sure our paths are straight.